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When Schools Are the Police
First time accepted submitter Is Any Nickname Left writes "The Washington Post has an article on school systems with their own police forces. It focuses on Texas, which has the highest number of 'School Police Departments,' of which there are so many they have their own trade association. Highlights: 1) Houston fourth-grader stood on a stool so he could see the judge. He pleaded guilty. To a scuffle on a school bus. 2) 275,000 juvenile tickets in fiscal 2009, to students as young as 5. 3) Austin middle school student ticketed after she sprayed herself with perfume when classmates said she smelled. 4) a 17-year-old was in court after he and his girlfriend poured milk on each other. 'She was mad at me because I broke up with her,' he said. I waiting for the Alamo Heights Special Airborne Brigade and SEAL TEAM CROCKETT."
bag them while they are still young.
Police state? Hell, it's police kindergarten.
You can't handle the truth.
Fuck the police
You cannot teach someone when they are not willing to learn. If a child doesn't want to learn they should be expelled from school and given working papers. Why punish those that are there to learn with disruptive people?
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Not a tumor.
You have (rightly or wrongly) taken from the schools a lot of their powers in regards to disciplining students. So where the school can not, the parents must. Except, the parents are not fulfilling their obligations in this regard, and the schools can not hold parents thusly responsible.
But the courts can.
Therefore, the school will begin referring your unique snowflake to the courts when their behavior exceeds what little remedies you have left available to the schools.
Did nobody see this coming?
My then, 17yo kid (he literally just turned a week previous) DEFENDED himself against a 14yo, who started a fight. My child was arrested and charged as an adult. The child who started the fight was not charged and was given one week of in school suspension. My child is now classified as a violent offender. He's fucked until he's at least 25. In Texas is it now, literally, illegal to defend yourself.
Police and Judges in Texas constantly prove they are incapable of intelligence, compassion, or logical application of the law. Stupidity, good 'ol boy politics, and bridged judges is an everyday event. Some judges only hold court a couple days per yet. Ya, things are that corrupt here.
It's there right and I don't thing they are being told that they have that right!
So, are these kids getting represented by an attorney? What's it take for them to get a jury trial? Do they in fact have ANY constitutional rights in this court?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
10 years ago I pulled my daughter out of public school and strapped my family financially to put my daughter into a private school that actually was interested in teaching and honesty.
More and more parents are looking at this instead of public school because the schools are overreacting to the problem of a few hoodlums that they just need to eject from the school. Schools refuse to target bullying in a decent way, Sue everyone parents wil let a teacher smack their asshole kid for being an asshole and all of it is spiraling the drain...
Honestly, FORCED education is failing. Let the people that want to learn, LEARN in an environment that works and let the turds that want to smoke pot all day and drink a 40 do so. WE need ditch diggers in society. but Truancy laws force the bad element that does not want to be there back into the schools and causes the problems.
Forced Education to the 6th grade, require HS education for a drivers license or any welfare programs and let it all go.
Honestly let the wastes of humanity fall on their faces. Maybe then they will learn that smoking pot all day is not the answer.
With lazy teachers, lazy administrators, and the increasingly popular "zero tolerance" policies which are there to cater to the laziness & not to enforce discipline, and with police forces all to happy to use tickets as means of revenue generation, should anyone truly be surprised by this?
Our zero tolerance policy will save the children!
(aside)Now where did I go an hide that sarcasm tag?
It is indoctrination, the inculcation of the reflex to knuckle under to petty authority. Pedagogy takes a distant second to this primary urge.
Dog is my co-pilot.
so having a can of coke in class is disruptive?
http://www.njjn.org/uploads/Miscellaneous/Juvenile%20Probation%20Letterhead-letterfor%20Police%20Chief.doc
There's a lot of examples in TFA that are just silly. But there's also a lot of instances where schools don't go far enough. Sorry but if at age 15-18 you hit somebody at class, that's assault. I never understood why someone who is old enough to know the law be allowed to skirt it. If it's against the law when you are 25, it should be against the law when you are 17. Too many kids get away with crap in their teens and continue that into their adult life because they were never corrected.
3) Austin middle school student ticketed after she sprayed herself with perfume when classmates said she smelled
Oh how I wish this would have happened to both the girls constantly spraying perfume and the guys constantly spraying axe when I was in school.
I've always had a sensitive nose, and they would just douse themselves with the stuff. I swear you could light a match nearby and they'd catch fire.
At least the perfume, for the most part, had a halfway decent smell. Guys? Women don't like the smell of a chemical shitstorm, ask any female. Put the axe away.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
...is a perfect example of why schools need to spend more time teaching and less policing. Holy crap that's some bad grammar! I think it actually physically hurt my brain trying to understand it.
in the same Texas with stand your ground rights
12?
Bush was almost right to ask that question, he just missed part of it.
It's not "Is our children learning?"
It's "WHAT is our children learning?"
I think the children are learning that they have no rights and they must comply and they always can be taken in by the cops, never mind what the infraction is. The children "is" learning intimidation by the state officials.
You can't handle the truth.
Student 1: Student 2-4 jumped me and was beating me up. I Kicked student 3 in the balls, then ran to find a admin. Judge: So you admit to attacking student 3? Student 1: Only to be able to find a admin and stop the fight. Fully self-protection Judge: You student one are to be expelled from this school, and turned over to a higher court from Battery. Judge: Students 2-4 are to have a letter send home about their actions. Judge: I hope you all learned that in the US you are to lay down and take you beatings. Fighting back makes you less then a "bully".
Student 1: Student 2-4 jumped me and was beating me up. I Kicked student 3 in the balls, then ran to find a admin.
Judge: So you admit to attacking student 3?
Student 1: Only to be able to find a admin and stop the fight. Fully self-protection
Judge: You student one are to be expelled from this school, and turned over to a higher court from Battery.
