Crime and Consequences

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A little discretion can go a long way
By Walter M. Reaves Jr. | Monday, February 16, 2009, 10:36 AM

A truly bizarre incident occurred in a Northern Idaho elementary school: An 8 year old girl was arrested for assault. The girl suffers from Aspergers syndrone, a rare form of autism. Asperger’s is characterized by a mere inability (without intense training) to understand group dynamics, social rules, and an inability to distinguish physical contact that is appropriate from that which is not.

So what did she do to warrant arrest? She refused to refuse a cow hoodie she was wearing before going to a class social function. I realize teachers face special problems in dealing with children, especially those with disabilities, but calling the police seems a little drastic. What is truly bizarre about this incident is that several supposedly rational adults decided that arresting this young girl was the right thing to do. I can’t imagine what the principal or the officer were thinking when they decided to haul her off in a police car. Fortunately the prosecutor had some common sense and immediately refused the case.

Every day police have to use their discretion; not everybody needs to be arrested, and most officers recognize this. As with most stories, only the really bad decisions get reported. I guess the benefit to stories like this is that it reminds us all that there is usually reason why people do things, and those reasons should be considered before we take action.

Unless that eight-year-old girl was a freakish 6"1' and weighed 200 lbs, I'd say the police really effed up. Unless that eight-year-old girl was in fact a thirty-two year old man with a gun in the waistband of his pants, they really effed up. That is beyond overreacting. That is just incompetence. Usually I am on the side of the law, but not this time. With stories like this, I always get that nagging feeling that what I've read was not the whole story.

Since when do eight-year olds get arrested?

I tend to agree, does this really happen, am I being naive I know I can be, and we all know what the media is like often print story to attract rather than show us in a good light... anyway here the full link, I like to think this sort of thing does not happen, but unfortunatelly probably wrong as in some society some people are beyond belief!

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?secti ... id=6603633

The law is effed up.

It's not perfect because politicians & lawmakers aren't perfect.

In the article it said she was arrested for assault. If she did that in 1994, that would not have happened. Back then schools weren't calling the police when kids get violent. Instead they restrained the child and took him/her to the Principal's office and called home and informed the parents about the incident. But I still think the whole thing was caused by her refusing to tuck in the tail and taking down the ears because that's what started the whole mess. I still think it's all un autism related because I have seen NT kids refusing to take orders too when I was a kid because the rules were dumb such as "no hats on in class" Then they complain about having their hats taken or their stuff because they were messing with them in class and the teacher had told them to put them away, take the hat off.
One of my online friends also told me lot of kids fight back when a teacher grabs them so that would also be un autism related.

In 1991, a boy in my class got upset with our teachers so he threw chairs and he was taken to the Principal's office for the rest of the day, if that happened today, no doubt the school would call the police and arrest the boy. Sometimes he would attack the teachers by hitting them and he get sent to the office for it. If he did that today, they would probably would have called the police.


When I have kids, I sure have something to teach my child and tell my child about the consequences of his or her actions if they do X. As long as I teach my child about authorities and how to follow rules and listen to the grown ups, my child shouldn't have a problem in the future. Now my child will be seeing other kids getting busted in school with the police and I'd be telling my child, they were never taught to listen and obey because they were never given a consequence so my child is smarter than them.

I thought the same until had children, a misunderstood frustrated child, often can not help or understand there own actions at times, yes if a child is that out of control they must be hurting, but not necessarily the child's thought or the parents, the times I have been judged so wrongly and as a parent from ignorance of others..... its really not that simply and feel unless you have had your own neurologically different minded children, or any children its near impossible to know, thought I did until had my own children...

The issue is that today, we now have what are called "Zero-Tolerance Policies". I like to call them "Zero-Intelligence Policies" because they take the discretion out of any decision at the school level. Most school level employees like it however because they do not have to think at all and if anyone complains, all they have to say is "It is policy that we do that in this situation."

What the school system does not realize is that they are potentially setting these children up to automatically fail when they get older due to these instances. I know a case where an 11 year old kick a liason officer who tried to grab him because the principal felt that he had been in a time-out setting "long enough" The IEP said that the child was not to be touched for any reason but the officer grabbed the child by the neck and boom. The officer actually pressed charges and the DA went through with it causing the child to plea guilty to some sort of misdamenor assault charge. Since the child plead guilty, there is now a record.

The child is now 16 and his mother is talking to an organization that has independent living homes for those with developmental disabilities. Apparently in her search, she heard of a case where a person was denied an apartment because of an assault incident when the person denied was 15. The mother of the first child is now talking to the lawyer who took the case to see if this can be removed before it can cause her son trouble.

Again, I think the problem is that school systems wants its lower level employees to be automatons who follow directions without thinking about why they are doing something or the consequences of the student they are applying the policy to.

