www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/01/aclu-blas...ice-for-handcuffing-
schoolchildren/
ACLU blasts Baltimore police for handcuffing schoolchildren
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The ACLU of Maryland on Friday said it was “appalling†that Baltimore police officers arrested and handcuffed three 9-year-old girls and an 8-year-old boy at an elementary school.
The officers arrested the children Thursday afternoon inside Morrell Park Elementary School on aggravated-assault charges. The charges were based on a schoolyard fight that occurred nine days earlier.Webmaster's Commentary: We used to have a much more intelligent way of handling out-of-control kids, rather than as felons. It involved counseling and supervision, and being committed to the long haul until these kids' behavior changed for the better.
Unfortunately, many schools in public school systems have devolved into merely "holding cells" until the kids are old enough to be be tried and convicted in juvenile hall, where many of them spend much of their adolescence.
Then comes their first conviction as an adult, and things go absolutely downhill from there.
The generally lousy recidivism rate insures that our prisons stay full, even to the point of massive overcrowding, which creates its own problems. Because with no real education, and a criminal record, and with the options for these people getting legitimate jobs being horrendously scarce, they re-offend, get tried, convicted, and jailed again.
For a society which frequently brags about how important and precious each child is, apparently some kids in this society just don't count at all. And that is tragic, both for the individual children, and for society as a whole.
I will never forget about reading about a sociological experiment, done with elementary school children, when I was in high school.
A group of children was arbitrarily divided into two groups.
One group was characterized to their teacher as being a "rough crowd", and troublemakers, who would have to be disciplined frequently to prevent all hell from breaking loose in their classroom.
The other teacher was told that all their kids were "diamonds in the rough", who may have some behaviour problems, but ultimately would learn and learn well because they were bright children.
In each classroom, these children lived up (or down) to the teachers' expectations, and the teacher who was told that these children were "diamonds in the rough" got great results; the teacher who was told that her children were simply "discipline problems" got precisely that result.
Love, kindness and structure can go a long way to turning a troubled child around; it is not a quick fix, and doesn't require medication, but it does take time. Incarceration doesn't solve the problem with troubled kids, and many times, after that jail experience, makes them worse when they come out than when they went in.