Judge: Students 2-4 are to have a letter send home about their actions.
Judge: I hope you all learned that in the US you are to lay down and take you beatings. Fighting back makes you less then a "bully".
https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=cb68cf9f3fa2fe18a83d1c3dee0039b2&tab=core&_cview=0
Get back to your studies citizen.
Graduation rates abysmal? Focus on increasing your dropout and expulsion rate (sticking these kinds of police systems in the schools is part of this). Suddenly your graduation rates are soaring, and everyone is happy! Well, everyone other than those who are looking at the racial and socioeconomic statistics of your graduates, that is. And everyone who is looking at the fact that your state has the most minimum wage workers of any state... but, hey, at least unemployment is lower!
Now it will be Police Academy MCXXXII.
Fight Spammers!
"In Houston one recent day, a 17-year-old was in court after he and his girlfriend poured milk on each other. “She was mad at me because I broke up with her,” he said."
if you did this on the street, you could be charged with domestic violence and/or assault & battery. The guy is also the one that would likely be arrested in most cases. Be happy it was just a ticket in school.
And really, the middle of your school isn't the place to be involved in a physical altercation.
"“I’m all for consequences, but I think it could have been handled another way,” she said. She had no chance to mention her son’s attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder and bipolar disorder, she said."
Oh yes, because that's always an excuse. "Oh, he has ADHD. He's bipolar." Letting that fly = special treatment. Treatment that minority kids and parents will bring up when their kids are the ones in court. Then the cries of racism start...
So everyone gets the same brush.
There's a serious lack of law in a state where a school needs to run their own police force.
There's a serious lack of public moral in a state where voters allow the previous two issues to exist.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
You'd just tip the Old Spice towards the cap, dab the cap on your neck, put the cap back. None of this double pits to chesty garbage you see in the commercials.
What was so awesome about Old Spice was that it went with whatever you were wearing whether it was a spike or a blow-wave mullet. But you had to keep it low key to be classy; if you were dumping that shit on, people would assume you were skipping showers.
It worries me because of things like the recent "Kids for Cash" scam in Pennsylvania in which kids, unrepresented by lawyers, received huge out-of-state sentences for infractions that should have netted them a suspension or a week or two in jug. Two judges received millions in kickbacks. At least one kid took his own life. Who knows how many basically decent kids were introduced to lives of crime or otherwise psychologically damaged. In other words, I don't trust the governments that implement this kind of stuff.
On the other hand, we have parents assaulting teachers over a bad grade, big kids bringing in arsenals, little kids showing up with Daddy's (or Mommy's boyfriend's) handgun that they found under a sofa cushion, kindergarteners arriving with stashes of crack cocaine--the list is endless, and obviously teachers can't deal with these sorts of infractions. It's a huge problem, but I'm not sure police forces are the answer. Otherwise, all of the sudden every childish misbehavior is going to start looking like a major felony.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
You cannot teach someone when they are not willing to learn. If a child doesn't want to learn they should be expelled from school and given working papers. Why punish those that are there to learn with disruptive people?
The schools would be almost empty - except for that one annoying girl (it's always a girl) who just loves school. She would probably really appreciate all the other kids being thrown out.
No one wants to learn in school. School is boring. It's rote memorization and with the No Child Left Behind horseshit, it must be a bore these days!
Now mix in the excitement of video games (yep, I went there) and how is school to compete?
Most kids see school as a chore - and it is. It's not until High School here in the States that many kids are thinking that they need to start doing something to get those SATs up and get into a great college adn then Med, Law, Dental, or Vet school so they'll be able to keep the standard of living that their parents had. Because, with just a 4 year degree, you're going have your standard of living reduced - America is spiraling down, baby! We got to let the kids know that an education and the right connections is the only thing that's going to keep them from being a WalMart worker.
tl:dr: Show kids a Walmart worker and tell them that if they don't study, that's where they'll be in 10 years: toothless, obese and stupid and making the Walton family billions more while they import Chinese made shit.
Pretty sure they should all have a Detective John Kimble on stand-by.
First off, the 5th grader isn't going to understand the different in income. As long as the engineer and the athlete both bring in enough money for cookies and video games, it's the same to them.
Second, what needs to be taught is that the engineering graduates make (median) $X per year.
While the kids on the various sports teams make (median) $X-y per year.
Sure, there are some that make a LOT more than the engineers but those few are less than 1% of the pool of athletes.
Third, the 5th graders probably don't understand "career" at that point. They'd be as happy learning to be a cowboy as they would be learning engineering. Probably happier.
State governments are complaining about teacher's unions, but they have money to fund their own police departments? WTF? That's almost as bad as spending one dollar out of every four on the military, then telling people on Social Security and Medicare we need to cut their programs.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Just this month, Former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison for taking a $1 million bribe from the builder of a pair of juvenile detention centers in a case that became known as "kids for cash.". http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/08/11/national/main20091371.shtml
This can happen to your kids too! I am so sick of all of the "unique snowflake" crap from people on here saying the schools and state should be able to do whatever they want to my kids to get them "in line". We homeschool all of our kids, are extremely respectful to all of them and treat them with the same respect and dignity I want for myself. I will never send them off to be harassed by the state and turned into a tool for the elites or a cog in the wheel. They live their lives along with us in the "real world" and are charting their own course rather than the one defined by the government, political, religious and corporate sponsors of education.
the beginning of Hitler's Youth program under a different name.
That's sad that the parents let things get like this, or rather allow the schools treat their children like this.
Parents need to stand up for their children more when schools get out of line, too many seem to think school districts are an authority. Either that or the parents just don't care.
From the summary, you'd think SWAT teams have begun staking out classrooms and judges were hanging kids.
