Michael Sylvester wrote:
> The French government has decided that they have had it
> with unruly,violent and disruptive students in the public
> schools.The pending legislation is that any student who
> presents a problem in class will be jailed. And the parent
> will have to bail the student out. In addition a parent of a
> disruptive student may lose some of the allocated welfare benefits.
As I haven't been able to find information about the legislation
on the Inet or in any of the news sources I use, just a couple
questions:
1) Will the legislation mandate jailing of _all_ disruptive
students, or only those students who--via their disruptive behavior--are
violating other laws (i.e., assault, defacing property, vandalism,
etc.)?
2) What specific offenses will the students be charged with by
the police?
Clearly, if the disruptive behavior involves violation of other
laws currently in force, or involves the violation of the rights of
others (i.e., hate crimes, assault, etc.), the act of jailing them
simply becomes one of enforcement and "cracking down" on youth
offenders. On the other hand, if it involves such actions as
inappropriate classroom behavior (talking back to the instructor,
refusal to participate in activities, etc.) then the legislation is
simply creating a new form of status crime--something that the US is
famous for (i.e., truancy, curfew violation, etc.) and simply represents
another means of restricting the rights of youths.
As far as holding the parents responsible, on the other hand,
it's about time that _someone_ was held responsible for the behavior of
disruptive kids. Ideally (yes, this is hard-nosed) disruptive kids
should be removed from the traditional classrooms and schools and should
be required to attend alternative schools where more rigid forms of
discipline (and less privileges) are available. Jailing them seems
excessive--removing them from an environment where they are preventing
other students from obtaining the maximum educational benefits available
to them, on the other hand, certainly is reasonable.
Rick
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