Zero-tolerance is needed for more serious offences. Gunplay or the threat of gunplay (esp. in American schools). Threats of death/violence, drug-trafficking, etc.

I agree, and asd children need more understanding...

I wonder what changed in our system to make schools do this? I wonder if it was because too many parents don't do their jobs because they don't teach their kids to listen and follow orders and teach them about authorities? Now it's a wake up call to all parents out there and upcoming ones about better start teaching your kids, better start doing your job. I mean no parent wants their kid to get arrested and have it go on their record for something they did when they were young so what are the parents going to do about it? "Uh oh, I better start teaching my kids to show respect, listen, follow the rules, etc."


My brother did something stupid when he was about 16 because his friends were doing something stupid in the back seat of the truck while he was driving and the police officer wanted to put it on his record and my mom told him "absolutely not." I mother talked to him about his behavior and told him it was wrong, she did her job. She didn't let him get away with it and think "oh he's just a kid, who cares if his friends did this and he let them." If they actually put it on his record, my parents probably would have gone to court for it and fight it.

ASD or not, we cannot have people blatantly breaking the rules. Especially when that involves doing something violent or dangerous.

I tend to agree, but also know how near impossible it is for some of these children and as a community maybe we need to speak up for them, as until a HUGE amount of awareness, the ignorance will continue from many in regards to being on the autism spectrum, especially those more complex cases, which in turn leads to frustration and anger.. many of these children are suffering internally, the long term effects on society yes is horrendous. But the more we all do to help instead of judging without knowing all the facts the better society will be in general.

Until we all teach children about diversity and difference from a very young age, and all adults are an example I feel there will continue to be many young lost angry individuals out their! no easier answer!

I agree with your ideas and your heart is in the right place as far as I'm concerned, but my concern is that leniency with AS/autism kids would create two sets of behaviour standards-- one for the non-autistic kids and another for the autistic kids. Once the neurotypical kids discover this double-standard, they'll raise hell.

I'm talking about the most blatant behaviour-code violations.

I agree. There is one law and it applies to all of us. There are no exceptions. For the truly insane instead of the usual punishment we lock them in asylums.

ruveyn

A misunderstood difference does not make someone mentally ill, and to call someone insane for being frustrated with their circumstances, misunderstood is beyond belief to me. With that attitude I feel is rather out of date! and thought gone with institutionalizing what we do not understand, many adults from my generation had wrongly been institutionalized. It makes me anger and sad to think that people still think this way... and I can see why so many children get treated unfairly, yes one law applies to us all, but until a HUGH amount of real awareness and understanding, acceptance in this world, many will continue to be treated wrongly and unfairly

Punishing autism in the elementary school - 17 Feb.09
Late last week there were two news items that ran in Florida concerning autism in public schools that continue to spotlight the enormous effort still needed in working with children living with this condition. In one case, a child was arrested; in the other case, a lawsuit settled.

The first case concerned Ian Hawk, a ten-year-old student at Gulf Elementary in Lee County. After starting to cut some of his shirt with scissors in a class and being told to stop, he threw the scissors down, ran from the class room and locked himself in the principal’s office. When the principal and another teach came to try to get him he kicked and punched at the teacher then threw himself down in a tantrum. The police were called in and the ten-year old boy was arrested and taken to the Juvenile Assessment Center...mug shot, detained and all.

When did it become acceptable to arrest elementary age children, particularly those with special needs? Where was the school psychologist in this mix? How did something like this happen? When schools are not adequately staffed, when the staff is not adequately trained, and when that training is not supported by administrators and parents alike, our public education process and educating those who require extra help fails. Case in point:

The legal settlement for Morningside Elementary in Port St. Lucie came a year after kindergarten teacher Wendy Portillo – is an unconscionable class spectacle – asked her class whether Alex Barton, one of her then students later diagnosed with Asperger’s, should be allowed to stay in the class with everyone else or be “voted out.” This episode sparked considerable public outrage in Palm Beach County; the teacher was suspended and the school has – a year later – agreed to settle by spending up to $100,000 for a consultant to develop training in a broad scale. The settlement says that such training "shall include all principals, assistant principals, teachers (general and special education), student support services staff, paraprofessionals, disciplinarians, other school administrators, and other educational service providers working at all schools in the district and shall also include school resource officers, bus drivers and cafeteria workers."

How this plays out will remain to be seen, but any program developed for Morningside Elementary (or any school for that matter) needs to be reinforced and supported over time. No teacher can spontaneously be expected to “know” how to handle a child with autism having a tantrum or any special need; like all teaching strategies these need to be developed, taught and refined and modified to strengthen the opportunities for the children within the school and the teachers’ breadth of educational skills.

Brian Field is the co-founder of the Autism Support Network