RTFA, and you discover that a number of people are concerned about this, including legislatures, educators, and judges; and are trying to figure out how to better control classrooms. Even a cop says it's a tool to use if other things don't work.
Of course, /. being /., the comments jump right past RTFA and reasoned thinking to the "POLICE STATE IS UPON US!!!! OMG!!!!! FILM AT 11."
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Boys have a penis and girls have a vagina....
> 275,000 juvenile tickets in fiscal 2009, to students as young as 5
My god, I thought kids didnt get broken mentally to become part of the work force till around grades 5-11 at least...
This is nothing more then a crime against humanity and nobody does anything about it.. wtf is wrong with people now a days.
Rick Perry is from Texas, and suddenly we have a spate of articles about how awful Texas is.
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't vote for that bible thumping nimwit in a million years. He's Dubya++ with even fewer brain cells, as are most of the front-runners in the Republican party right now.
But it's fairly obvious what the agenda of this article is.
What is this? (Up until recently) Libya? North Korea?
When you have to put police in the school permanently then that's not the foundation for a civil society. It's a symptom of a serious societal problem. If children are taught that all disputes are solved by calling in the police and sitting in front of a judiciary, then how the hell are they going to learn their own negotiation skills, or that all disputes don't have to be solved with police / lawyers? It's like a fricking indoctrination into a 100% litigious and incarcerated society of the future. Oh, look, we see from your record that when little Jimmy was 6 he used the word "poop" in class, and when 12 he broke a bottle in the school yard. Oh, and then when 16 he failed to put a milk carton in the proper waste bin. When 17 he gave someone a wedgie. By 18 he drove the wrong way down a one-way street, and his life of crime only worsened from there. It's a shame. He had such a bright future when he was 5. So few of our kids today manage to keep a clean record. What is the world coming to?
Get a clue. Kids make mistakes. They make stupid decisions. They sort them out. *Sometimes* adults have to be involved because the events are serious, but for the vast majority it's innocent, stupid mistakes from which kids eventually learn better. Hand-holding them through a formal legal process of resolving disputes does not help them learn, especially when that legal process doesn't always get things right (it isn't perfect).
(10 years later) Don't like the fact that your neighbor's tree branch happens to dangle over your lawn? Don't bother, oh, actually talking to them. Just talk to your lawyer and send a letter demanding they remove the tree branch overhanging your property, and threaten to sue if they don't. After that, if they don't comply, call in the police. Never mind the insane costs to all taxpayers to settle everyone's petty little personal disputes. Never mind the lack of simple courtesy to try to solve problems. Just lawyer up and solve it that way, all the while paying the lawyers their cut and letting the costs of justice and police forces expand exponentially.
Yes, real violence happens in schools. Yes, real crime happens in schools. But for god's sake restrict the police and justice system's dealings to those matters, not fricking perfume spraying or intentionally spilled milk! Empower teachers and administrators to be able to do something without getting the legal and policing system involved. Police have better things to do, like catching real criminals and bringing them justice. I suppose you could justify this effort as a kind of education in civics, but in the real world you don't manage every dispute with formalities, otherwise government would have to be HUGE. I mean, look at this:
"documented 275,000 juvenile tickets in fiscal 2009"
275000 tickets in one year? How much did that cost? Is the state trying to make revenue on this? Or what? It's ridiculous. It's like a big tax on student mistakes, which is unavoidable. Students are *supposed* to make mistakes. They're not adults. Not to mention that I would guarantee that all the police officers and politicians currently in power would probably have a lengthy "school crime record" if something as insane as this was implemented in their day. And how comfortable would they be with that information being somewhere in a government database today? Probably not.
What a foundation for future generations the people making these decisions are building. It's appalling.
If you ask me what is the bigger evil, pupils and parents getting confronted with slightly too serious consequences for violent and rude behaviour and mobbing or six year olds handling weapons on the shooting range with their parents, i choose the latter.
School bullies can be school bullies because it is somehow accepted. I would you that by putting a school bully into juvenile jail when he is 12 and forcing his parents to eat the legal cost of the court, then maybe appropriate behavior would be some kind of a topic at the aggressor families dinner table, beyond the usual approach of denying the problem or even ridiculing the victims.
I would wish the society would find other answers, but the US logic seems to dictate that a good society requires 1% of the adult population to be in jail. The US are the record holder in that respect, only rivaled by Russia; china has significantly less and Japan has roughly 1/10th of the incarceration rate and yet its more safe. If i put somebody in jail as soon as he is 18 for smaller crimes, then it logical to put a warning shoot when the person is younger. Its not my logic, but if you escalate the levels of sanctions in this way, it logical.
This is insane beyond words. I hope it is a joke.
I always thought the whole US patent thing was a dangerous farce, but this beats everything.
My advice, as someone looking at it from the outside: get out of there. If you see this happening close to you, move elsewhere.
Just like the roman empire the decadence is taking over. The shape of things is still there, but the essence has been lost.
Nor children nor the courts are respected anymore, not even by themselves.
It scares me, I hope I will never live to see this kind of things here.
Show me a child unwilling to learn, and I'll show you the parents and teachers that continually failed the child.
I8-D
Progressives of both the Left and the Right have been attempting to perfect our society for over 100 years. For both, government is the solution, and the gov always needs more power to deal with 'problems'.
However, money buys power, in all societies throughout history. Money flows change the system state, so you can't even recover, as new interest groups oppose repealing the laws.
That is how we got here. This is just another of the 1000s of examples of why limited gov works, and an infinitude of rules and regulations cannot possibly work. As 'free markets' represent parallel evolutionary searches, it is easy to see why that alternative is intrinsically better than human-designed systems.
