He's correctly pointed out that zero tolerance is a sort of promiscuous security method, that applies itself to situations where it should not in order, the idea goes, that it applies itself to /all/ situations where it should. It's a policy that says philosophically: we're okay coming down hard on innocent parties, because that means we won't miss any guilty parties.
Fine, but it's really difficult to study. We can make a list of all the kids who were caught up unfairly, but how can we make a list of those who were saved?
I'm not saying I agree with zero tolerance at all -- what I'm saying is that it's going to be really difficult to kill it, because we can't easily "prove" that it's doing more harm than good, and it'd require cajones for any politician to stick his neck out.
Still it's a valid question, even if we can't really answer it: we know that kids get swept up unfairly, but does the policy do more harm than good overall?
Fine, but it's really difficult to study. We can make a list of all the kids who were caught up unfairly, but how can we make a list of those who were saved?
I'm not saying I agree with zero tolerance at all -- what I'm saying is that it's going to be really difficult to kill it, because we can't easily "prove" that it's doing more harm than good, and it'd require cajones for any politician to stick his neck out.
Still it's a valid question, even if we can't really answer it: we know that kids get swept up unfairly, but does the policy do more harm than good overall?