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by dovereconomics 3936 days ago
Honestly, more and more, I challenge the idea of ever having a child: bright and smart kids have never been so intimidated.

Many of the hacks I did as a child could have gotten me in jail today. Something 'silly' or 'funny' becomes dangerous/offensive/harassment; creativity, ingenuity and imagination are turned into dullness, self-hatred and nihilism.
1 comments
rhino369 3936 days ago
Ironically, you are engaging in the same sort of fear mongering and paranoia that these schools and police are engaging in. You are taking a rare event (idiotic profiling or terrorism) and concluding they are very common.

These sorts of overreactions are very uncommon. That isn't to say these sorts of zero tolerance, jail what you don't understand, actions shouldn't be strongly condemned.

But there are probably hundreds of thousands of kids who are into tinkering and hacking who haven't ever been bothered.

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DanBC 3936 days ago
Hang on: the route from school misdemeanor to criminal justice is well known and much talked about.

The combination of zero tolerance with police stationed in schools means many children end up with criminal records for very minor events.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/09/texas-police-sc...

> In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 "Class C misdemeanour" tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school, which result in fines, community service and even prison time

That feels pretty common. It doesn't feel rare.

It's known as the School to Prison Pipeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School-to-prison_pipeline

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rhino369 3936 days ago
How much of that is actual bad behavior. The school to prison pipeline is a worthy discussion.

But this sort insane, zero tolerance of total normal behavior is much more limited.

I agree we shouldn't be using the criminal system of kids who bring pot to school or who get into fights. But it's a different issue than a kid getting arrested for being a hacker.

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fao_ 3936 days ago 

  it's a different issue than a kid getting arrested for being a hacker.
How so? Actually in some states the kids who bring pot to school are more worthy for being in the criminal system than the kid being arrested for being a hacker, seeing as the former qualifies as actual criminal activity (again, in some states).

That is to say, I agree with not using the criminal system for those relatively minor excursions, but at the same time I do not see how it is a different problem.

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