Around the world, our govs, corporations and other entities are managed by very well educated people out of the very best educational institutions in the world. They almost all have become dishonest beyond belief. All of the govs are falling into the same economic black hole at the same time. The 'monoculture' we should all be concerned with is the mental set of most everyone in the society, not the fact that Windows is such a danger.
Fortunately, these huge failures always cause a rethink of fundamentals.
"The Constitution, the WHOLE Constitution, and nothing but the CONSTITUTION."
the Department of Education office in Chicago is ordering those short-barrel police shotguns to *replace existing inventory*
We can replace "Why Johnny Can't Read" with "Why Johnny got his Bitch Ass Whacked by The Man and Sent Home to Momma in a Bag"
Why aren't these good, wholesome Texan children simply armed with the readily-available supply of both weapons and the Yosemite Sam mentality of Texan society?
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
And remember this is God & Guns Texas. With their love of freedom and liberty.
Think about how much fun its going to be when they start mandating that the kids bring their guns to school, just in case the teacher brings up the subject of Evolution or some other Scientific, err liberal subject.
Yee! Haw!
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
To the liberals out there, welcome to the world you have created.
No, it is "What are our children learning."
...on our hands wouldn't we?
There use to be a lot of news about the probability of Texas breaking from the union. My question: Why aren't we convincing them to do it!?
List of problems that will be solved:
1. Weed being illegal (Some guy in Texas is blocking it from even getting a formal debate because he has his hands in the cartel's pockets)
2. This article
3. Software patents
4. A large portion of "The Good Ol' Boy Network"
"Class C misdemeanor citations for offensive language"
Are they aware that the constitution has amendments down in Texas?
I also wasn't aware the full phrase was "Don't cry over spilt milk, call the cops."
I was totally against Rick Perry before, but now I am in complete agreement. Let Texas secede. It will result in an immediate improvement in textbooks, education, patent & copyright litigation and sanity.
There is no easy answer to this problem, because the weak link in any proposed solution is the skill of the school administrator to carry it out. Give the administration too much power, and they abuse it. That's why schools ended up losing so much authority to begin with. Give them too little power, and they are powerless to stop the legitimately disruptive students. The result is that they throw up their hands and call in the cops. But then the cops feel the need to justify their position, so they end up abusing children.
For every potential solution I can conceive, I can also think of at least two ways in which it can (and therefore most likely will) be abused by school administrators.
The best solution I have available to me is home schooling. I used to think it was just religious idiocy that promoted home schooling (so they could teach fantasy as if it were fact). But after doing my research, home schooling is looking really, really good as a means to not only educate my children, but to protect them as well. And stories like this are making the decision a whole lot easier.
Isn't it a good thing we have money for the police state but not for a lower student:teacher ratio?
If we herded all the students into one giant room, think of the cost savings, one teacher per room, no need for administrative staff and such. Just cops ready to write tickets (and generate revenue).
They convict minors for pranks because they are easy prisoners. Treat humans like profit centers, like cattle. We need to ensure immoral people don't make it in life, and that money is controlled by only people, not private banks that can play games corrupting and destroying lives
Explored this in great detail. It also shows just how multi-faceted the problem is. Not just limited to liberals or republicans or unions or gun-toting texans.
IMO the biggest problem is us. While many problems exist, there are many decent solutions to them but require major change which generally speaking we fear. How many times have you heard a political candidate say something that you agree with, and say to yourself "man that's a great idea, too bad they're not electable." Why aren't they electable, because they want to bring change* when people really want a calm status quo.
*The current president doesn't count. His version of change is "not W" which isn't bad in itself, it's just not the change we need.
The sad part is, Rick Perry may be their natural leader...
My daughter goes to a school that has this. I had mixed feelings about it until they came after me because I screwed up the lobby check in process and was walking out with my daughter. How did they know who was taking her? I'd rather they protect her than not. I also don't worry so much about kids bringing weapons to school, rape in the parking lot, and so on. All of these things happen in a nearby school system that doesn't have it's own police force.
when you have schools with more students than a small town and the ratio of students to teacher is a lot more than 20:1, you have to have police of this level. or face major violence/gang activities or simply fall through the cracks. it's yet one more thing that no one thought of before cutting teacher positions or refusing to build smaller schools
So schools punish students for questionable behavior at home (such as taking pictures) and the law punishes students for questionable behavior at schools? I can't help but notice parents missing from that equation.
1) The "Get Tough Gang" can gang up on them without fear of retribution on election day.
2) The attack ad nearly writes itself if political opponents don't agree and one kid commits some heinous crime.
3) if #1 looks like it might be a problem, take away or reduce their right to vote when they become of legal age.
Next up (if not already part of the "school law") - minimum sentencing - to get rid of those darn Activist Judges letting those pesky kids off so easy.
are you sure about that?
You can't handle the truth.
Can someone explain to me, why the USA is so violent?
Are you being snide? I should kick your ass for that...
As an inhabitant of the USA, I think the biggest problem is the strong individualistic streak that we have. It seems like there are a lot of people who just get caught up in things and don't think of anyone but themselves, and culturally this is being reinforced. They want to be involved in everything, be the center of attention and have the world revolve around them. Short sighted people want immediate gratification and respect, and fuck you if you don't give it to them.
Most people here aren't like this though, just enough to make the rest of the world think we are a bunch of violent, impatient jerks.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
This bid request (fbo.gov) was sent out last year -- notice phrases such as "existing inventory," and ask yourself what's going on here?
And people still voted for this moron?
Today I am even more ashamed of my country. If Americans elect another Texas Governor to the office of President we should just give up on democracy.
From the Wikipedia article on "Private Prisons"...
"CCA is and formerly The GEO Group have been major contributors to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a Washington, D.C. based public policy organization that develops model legislation that advances tough-on-crime legislation and free-market principles such as privatization.
