Hm yeah so I was skimming this current events post that @preparedwombat so often... prepares... and I get to the end and I see this:
Illinois law bans schools from fining students. So local police are doing it for them, issuing thousands of tickets a year for truancy, vaping, fights and other misconduct. Children are then thrown into a legal system designed for adults.
And I'm like...
Well that's fucking interesting.
So I'm reading this article and honestly I can't even read the thing because it's just so enraging and stupid. In the middle of me skimming it I head into the other room and ask my girlfriend about it and she's basically like (paraphrasing):
Yeah, duh, how did you not know about this, it's been going on for like ten years.
Part two is not really necessary.
It was immediately obvious to me that there's already a blatant statistical disconnect as to the fairness of these tickets. Another classic case of the poor people tax. Actually I need to do a part 2 for that post because after writing the first one I found a ton more information on it. Oh the sweet irony of being taxed for being poor. Never gets old.
I'm personally of the age where I was in that weird transition period when cops were just starting to appear on campus. It seemed ridiculous then and it's clearly even more ridiculous now. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to see those pigs writing tickets for stupid shit like having a vape pen or "assault and battery" because someone pushed someone else. Like, wow. The desperation of these money collection techniques by force is just a thing of legend. A legend that needs to be put to its final resting place.
If you've ever wondered why this "defund the police" movement has gained so much traction over the years, look no further than stupid bullshit like this. The diminishing returns are insane. More harm is caused than the good being claimed. Blah blah blah lefty left rant.
This is actually a bi-partisan issue.
The more libertarian one is (and subsequently less authoritarian) the less we should be relying on force to get society to work. Even a lot of the authoritarians have to admit that ticketing students in already impoverished neighborhoods it's pretty ridiculous and not really helpful. There are way better ways to impose force to get better results than that. This is just lazy and stupid.
Totally arbitrary bullshit
The fines and punishments, which are set by local governments, vary widely. That means the penalty for disorderly conduct violations might be $450 in one town, $50 in another and community service in a third. Towns also have different policies about whether and when they pursue unpaid ticket debt.
The complete lack of consistency shows that none of these punishments have been studied or known to actually work (in fact all studies point to it not working, just like the D.A.R.E program) they are just punishment for punishment sake and a way for people in charge to generate revenue by force while simultaneously feeling superior and completely justified about it. Pretty gross honestly.
Some police departments choose not to ticket students at school; they say it’s not an effective way to change behavior or help young people. Some schools have police officers on campus but direct them to stay out of minor disciplinary matters.
Ya don't say!?!
I find it funny that no one talks about the real issue here. Negative reinforcement is a known losing strategy from people-training to dog-training. All animals react poorly to negative reinforcement, and it is scientifically known that while positive reinforcement tactics are much harder to concoct, they always work exponentially better once the secret sauce is found.
The whole rule-by-fear strategy is already known to be a terrible way to run things in the long-run, and yet it keeps being employed time and time again across the globe within multiple disciplines. Not only that, it is constantly overly-justified and even celebrated by many who experienced the same treatment. It's all a very shit-rolls-downhill scenario, where the people who support these methods of force already know the hazing isn't very effective, but it becomes like a rite of passage. "Oh I had to deal with that bullshit so you should have to as well." That's a very bad look for society as a whole.
At schools where police routinely ticket students, officials argued that some young people need consequences beyond school discipline. They said students returning to school after pandemic closures have shown an increase in troubling behavior that has been difficult to manage.
HAHA!
What?
The problem is authoritarianism.
What's the solution?
Authoritarianism.
Christ.
The beating will continue, until morale improves.
Classic.
Schools aren’t allowed to fine students for misbehaving in Illinois. When legislators passed a broad overhaul of school discipline in 2015, they specifically banned fines as a “disciplinary consequence.” That change was inspired by a Chicago charter school that had been fining students for issues like tardiness and uniform infractions.
But the law, still known to educators as Senate Bill 100, doesn’t apply to police. Some school officials argue they are following the rules as long as police officers write the tickets and municipalities issue the fines.
Literally there is a law against doing it but they find a loophole and act like everything is fine because they found a loophole. Like, honestly how much more full of bullshit can someone be? Pretty wild honestly.
“We’re not the issuer of the ticket,” said Marjorie Greuter, superintendent of East Peoria Community High School District 309. One of the deans there pointed out that the high school also does not make money from the tickets.
But families and advocates for children see little distinction — they just know there’s a financial consequence for misbehavior at school.
That kind of thinking goes against research that has found that involving law enforcement in school incidents is harmful and counterproductive.
Duh?
Again, the issue is misrepresented and the distraction is allowed to run rampant. Punishing people has never been about reforming society and making it a better place; that's just the excuse being used, and too many people focus on that bullshit excuse and try to evaluate it. We already know the recidivism rates are embarrassing and the supposed reform doesn't exist. The problem is being made worse.
It's so obvious that the punishments exist for another reason than their stated purpose (or flat out just due to incompetence or misinformation) but this often goes unstated. Rule of thumb: when money and capitalism and revenue are involved, perhaps the declared politics behind the situation are actually complete bullshit. As if we need to fine the parents of children in order to have a fulling-functioning school. The absurdity of it all is mind blowing.
Carpentersville police issued 649 truancy tickets to students at Dundee-Crown High School between January 2019 and December 2021, the most truancy tickets issued in any district the reporters examined. The fines totaled nearly $50,000.
$50k is relatively a lot and also not a lot at the same time. It's a lot of unnecessary burden to the community but it's also not a lot in the context of how much it costs to pay officers to do their job. There's a lot of variables here and many things to consider. Not really any point to arguing individual points further because going down that political argument rabbit hole is largely fruitless for all parties concerned.
Again, this seems to be a bi-partisan issue.
Children are under attack. That's resonates with the right wing. This is also a defund the police issue which is left wing and a racial/class bias which is another left wing issue. Honestly this whole covid thing has hit the youth pretty fucking hard. At the end of the day while they have the left and right at each-other's throats these things always appear to boil down to overstepping the bounds of authoritarianism. The more people fight against each other and the worse things get, the easier it is for authority to seize power and crack down hard with it. It's all looney toons in my opinion.
I'll be the first to admit that there's a lot of nuanced perspective out there that's been going completely over my head. Been in a bubble for quite some time now, and reading things like this makes me realize how much crazy stuff is going on in the world that I remain blissfully ignorant to.
Conclusion
Alright well there's still a lot more to say as that article I linked is massive, but I think I'm going to sign off early on this one. Blows my mind that kids could get ticketed for actual money in school, and the people doing it could be so cavalier about it, and act all justified on their high horse as if they're helping. Par for the course I suppose.
At the end of the day it's for reasons like this that I'm so heavily involved in crypto. Crypto is inherently libertarian opt-in governance that can't force anyone to do anything. There are a million to choose from, and if one doesn't suit our needs we can just bounce on over to another system that does. The governance structures of the future are going to whiplash back from this something fierce. A state of almost lawlessness/anarchy will come around sooner or later, and I'm not saying it will be great, but it certainly will be interesting judging from what I'm seeing today. The fishtail is real.
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