Customer Reviews

Zero Tolerance: Resisting the Drive for Punishment

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Teachers, administrators, parents, and taxpayers should read this book. As a criminal justice student, this was not my first encounter with studies that show corporal punishment, humiliation-based punishments and exclusionary tactics work against rather than for the safety policy makers, board members and principals hope to achieve. Zero Tolerance polices grew largely out of fears of violence associated with gangs, drugs, and school shootings. While none of these things are desirable in schools, none are prevented by zero tolerance policies. School shooters, in particular, tend to be suicidal and thus not deterred by the prospect of exclusion from educational opportunities. Gangs offer family, support, and protection to children who often feel they cannot get such things elsewhere.

What we really are creating with zero tolerance polices is an increased need for prisons, racial and socioeconomic disparities, and a future without hope for a great many students. This book offers alternatives that have been tried and proven, accounts of misuse of zero tolerance policies, study findings showing disparities along race and class lines, legal ramifications and oppositional options.

Two boys are at school and their not exactly being the best students....

After the kids were suspended so many times, one of their moms becomes very irritated she comes to the school to talk to the principal. The school staff come together and come up with a zero tolerance rule.

I think that this book was really just exhilarating, I have never been amused at all by books that are realistic fiction but I enjoyed this book .The main characters in this story are the two boys, the school staff and their moms. One of the boys is not as bad as he seems but the other just really doesn't care and neither does his family, and that's why he is so dreadful at school. This book really explains the type of problems that teenagers go through lately, and the solutions. This book has a lot of school drama, which I think is why I love this book so much. What is the zero tolerance rule that has put all of these kids so uncomfortable?