Under their Criminal Justice Task Force, ALEC has developed and helped to successfully implement in many states âoetough on crimeâ initiatives including âoeTruth in Sentencingâ and âoeThree Strikesâ laws. Corporations provide most of the funding for ALECâ(TM)s operating budget and influence its political agenda through participation in policy task forces. ALECâ(TM)s corporate funders include CCA and The GEO Group. In 1999, CCA made the Presidentâ(TM)s List for contributions to ALECâ(TM)s States and National Policy Summit; Wackenhut (predecessor to GEO Group) also sponsored the conference. Past cochairs of the Criminal Justice Task Force have included Brad Wiggins, then Director of Business Development at CCA and now a Senior Director of Site Acquisition, and John Rees, a former CCA vice president. On November 11th, 2010, GEO's outgoing COO Wayne Calabrese, told a large community gathering at a middle school in Bangor, Pennsylvania, that GEO had withdrawn from ALEC years earlier because of the obvious conflict of interest involved in creating legislation that insured an increased supply of prisoners. CCA and GEO have both engaged in state initiatives to increase sentences for offenders and to create new crimes, however, CCA helping to finance Proposition 6 in California in 2008 and GEO lobbying for Jessica's Law in Kansas in 2006.
By funding and participating in ALECâ(TM)s Criminal Justice Task Forces, critics argue, private prison companies directly influence legislation for tougher, longer sentences.[27] The legal system may also be manipulated more directly: in the Kids for cash scandal, Mid-Atlantic Youth Services Corp, a private prison company was found guilty of paying two judges[28] $2.6m to send 2000 children to their prisons.[29][30]CCA is and formerly The GEO Group have been major contributors to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a Washington, D.C. based public policy organization that develops model legislation that advances tough-on-crime legislation and free-market principles such as privatization.
Under their Criminal Justice Task Force, ALEC has developed and helped to successfully implement in many states âoetough on crimeâ initiatives including âoeTruth in Sentencingâ and âoeThree Strikesâ laws. Corporations provide most of the funding for ALECâ(TM)s operating budget and influence its political agenda through participation in policy task forces. ALECâ(TM)s corporate funders include CCA and The GEO Group. In 1999, CCA made the Presidentâ(TM)s List for contributions to ALECâ(TM)s States and National Policy Summit; Wackenhut (predecessor to GEO Group) also sponsored the conference. Past cochairs of the Criminal Justice Task Force have included Brad Wiggins, then Director of Business Development at CCA and now a Senior Director of Site Acquisition, and John Rees, a former CCA vice president. On November 11th, 2010, GEO's outgoing COO Wayne Calabrese, told a large community gathering at a middle school in Bangor, Pennsylvania, that GEO had withdrawn from ALEC years earlier because of the obvious conflict of interest involved in creating legislation that insured an increased supply of prisoners. CCA and GEO have both engaged in state initiatives to increase sentences for offenders and to create new crimes, however, CCA helping to finance Proposition 6 in California in 2008 and GEO lobbying for Jessica's Law in Kansas in 2006.
By funding and participating in ALECâ(TM)s Criminal Justice Task Forces, critics argue, private prison companies directly influence legislation for tougher, longer sentences.[27] The legal system
The correct person to vote for is found in my sig.
But I'll go further than that, he is also the smartest financially - that hit piece is hacked together to make it seem like a solid investment based on real economic understanding is bad policy. However what it does not say is that if sound policy is enacted, then nominal values of those investment will plunge, as interest would shot straight up, like they did in 1981.
Wouldn't you want your investment to look this way over the 10 year period?
Goldcorp GG since 2001 is up 1000%.
Barrick Gold ABX is up 300% in the decade.
Newmont Mining C Stock NEM is up 300% in the decade.
Agnico Eagle Mines AEM is up 700% in the decade.
AngloGold Ashanti AU is up 300% in 10 years.
IAM Gold IAG is up 1000% over 10 years.
Mag Silver MVG is up over 1000% in 10 years.
Pan American Silver PAAS up over 1000% in 10 years.
Silver Wheaton SLW is up over 2000% in 10 years.
UP: 1000%, 300%, 300%, 700%, 300%, 1000%, 1000%, 1000%, 2000
Who doesn't want an honest, smart, principled guy for president for once?
You can't handle the truth.
Okay... school kids ages between 5 and 17 ... sure that is still a somewhat familiar concept to me (24).
Sure weapons and drugs might be a problem here in a select few hotspot areas too...
But atleast its unlikely to find any weapons in most schools.
We of course also had parents with some serious illusions about their kid's intelligence and the resulting unhappyness with their grades.
But those only resulted in everyone else having a good laugh and nothing else...
Some small amount of physical or psychological violence will for sure always be present at any school.
Sure we had fights for some childish reasons and once or twice some broken bones resulted of that.
But those were pretty much unintended but still valuable learning experiences for everyone involved.
No long term damage was caused, *everyone* has a decent insurance for such accidents and those responsible usually felt sorry enough on their own not to require much punishment to learn something.
Nobody was even remotely interesting in charging anybody with a crime unless absolutely necessary. If it happens once or maybe twice it was considered just to be some inexperienced kids taking it a bit too far.
Police, judges, trials....what ? Seriously ?
This article seems so weird and alien beyond belief.
I'm truly sorry for you if you happen to live in the usa...
A religious nutter is not what this country needs.
Ever heard of a bubble?
He is not a religious nutter, current POTUS is more religious than that guy (or at least he pretends to be). But a bubble? Seriously?
Do you know that current stocks of gold mining companies are only barely above the 2008 lows? That's while the metal itself is going higher and higher based on inflation (money printing). Stocks are almost not moving though, that's not any bubble that ever existed, in a bubble stocks move. This is fear - people think like you do. They told me the same thing 5 years ago - it's a bubble. They have been saying that for 40 years now, since Nixon defaulted on the promise to pay gold for federal reserve notes. But no, US treasuries are a bubble. This is just reflection on where economy is.
