> Police officers have the power to scare without having to prosecute, this is just giving an officer a free pass for something that (if needed) should have ended with a kid in the back of a squad car driven home, not with an national press release from the eff.
And since the officer seems to have already done that last October, and the kid continues to access the computer... What should the officer do then?
Maybe the officer should suggest that the school and district have a better systems security policy? And that youth who seem to get passwords should be suspended from class? Or expelled for repeat offenders? Or possibly have a community service program for these sorts of cases?
Why did the police need to be called at all? This is the centeral question in this case. Are we trying to say at this point schools and districts and parents can't punish for minor offenses like pranking a teach?
Which means the kid has already shown disdain against the teachers. They're escalating the issue very naturally. And the Police seem like they're working in such a way to prevent any permanent damage on the kid's record.
A felony charge is a very scary proposition to go through. But ultimately, its a slap on the wrist (its a charge, they haven't actually written anything to his permanent record yet), and the sheriff detectives have made it clear that they expect the kid to be let go during the pre-trial process.
So far, there isn't any permanent harm to the kid's record. So... what's the problem exactly?
We can certainly agree to disagree. But to answer your question, the issue here is that police, and the law, are being pulled in to a situation as punishment in a way that they are not meant to be used. A felony may, in this case (and I do mean may, since one this goes into a trial phase, the police have little control over how prosecutors and judges handle the charge) be a slap on the wrist and then go away. However, a felony should not be used to slap someone on the wrist. This is a slippery legal slope.
For example, I recently began a contract at a large and well known company. In the first week I stepped away from my personal laptop and while away my coworker got onto the machine and changed my background to a large picture from "My Little Ponys" which said "Love ya Brony". By the Florida law outlined in this case, my coworker had committed a felony. Evidently he does this regularly. He is a repeat offender. Should he be prosecuted? This is, quite literally the same scenario. What is the right legal course of action?
I personally believe he should not be. If people were to be upset his situation would be handled as an hr violation. If he continued to not listen to hr he would be fired. There is no need for law enforcement in this situation.
My issue is that a lot of people in this thread don't seem to have basic information or an understanding of how law works. Even the EFF's language on their news release making a mountain out of a molehill.
Chances are, the teachers were inadequate at disciplining this kid. The mistake is in the school for not having adequate disciplinary tactics. They are outsourcing their discipline to the police.
But when I look at what the Police are doing specifically, I don't think they are doing anything wrong yet. There is potential for harm of course, but...
"Even though some might say this is just a teenage prank, who knows what this teenager might have done..."
With everyone making fun of that comment, it seems bad form for "Who knows what the prosecutor could do..." be the thesis of an argument.
Charging a kid with a felony has absolutely no effect on the kid's permanent record. That is a fact.
Now if they _actually_ put the felony on his record, that would have been going over the line. But simply using the felony as a scare tactic against this kid is IMO within the bounds of reason. A bit strict yes, as it forces the kid's family to pay for a lawyer to fight it. But overall, its not really that big of a deal.
Fine his parents $100, expel him from regular class for a week and have him do homework in a separate room by himself. Parents will scold him, he has to pay a price that actually registers. (at 14 I'm more concerned with losing 2 weeks of Xbox than a felony legal status I don't fully appreciate). He'll probably not do it again, or maybe he will, who cares, unless he escalates it's fine. That's just kids being dumb, and at age 17 it's not even interesting anymore.
I mean jeez, a felony? Give me a break. Kid changed a freaking wall paper. If he had done that 50 times in a row, you still don't give a felony, that's ridiculous and carries extremely heavy consequences.
I mean, for god's sake, there is a professional apartheid system. You have a felony? You get discriminated, for a job, for access to uni, for access to housing etc etc. It's discrimination, period. Why do we relegate 14 year old's to that position for changing a wallpaper in a prank, even if he did it 10 times?
The only reason this discrimination of people with a felony makes sense, is if we put the label of felony only on people who ought to be discriminated against. i.e. similarly to how if you molest a child, you're labelled a child molester and get discriminated against if you want to work at a school, with few exceptions this is usually a very sensible thing to do. But when we give a label (including the burden of the discrimination affecting people with a felony) to a 14 year old prankster, we can't justify it.
History is full of people who have lived wonderful, moral, lives, who made great contributions to society and went on to be upstanding citizens, who pranked way worse. You really think these people ought to have been given felonies, too?
There's a ton of iterative steps both in punishment and prevention. It usually starts with targeting parents, with council from people a kid looks up to (i.e. not the principal), with luxuries like games being taken away etc. Really I don't get it, changing a wallpaper on a computer is like pulling your kid brothers' hair, it's not something the police has to get involved in. It's a parenting/school type issue, not a criminal one.
If sensitive info was on the computer, sorry but it's not very relevant. 1) Someone do your job, you get paid for security or have security responsibilities that get wasted by a 14 year old. 2) How should the kid know, he didn't even touch or target it. If we start punishing people for what they 'might' have done, oh boy... talk about Orwellian thought crimes, it's beyond ridiculous. We can convict anyone of anything the moment the show the slightest intention to pull a prank.
The police should not be using threats and intimidation to teach kids a lesson.
It doesn't even make any sense, tell the kid you are arresting him to teach him a lesson and then announce to the media that all you are doing is teaching the kid a lesson, don't worry about it.
Will the kid notice in the media that you announced that you were just teaching him a lesson? Probably. Will this undermine the value of said lesson? Probably.
> The police should not be using threats and intimidation to teach kids a lesson.
Those are the only tools the Police have. Ideally, the school shouldn't have stuck the police on the job. This is a failure of the school system as they outsource their disciplinary actions to the Police. (Something I see all too often in schools...)
But as far as police actions are concerned, I'd say this is fair game and rather merciful in the great scheme of things. As noted, the sheriff's detective wasn't expecting the charges to go through pre-trial.
I agree, the police shouldn't have gotten involved.
I think where we differ is that you seem to think that once the police were called, it's a sensible thing for the police to then to say 'oh we're police, we have to respond to every request with action, let's choose a tool, ah here it is, let's use the scariest one we can get away with and then not go through with it, perhaps partially because of public pressure, that should solve it while not screwing over the kid for life'.
Whereas I'd say, it's a sensible thing for the police to say 'Alright so, the kid changed the wallpaper on a computer? Sir, this is not a police matter, I trust the school and parents are equipped to deal with this kid, goodbye'. Or something to that effect.
In general, the police have the power to arrest people. Doing so with the notion that the person is an immediate danger to others or a participant in a crime is not intimidation. So this is a tool that they have that is not based on a threat or based on intimidation.
There is nothing merciful about exercising their power in a situation where it should not be exercised.
Yes, I remember that you are perfectly fine with them planning on intimidating the kid. The intimidation is what I objected to in my first comment in this thread. Anyway, it's fine if we disagree.
And since the officer seems to have already done that last October, and the kid continues to access the computer... What should the officer do then?