8 yrs In Prison for a Prank? Handcuffed for Doodling? The Increasing Criminalization of Students

[marmar]

AlterNet / By Rania Khalek

8 Years In Prison for a Harmless Prank? Handcuffed for Doodling? The Increasing Criminalization of Students
Young people are being suspended, expelled and charged with criminal offenses for behavior as innocuous as doodling on a desk.

August 8, 2011 |


A few months back, 18-year-old Tyell Morton was enjoying his senior year at Rushville High in Indiana. Today, he faces the prospect of being labeled a felon for the rest of his life for a harmless senior prank.

Morton was arrested for putting a blowup doll in a bathroom stall on the last day of school. He was caught when video footage showed a man entering the high school in a hooded sweatshirt and leaving a package in the bathroom. Fearing the package might be a bomb, school officials evacuated the premises and called the Indiana State bomb squad. Although no one was injured, no property damaged and no dangerous materials found, Morton, who had not been in any trouble prior to this incident, is being charged with disorderly conduct (a misdemeanor) and institutional criminal mischief (a class C felony), carrying the potential of two to eight years in prison.

Tyell Morton's case has received nationwide media attention and there is even a website called Free Tyrell Morton. Unfortunately, his case is hardly the only one of its kind. The overzealous response to Morton's harmless, albeit immature senior prank, is just the most recent in a long string of over-the-top punishments visited upon American students.

In Pearl, Mississippi, Pearl High School's rivalry with Brandon High School dates back to 1949. Last year, when big paw prints and the letters B H S were scribbled in bright red spray paint all over Pearl High's new field house, Brandon High officials launched an investigation. Tyler Dearman and Adam Cook, both 17, were arrested at school and charged with felony malicious mischief. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/rights/151948/8_years_in_prison_for_a_harmless_prank_handcuffed_for_doodling_the_increasing_criminalization_of_students/

[Kennah]

1. Thank God at least one industry, the prison industry, is doing well in America

:sarcasm:

[newfie11]

2. Could this be why the young folks are not protesting in America

I am happy my kids are grown. This is bullshit!

[PhoenixAbove]

3. I'm haapy I have no kids...

I would be enraged if I did. This is sick!

[Fuddnik]

4. Cue up the Junior Anti-Sex Brigade.

They should be here to conflate blow-up dolls with sex slavery any minute.

[Divernan]

5. What I did on my summer vacation - supported the prison industry.

By getting sentenced to jail time. Private prisons have to maintain a certain level of occupancy or lose their state/federal subsidies. State legislators have been increasing penalties for crimes for years - it's a win/win. They can campaign on "tough on crime" platforms, and collect campaign contributions from lobbyists for privatized prisons.

[Pacifist Patriot]

6. My son begins high school tomorrow.

I haven't slept in a week for all manner of anxieties associated with it. No, I don't anticipate something similar will happen to him, but just the idea that it could. Among other concerns.

So much has changed since I went to school in the early to mid 80s. More than just seeing rows and rows of computers in the librar....oops, media center that also has a cafe.

[bemildred]

7. I guess the schools are there to cull the herd now, instead of educating them. nt

[Jefferson23]

8. We see more youth experience bizarro world as a result of zero tolerance rules and our

determination to flippantly use the term terrorist. Nuance is not allowed, reasoning is useless, teach our youth
we do not encourage thinking by enforcing zero tolerance rules no matter the circumstances.

One story that always got to me was the young elementary student that was eating her lunch brought from home. She
was in the lunch room, using the knife appropriately, her parent forgot the rule..NO KNIVES. What resulted was
an adult calling the police, the child was removed from the school and taken away in a police vehicle.

No adult was thinking, we are teaching our youth the same.

Sad.

[drakonyx]

9. Worthwhile read

Thanks for this piece. It paints a larger picture than the Tyell Morton story did. Definitely worth noting.

[Politicalboi]

10. Thanks again to 9/11

Everything is different because of it, and we the people NEVER got a fair investigation of it, but yet they impose stricter laws against us over it. And some are fine with that. I on the other hand am not.

[Uncle Joe]

11. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.