You can't handle the truth.
You also aren't doing very well on sentence structure, either.
So, those adults know LESS than kids in the 5th grade.
But at one time in the past those adults WERE in the 5th grade.
So, did those many adults undergo some kind of brain trauma and forget the stuff they knew when they were in the 5th grade?
Or are you exhibiting bias?
I'm confused. Isn't Texas supposed to be the state of small government, balanced budgets, and personal responsibility?
Shouldn't they just be giving the kids guns and letting them sort it out themselves?
I have Abraham Lincoln's skull from when he was a 12 year old boy.
How much are you willing to pay for this one-of a kind collector's item?
I'll also throw in his skull from when he was 21 years old AND when he was 25 years old.
That's THREE skulls that I'm offering for sale. How much are you willing to pay?
This is fear, and that fear is raising gold prices to crazy levels. US treasuries are fine, because if they fail it won't matter. If the USA defaults your gold will be worthless, since you can't eat it.
Gold highs do not go back 40 years, look a the plummet in the 80s.
Gold started that decade at near $800, by 85 it was under $300.
If you want to invest for the SHTF scenario I highly suggest you look into lead packaged in brass cases.
I'm offering THREE skulls here.
What's your offer?
(hint: normal people offer US dollars)
(hint #2: look up "moralistic". It does not mean what you think it does.)
This is fear, and that fear is raising gold prices to crazy levels.
- no, this comes from you misunderstanding basic economics.
Gold is money. There is no fear and there is no uncertainty or doubt that fiat is debased and will continue being debased. This government is convinced that it must destroy the currency for their Keynesian solutions to work, so they will do so. Nominal gold value changes but actual purchasing power stays.
US treasuries are fine, because if they fail it won't matter.
- hold on, hold on. So are you saying they are "fine" OR are you saying that it does not matter whether they are "fine" or not? I am not clear on your statement, which is it?
US treasuries are not fine at all, with interest rates being lowest ever (actually 10 year bond hitting 1.99% yield! That's the most expensive coupon and the lowest yield in history of that 10 year bond.)
US treasuries are in an enormous bubble, with Fed now secretly purchasing where it was purchasing openly for 6 months till June 22. Fed was buying 100% of all new printed bonds, there were no buyers. They printed 600 billion USD and that's how much debt Treasury issued in that time.
If the USA defaults your gold will be worthless, since you can't eat it.
- USA has defaulted already a number of times, last was in 1971, when it defaulted on the promise to pay gold for federal reserve notes. It also defaulted during Civil war and around WWI.
Does this actually do anything to gold? Well no, because nominal prices do not matter at all, the only prices that are important are prices relative to gold and those are pretty much always the same.
Also I bring your attention to the fact that it is after all a depression right now, since fuel is cheapest ever in history of USA as well - under 10 cents per gallon. Those are 10 silver cents of-course, minted prior to 1965.
Can I eat gold? Well, excuse me, can you eat US dollars? Gold is money, don't forget that. I have a long record on this site, for many years now saying the same thing, and I like to reference those old comments often.
Gold highs do not go back 40 years, look a the plummet in the 80s.
- yes, in nominal terms after US defaulted on the promise to pay gold for federal reserve notes, an ounce started at 35 USD and went all the way up to 800USD, and then Paul Volcker came and set interest rates to over 20%.
THAT was what took gold down, because with money that expensive, people want to have it, not other assets. Gold is money, but dollar became an investment. Money is not an investment, it's a store of value, unit of account and means of exchange.
Of-course gold went down at that time to 350USD/ounce, still 10 times as high as it was in 1971.
However now the interest rates have been 1 and 0% for over a dozen of years, so the debt of USA now is so huge, that 1% move in interest rates causes USA to spend 200BILLION dollars more just to service the debt (interest payments increase by 200Billion with each 1%), so you think they'll bring interest rates back up?
Don't you know that Bernanke came out and said he won't bring interest rates back up for 2 years? That's a huge Bernanke put, he now gave the market a green light to go ahead and gamble on the Treasury market, because he is guaranteeing a return or whatever the Treasury yields. That's why the Treasury prices are up.
But this can't last due to this reason: the inflation, which USA exports to foreign countries, is causing massive price hikes in those countries, followed by social unrest and political instability. Basically by holding US debt and dollars, the foreign governments are asking their own people to sacrifice ever more in terms of their purchasing power to bail out US consumer.
How long do you think that will last for? I don't see that goi
You can't handle the truth.
And a means of completing the education process that was interrupted/abandoned the first time.
Maybe you couldn't adapt to school when you were 15. Is that going to limit you for the rest of your life? Why not provide some means of helping people improve their lives?
Why not? Because that same "authoritarian thought" comes into play. People who are, economically, barely above the drop-outs will fight any attempts to provide "un-earned" help to those below them (economically). Just in case they end up equal to or below the drop-outs.
They're really starting the prisoner incarceration training young over there.
how is babby formed?
Criminalizing childhood behavior or prosecuting children as adults is simply sadistic.
The sad thing is that many prigs who say "think of the children" are in full support of this atrocity, because they are simply looking to control other people's children.
Bzzzt! Wrong answer.
My point was that if someone understands something when they're in the 5th grade then they probably have the same understand (or a more complete understanding) when they're an adult.
Unless they have some kind of brain trauma.
So claiming that a large number of adults have a limited understanding of something means that when they were in the 5th grade their understanding of that material was as limited (if not more so).
And yet learning math (to be an engineer) is not a moral issue. Why would math be moral or immoral?
Check it, folks. That is ONE sentence there.
