Criminalization of Innocence in America

I recently saw an article about a girl who was suspended for several days here in Virginia. What was her crime? She had a bottle of Midol in her purse. You see, the girl went to a school where they have a no tolerance policy for drugs. She had trouble with cramping and kept a bottle of Midol in her purse and forgot to remove it before going to school. When she had realized what she had done, she reported it to a teacher who promptly reported it to the school authorities and made an example of her. Now, someone please explain to me why this could not have been handled in a civil and reasonable manner? It seems to be that a reasonable solution would have been to take the item from the girl and return it at the end of the day, or maybe call the girls parents and ask them to come and pick up the item, but to suspend an honor student over a mistake is a huge miscarriage of justice.

When I lived in Colorado, a similar experience happened in Colorado Springs. Again, the student was a victim of another 0 tolerance policy. What was this student’s crime? A teenage girl with a car that had a broken trunk had a butter knife in the car that she used to pry open the trunk when she needed to access it. The school got her for carrying a weapon and made an example of her suspending her for several days and labeling her as a trouble maker on her permanent record. But some moron teacher got to say they saved the school and the day by getting menacing weapons out of the hands of a derelict student (a 16 or 17 year old female honor student). Imagine the shock and horror in fellow students’ eyes as this girl pried open her trunk to get her math book out!

Another case here in Virginia, Virginia Beach-maybe Norfolk (I can not remember which city) involved men urinating on the side of buildings near the beach. It seems that several men were relieving themselves on the side of a 7-11 store that was located right on the water. Oddly enough, the issue here was not public sanitation regarding people urinating in places that others might walk through. It was not concern for disease or odor. Instead, the issue came out on the news that vile men were exposing themselves in the presence of children (half of which were male and had the same need.) While I understand that it is in bad taste to just whip out the unit and go at will in public, I also think it is in bad taste for two cities that have massive waterfront and beach areas to only have 2-3 facilities along the entire beachfront area. These men were not exposing themselves with any kind of intent to attract anyone of any age or kind sexually and should not have been treated as if they were. But now, because of the poor judgment of an officer issuing tickets and because of pressure put on local law enforcement by right wing idiots, these men have a permanent record that makes them look like some kind of pervert.

And finally, in another case that I am aware of, a group of teenage boys were skinny dipping in a river (local to their area, I can not remember where the article came from). The boys were rounded up and ticketed for public indecency. Again, their actions were maybe in poor taste, being so close to a bridge that they could be seen by those who pass by. But they had no sexual intent and were not exposing themselves for any kind of sexual gratification. They were just boys taking a swim on a hot summer day. In my day, the cop may have told us to get dressed and go home, he may have told us to move further down the river so we could not be seen, but he would never have ticketed us like a group of perverts and stuck us in the court system as if we were some kind of criminal.

Some time back, I had a similar experience of my own. I was coming home from a gathering with friends. It was a long drive and nature called. As I got closer to home, I realized there was no way I could wait any longer. I stopped at a local store and asked to use their rest room; I was told that it was out of order. So I went out of my way to drive by a local factory that I knew was closed on weekends, a place where I knew nobody would be nearby. I pulled my car behind the facility and parked the car behind me. I moved into a corner by a loading dock where I was protected by the building on two sides, by the loading dock on another side and by my car behind me. I did my business and started to leave.

As I was about to leave a police car pulled up. The cop flashed his lights and ordered me out of my car. When I got out, the first words out of this guy’s mouth were “aren’t you ashamed of yourself”. I looked at him, a kid about half my age and I am sure the shock I was feeling registered. I am not always known to hold my temper when provoked and this was one of those times. I asked him what I had to be ashamed of. He said you know what you were doing! I looked back at him and said who is the pervert here? The guy who goes out of his way to hide himself so he can urinate privately or the guy who hides himself turning off his lights, quietly stalking someone hoping to get a look at his penis to see if he measures up? I was angry and said are you going to ticket me or not. In his best cop voice he said no, but don’t do it again. I thought, what a moron.

In each and every one of these cases innocent people were treated as criminals and paid serious consequences for non existent crimes. While I understand that the public has to be protected from people who would do them harm, I also understand that people deserve the right to live unbothered when they are committing no crime. I truly believe that if our police and educators spent more time and effort stopping real crimes and wasted less time harassing innocent people they might actually solve some crimes. Instead they waste expensive resources harassing innocent people then brag about what they have accomplished. Such a waste.