I hate seeing this shit. Every couple of months there’s a story in the media locally about something like this. Our “systems” are fucked up, and we’re turning out fucked up kids. The criminal system is willing to criminalize damned near everything. Our schools are more than willing to allow the criminal justice system to take the reigns and relinquish all responsibility to them. So the kid gets inducted into the criminal justice system, where he’ll be harassed, tortured, institutionalized and eventually probably end up back in juvey.
Our local newspaper is doing a California Youth Authority Expose this week. They stated the recidivism rates of youth wards at something higher than 50%, mental illness(diagnosed) at 71%, overmedication for mental illness in undiagnosed wards at 22%. Today, the statistics are 44% of all youth authority wards spend 44% more time than their original sentences, 25 months is the average sentence until parole, and 10.1 months is the average added sentence length.
Welcome to the system, kid! Hope you get the help you need…
(Heard that one far, far too many times…)
I’d like to get a better look at the poem to see what it actually said, and what the student meant when he wrote it. I’m leaning towards this being a case of hysterical paranoia–the measures are way over the top.
Not surprisingly, there is a site for crappy teen poetry. I don’t know how crappy, as I did not have the courage to click on “Nothing Thoughts and Empty Smiles,” “Scars,” “ThE WaY Y0U MakE ME FeeL,” “You Shine Gold, My Apollo,” “Silent tears,” or “I am a Fall Tree.”
All I can say is that I’m with everyone else wanting to bitchslap the person who turned this kid in to the cops, the cops for delivering charges to the DA, the DA for pressing charges, and the parents for not backing their kid.
I’m not saying the kid might not need help, but juvie isn’t the way to go about it.
I agree. My statements weren’t meant to support prosecution. Only to point out that overreaching methods happen because the results of a failure can be catastrophic.
Put yourself in the administrators/legal authorities shoes. I’d rather have a thousand opinions against me for overeacting than face one grief stricken parent because I ignored a real threat.
Is it wrong to prosecute? Hell yes. Will I be sued by the survivors of a teen suicide/murder and spend the rest of my life wondering why I didn’t save the lives of children? no
I think they knew that they were being extreme but still chose to be so as the lessor of two evils.
I don’t follow you. The parents don’t have the right to enter a guilty plea over a seventeen-year-old’s objections. They can certainly refuse to hire a lawyer, but that’s what public defenders are for, and the judge would certainly be willing to appoint a guardian ad litem for a matter like this.
Possible reactions that would have been better (in order):
Oh, look. A 17-year-old is writing poetry. About suicide and violence and stuff. This, in fact, makes him pretty much like a huge number of teenagers. Hey, in fact, I remember when I was a teenager, I felt angsty occasionally! So, really, no one cares about this.
Oh, look. A 17-year-old wrote a poem about suicide. I should probably talk to him, or to someone else, see if I should be concerned about this. Make sure he’s not going to hurt himself.
OR
Oh, look. A 17-year-old wrote a poem about violence. I should probably talk to him, or to someone else, see if I should be concerned about this. Make sure he’s not going to hurt someone else.
Oh, look. A 17-year-old wrote some crappy, angsty poetry about violence and suicide. I’m going to give this to the school psychologist, ask him to talk to this kid, maybe some counselling and psychological testing will help.*
Somewhere around…I don’t know, possible response number 114562, I’d put “arrest him.”
*this actually happened to a guy in my seventh-grade class. THey forced him into counselling based on an ENTIRELY FICTIONAL short story he wrote about suicide…
I can only hope that I’m never the English teacher who gets some poor kid arrested because s/he handed in a writing assignment that concerned me, I went to the guidance counselor or school psychologist, and the cops got called.
I never said the parents could make the kid plead guilty but being 17, they are sure to have plenty of power over him. Neither of us know what options were presented to this kid or how they were presented. How do you know his parents don’t beat the shit out of him and he thought he had no choice? Strangly, not every 17 year old knows the ins and outs of the legal system and expecting the legal system to step up and protect someone’s rights and give them all the information they need doesn’t see to always work out.
How old was Lewis Carroll when Jabberwocky was penned? An evil tome, espousing murderous assault against a creature likely under endangered species protection. I’d bet ‘snicker-snack’ is a sexual reference, too. Burn all these heathen books-no good be found in them! :rolleyes:
I am being paid to make decisions and take responsibility.
As a professional, my decisions are expected to be rational and based on common sense.
If the school board is so paralyzed by fear of anything going wrong that I cannot exercise good judgement, they can go hire another Superintendent, I’ll go back to theprivate sector.
I’d rather not ignore any real threats and provide adequate evaluation, attention and follow-up to any potential threat, and thus have a very thin dossier of opinions against me.
Was my action proper and reasonable? Did I identify a problem and seek to provide adequate attention to it?
Finding for the defendant.
And if the School Board once again is a bunch of lame cowards in fear of a sympathetic jury finding on emotion rather than fact, they can take this job and cram it.
Neither will I. I did that which was proper and reasonable to assess, treat and follow up the potential threats. I shall sleep like a baby.
Then they’re guilty of the fallacy of the excluded middle and they’re pathetic administrators.
