Well, I wanted to start a topic about this for a while, but haven’t had the time to put a well thought out topic together, so now I do. Let’s go ahead and jump in then.
In our society, there are many laws set to protect our rights and guarantee our safety, and prosperity. Some, actually most, of the laws are there to stop the wrong doing before it happened by stating a possible consequence. My argument is that some of these punishments serve no purpose, and sometimes encourage the person to keep doing the action after and during the consequence. This, of course does not apply to every single punishment, but to a large lot of them.
Lets start with juvenile offences. If you break your school rules extensively enough, you may be expelled for a set period of time. In some cases this is a legitimate punishment, and should be imposed, some of these cases are battery, abuse, sexual harassment, or anything that physically damages the other person. Now on the other hand there are the other reasons for expulsion, the ones i disagree with; use of illigal drugs, theft, and defacing of property.
We'll start with illegal drugs. This is something i can relate to. Being expelled for possession or use of illegal drugs in school is a very useless and pointless punishment. You are isolated for a year, and forced to sit at home during school hours. The reason most youth used the drug in the first place was to escape a problem rather than face it, or need of attention and friends. Isolation does not help any of that, it just creates a larger problem for the child to deal with and really damages them. Instead of this punishment, they should have to have counseling, or a group they have to attend daily, with weekly drug tests, but should still be able to attend school, so they don't fall behind, and so they can solve their problems in a group.
Theft is a pretty common reason for expulsion, and while this seems fair; You stole, you can't be with a group of people seeing as you aren't trusted. It really does not benefit the person. It may force change upon him, but it may be temporarily, and would usually just continue after a while. This does not change the persons behavior, at all, and yet again just isolates him to an extreme degree. This problem needs to be tackled a different way, the person who stole needs to be put under very monitored and maintained checks, and be sitting in the front of the class, with counseling or group meetings daily for that year, in which the group/consoler try to find the root of why the person stole, and how it can be stopped.
Defacing of property is a scream for attention, and just the need to be heard by someone or something. Expelling them would help in some cases, but in other cases the principle needs to sit down with the offender, and find out what drove them to deface the property, and see if the problem is solvable, if it is, within reason, the principle/main person should explain that there are very much better ways to get a message across, and try to actively help with the problem the person is having.
I will add more later once I get a few arguments and constructive posts. Thanks.
In our society, there are many laws set to protect our rights and guarantee our safety, and prosperity. Some, actually most, of the laws are there to stop the wrong doing before it happened by stating a possible consequence. My argument is that some of these punishments serve no purpose, and sometimes encourage the person to keep doing the action after and during the consequence. This, of course does not apply to every single punishment, but to a large lot of them.
Lets start with juvenile offences. If you break your school rules extensively enough, you may be expelled for a set period of time. In some cases this is a legitimate punishment, and should be imposed, some of these cases are battery, abuse, sexual harassment, or anything that physically damages the other person. Now on the other hand there are the other reasons for expulsion, the ones i disagree with; use of illigal drugs, theft, and defacing of property.
We'll start with illegal drugs. This is something i can relate to. Being expelled for possession or use of illegal drugs in school is a very useless and pointless punishment. You are isolated for a year, and forced to sit at home during school hours. The reason most youth used the drug in the first place was to escape a problem rather than face it, or need of attention and friends. Isolation does not help any of that, it just creates a larger problem for the child to deal with and really damages them. Instead of this punishment, they should have to have counseling, or a group they have to attend daily, with weekly drug tests, but should still be able to attend school, so they don't fall behind, and so they can solve their problems in a group.
Theft is a pretty common reason for expulsion, and while this seems fair; You stole, you can't be with a group of people seeing as you aren't trusted. It really does not benefit the person. It may force change upon him, but it may be temporarily, and would usually just continue after a while. This does not change the persons behavior, at all, and yet again just isolates him to an extreme degree. This problem needs to be tackled a different way, the person who stole needs to be put under very monitored and maintained checks, and be sitting in the front of the class, with counseling or group meetings daily for that year, in which the group/consoler try to find the root of why the person stole, and how it can be stopped.
Defacing of property is a scream for attention, and just the need to be heard by someone or something. Expelling them would help in some cases, but in other cases the principle needs to sit down with the offender, and find out what drove them to deface the property, and see if the problem is solvable, if it is, within reason, the principle/main person should explain that there are very much better ways to get a message across, and try to actively help with the problem the person is having.
I will add more later once I get a few arguments and constructive posts. Thanks.
