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Dumb justice

Zero tolerance policies have wide appeal, but they make our society stupider, not safer.

Last fall, two of my brothers and their teenage sons were unceremoniously booted off a cruise ship in the Caribbean. They had sailed on a no-smoking vessel, and one of the young men was found to have a pack of cigarettes in his luggage. He wasn't caught smoking, mind you. Nor was he carrying Oaxaca wacky weed. Just Camel filters made with Carolina nicotiana.

Nobody I know approves of what he did, least of all his dad. But the punishment, you have to agree, was Draconian: Simple possession was all that was needed to put him, his cousin, and their dads ashore midway through a weeklong family cruise. The ship, you see, has a zero tolerance policy on tobacco. Commit one infraction, and you're off, whether you light up or not.

Guilty. No argument. Case closed.

Running afoul of a zero tolerance policy has happened to almost everyone at one time or another. Over the past 20 years, zero tolerance has taken America by storm. You can't go into an airport without being affected by it. Try making a joke using the words "bomb" or "Osama bin Laden" at the ticket counter. Security personnel will close in on you, hustle you into an interrogation room, grill you, and otherwise sweat you into becoming a very, very small and apologetic human being before letting you go - if they let you go.

Like capital punishment, zero tolerance attempts to chill misbehavior by sending a scared-straight message backward through society - from bad effect to potential future cause. It probably does occasionally put the fear of God into a would-be scofflaw, especially an on-the-fence kid wavering between right and wrong. But whether this shock-the-lab-rat treatment has broad effectiveness is questionable. Does zero tolerance deter career armed robbers, martyrdom-inspired terrorists, or addled kids with a death wish like Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris at Columbine High School? Does it even work beyond the specific person who is punished? I suspect my nephew will never again take smokes onto a no-smoking cruise ship in the Caribbean. I'm not sure other kids will get that message. If anything, they'll probably think the punishment was so far beyond the crime as to be laughable.

How did we get to this point? The term zero tolerance appears to have originated in the military. You can see why. There must be zero tolerance for leaks in a nuclear submarine. There can only be zero tolerance for errors with the ICBM codes.

ZT migrated into mainstream society in the early 1980s as part of the Reagan administration's war on drugs. Since then, it has become the preferred method of managing intractable social problems, especially those that affect young people. A report last year by the Harvard Civil Rights Project notes that the policy is in such widespread use in schools across the country that it results in the suspensions or expulsions of millions of students each year for relatively minor offenses. The burden falls disproportionately on minority students.

"Every day, zero tolerance policies force children to be suspended or expelled for sharing Midol, asthma medication (during an emergency), cough drops, and for bringing toy guns, nail clippers, and scissors to school," the report's authors note. "Even the common schoolyard scuffle has become a target, regardless of severity and circumstances."

Everyone has heard stories. They have an urban legend quality, like tales of political correctness or personal injury awards gone to extremes. A 12-year-old Worcester boy got five years' probation for drawing a picture in which a gun was pointing at a character that looked like his teacher. Maybe he was a bad apple. Maybe not. But after Columbine ...

In Glendale, Arizona, a 13-year-old boy, inspired by the movie October Sky, brought a homemade rocket to school. It was a potato chip canister powered by three match heads. He was promptly suspended for the rest of the year and referred to juvenile authorities for bringing a "weapon" to school in violation of its zero tolerance policy.

In Winneconne, Wisconsin, school officials cited a zero tolerance policy to ban T-shirts with the brand name Billabong - an aboriginal word found in the song "Waltzing Matilda" - because the word was too suggestive of bong, a marijuana pipe.

Who can argue with zero tolerance policies on real guns or drugs in schools? But zero tolerance is a blunt instrument, especially in the hands of low-level functionaries. And it is absurd when applied - as more and more it is - to softer issues. There's a "Zero Tolerance for Litter" campaign in South Carolina, for instance.

Zero tolerance is an abdication of intelligence, an attack on rationalism by rigidity. It is an abandonment of that great, progressive tool: the second chance. Second chances have made more good men and women than banishment, prison, and inflexibility ever will.

Tolerance defines civilization. Tolerance is the marriage of justice and mercy. By deciding not to consider circumstances, not to follow common sense, not to grant second chances, we diminish ourselves. We default to the lower angels of our nature rather than believe that people have consciences, that, as the great rationalist Thomas Paine put it 200 years ago, the widespread "repugnance we feel in ourselves to bad actions, and disposition to do good ones," is what allows us to govern ourselves.

No need to be naive. No need to loosen up standards at the airport. Bad people and bad actions must be dealt with sternly. Safety is of paramount concern when it comes to accidents or criminal acts. But zero tolerance for petty infractions makes a joke out of real crime and punishment. It makes our country Pavlovian rather than Jeffersonian.