And, again, the point was that if an adult does not understand something then it cannot (logically) follow that he understood it when he was in the 5th grade (unless he underwent some brain trauma).
If I have Abraham Lincoln's skull from when he was 12 ... he would never have reached the age of 21. Therefore, I cannot possess two skulls from him at two different ages.
Mocking your grammatical misadventures is similar to that. If you have the skills to form grammatically correct sentence structures, that means that you had learned them in the past. If you lack those skills, that means you did not learn them in the past. Or you have brain trauma.
So, asking a 5th grader to make a career choice (or evaluating the importance of education) is stupid.
The kid in 5th grade lacks all the following years of experience and knowledge that she/he would gain from school and life in those years.
Make no mistake, when they can condition young minds to bullshit like this and get away with
it, before too many years they will have control over most of the population, in Texas.
Fortunately, Texas does not control the rest of the US, and it never will.
Problem is, we do want people to learn to trust and obey reasonable authorities: to listen when someone tells them it's not OK to go stabbing other people, etc. In order to do this, we need to give these people consistent examples of reasonable authorities: people who do not act against harmless behaviors but do act against harmful behaviors, consistently and predictably.
If little Johnny is never punished for anything he does, even obviously harmful things, he will never learn that some things are not OK to do, and will think he can get away with anything. But likewise, if little Johnny is always punished for everything he does, even obviously harmless things, then as you seem to say, he will learn that authorities are unreasonable, ignore them completely, and do whatever the fuck he wants, even obviously harmful things.
In other words, if the response from authority figures is always the same no matter what your pattern of behavior, then it has no molding influence on your behavior, and becomes completely ineffectual. But we do want to be able to sometimes effectually mold people's behavior -- to deter them from being rapists and murderers, say -- and in order to do so, people have to be exposed (from an early age and consistently through adulthood) to reasonable exercises of authority that punish only harmful actions and let harmless ones fly. Teaching kids that all authority is unreasonable will leave us unable to teach them, e.g., that stabbing and shooting people is not a cool fun thing to do, but a bad thing, not to be done.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
I think the children are learning that they have no rights and they must comply and they always can be taken in by the cops, never mind what the infraction is. The children "is" learning intimidation by the state officials.
which is a sure fire way to make sure they aren't frightened of "cops" but still feel threatened when they are adults. nothing cured me of my fear of my intimidating step father like growing up and having the option of dishing back that same "force", it was never required but I'd be lying if i said i wasn't begging for an opportunity.
This is a good example of the extreme control the religious-right craves and demands. I wouldn't be surprised if Rick Perry brags about the number of grade school kids they send to court.
Schools wouldnt need police departments, if parents & schools could spank kids like they use to.
No child left behind. Hey, I know... let's elect another President from Texas. So far every one of them has started a war (and on shaky circumstances, too) and screwed not just the Texas school system but the National one as well.
But I'm sure the next one will be ok.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
The nations elementry and secondary school systems are the at the frontline of a wave of conflagration.
Now more than ever, the nations schools are and will be called upon to kill students.
Killing, they will argue to States and Congress, is absolutly necessary. No Doubt. Must be done.
In order to perserve National ORDER of the President of the United States of America and absolute reverence of National AUTHORITY of the President of the Unites States of America (i.e. fear of death), killing of students must and will occur, irrespective of presumed State or Federal civil laws.
--//--//--
Oh yes, because that's always an excuse. "Oh, he has ADHD. He's bipolar." Letting that fly = special treatment. Treatment that minority kids and parents will bring up when their kids are the ones in court. Then the cries of racism start...
In your own words, you say that "minority kids" are demanding "special treatment." You decry those who speak against the racism of the educational establishment. We have seen fit to teach you that your position is founded in ignorance.
On the 19th of July, 2011, great scholars in service to His Excellency the Emperor completed and published a report on the disciplinary practices of Texas secondary schools. Among many troubling revelations and insights, one particular excess of the Texas educational system was brought to light:
The study also showed significant differences in disciplinary outcomes by race, even when controlling for other factors such as type of offense and socioeconomic status. âoeMinority students facing discipline for the first time tended to be given the harsher, out-of-school suspension, rather than in-school suspension, more often than white students, the study saidâ¦A disproportionate number of minority students also ended up in alternative classrooms, where some have complained that teachers are often less qualified.â 70% of black girls had been suspended, compared to only 37% of white girls, despite often committing the same offenses.
Let it be known. Minority students are indeed subject to "special treatment" in the form of more severe and more frequent punishments even when accused of the same offenses. Rumors that minorities receive preferential treatment from government institutions are sheer ignorance perpetuated by those who advocate racism and authoritarianism.
We have enlightened you. Spread your lie no more.
I say the US is a loony bin country but those stories have a way of always coming from Texas or Florida so maybe you just packed all your village idiots in a few states.
...this American dream?
Cos from over in Europe it don't seem so gosh darned good any more.
usually having a better than that when pouring milk on each other. I agree, these kids committed a serious infraction: Lameness to the n-th degree.
You are like the fountain of entitlement.
Drinking a can of coke... drinking or eating at all in class. Just how entitled can you feel? That is what breaks are for, you get a LOT of them as a kid, far more then you will get in the work place in just a few years time.
Your attitude is exactly why there are so many rules because you are unable to see what a class would deteriorate into if every can drink and eat in class? Only a can of coke? Why not a glass then? With ice? Hot coffee? Oops forgot the sugar teach, be right back. But teach I want a donut with my coffee. Well, if a donut with coffee does not disturb class can I heat up my spaghetti? I want a fried egg!
Kids have this idea that whatever they do causes no disturbance and they are perfectly able to set a boundary themselves. Then they grow up and realize they can't and impose laws on kids to avoid chaos.
Proof me wrong, become a teacher and have the kids in your class do whatever they want. See how long you last.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You claim to be made an example off? Well, did the example work? Yes? Mission accomplished then. Punishing the criminal is not just about the criminal, it is about showing the rest of society crime does not pay.
What you fail to get is the first sheep over the dam syndrome. If they let you get away with it, how many other kids would also have not turned in their home work. Show the person bypassing a traffic jam over the emergency lane being ticketted and everyone who stayed in the traffic jam as they should feels they aren't fools for following the rules.
Discipline is a lot more complex then kids who got paddled think.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Fucked.
With all the things you describe, life in America seems extremely freightening. In comparison, life in Europe seems utopian, when compared to America.
Couldn't the anti-Klan statutes be used against these people? Depriving citizens of their rights while acting under colour of law?
to have had my school time in the seventies and eighties in Europe. To date I have never seen a real gun irl and choose to keep it that way.
The public school system is there to make sure everyone has an education available to them.
It's been 12 years and those rose-colored glasses have not lost a single millimeter of depth. You must be childless. The government (not "public") school system is there for 1) a jobs program, and 2) to turn out impressionable workers devoid of individuality. #1 is stronger than #2 because it garners more votes, and is more "pragmatic" for the sake of power. Do you doubt #2? Did your high school mention, much less teach, the concept of critical thinking? Where did you discover such things as "logical flaws"? The same place where everyone else does: on the public Internet.
You should go talk with some teachers, I can tell you that most of them love teaching children and watching them learn. They love to see them grow. Many teachers do what they do because they enjoy it.
And many others do it for other reasons than excellence and joy. Reasons such as: cutting out at 3 and having summers off, or perhaps the fat pension seized from everyone else. What's the proper ratio of the teachers you prefer to the ones you prefer not talk about?
Consider this: the women's rights movement was the worst thing to happen to children's education in the United States. That will likely ring false to you, since those are likely two movements you think that your team supports with every unconscious breath, but bear with me for a moment. In the 1950s, if you were a woman in the United States, your options were: A) homemaker, B) nurse, or C) teacher. That's it. All of the most brilliant women in the the US, if they wanted to work, had to go into teaching or nursing. Once women gained enough cultural respect, they started pursuing higher-paying jobs. Those brilliant women opted to become lawyers, doctors, and investment brokers, draining the talent pool.
The remaining women largely populate the teaching field.
Before you call me sexist, know that the same holds true for men. If you're talented enough to be a brilliant scientist, then why would you go into teaching? For the love of the craft, perhaps?
Makes me ashamed to be American.
American Teliban.
Gold is money in the same way cotton or wheat or any other commodity is money. There is nothing special about it.
- hold on, hold on. So are you saying they are "fine" OR are you saying that it does not matter whether they are "fine" or not? I am not clear on your statement, which is it?
It is one in the same. I can see how such a thing could be over your head.
- you are many years too late, my money is all in metals and metal mining stocks. I don't need bullets, I can now buy them cheaper than ever with real money.
When the SHTF I can use my packaged metals, yours will be worthless. Or I could just take them at that point.
I am *so glad* we homeschooled our children in Texas, and continued after we left Texas until they graduated. Now they are more mature than I am (not a real high bar) and arguably smarter as well. They both have their career paths laid out for the next few decades; I still don't know what I want to be if I grow up. Neither has ever been to jail, used drugs, or broken any major body parts on themselves or others. They treat adults and peers equally with respect, play well with others ("Oh, but what about the socialization? If you homeschool they will miss out on all those important developmental interactions!") and contribute to the community.
Man, I wish I had been homeschooled. But at least we kept our spawn from getting ground up in that machinery.
On the other hand, Rutgers University like most schools of it's size runs it's own police force (as an adjunct of the NJ State Police, as I understand it, and at a certain size it's simply a necessity rather than burdening local police with managing a community of 50,000 people outside the local population.
Gold is money in the same way cotton or wheat or any other commodity is money. There is nothing special about it.
no, gold is money because it has been used as money for thousands of years.
If it could be successfully used for many other purposes, it wouldn't be able to serve as money.
I gave an explanation on this some time ago.
It is one in the same. I can see how such a thing could be over your head.
- no, there are 2 things you are saying there, and those 2 things have 2 separate meanings.
You are saying:
1. Bonds are fine.
you are also saying
2. If they are not fine, it does not matter.
Those are 2 statements that basically say: whatever, bonds don't matter. Well, sure, to the rest of the world they won't matter once nobody wants them, even if they can't get anything for them, it won't matter, they'll just lose some savings.
But to the US consumer it will matter plenty, because the products that are financed by those bonds will stop coming in. It won't be about bonds then, it will be about not having any products.
When the SHTF I can use my packaged metals, yours will be worthless. Or I could just take them at that point.
- you do have a point that I will need to have protection some time in the future, but I will be the one deciding when that time is due for me to get that extra protection, just like I was the one deciding when it was time to get protection against inflation in the first place.
See, I don't know what you own, but if you don't own real money, you'll run out of things fairly quickly when there are no things around and what used to be considered money no longer is.
You can't handle the truth.
Spare the rod and spoil the child
And to think, posted in my Junior High school rules, a knife was allowed as long as the blade was under 6". Said so in my 7th grade school issued pee chee folder. In high school, if you were caught smoking pot, the teachers flushed it down the toilet and you received a few detentions. We had a smoking area, at least until my senior year in HS in 1987. We got into fights, we received detentions, or a stern talking to. One kid was suspended, but he broke another kids collarbone in a fistfight. Imagine, no lawsuit either. I took aspirin to school when I needed it, prescriptions too. We too had 30+ kids per teacher, but our parents put the fear of corporal punishment into us to keep us in line.
I am so glad I never had kids, I would hate to raise one in this type of environment.