This past Wednesday a 13 year old boy was dared by some friends to kiss a 14 year old girl at Pikesville Middle School in Pikesville, Maryland. He did it. No one was hurt. School officials called the police anyway. The police responded to the scene of the theft and proceeded to charge the young man with 2nd degree assault.
Yes, you read that correctly. Second degree assault for stealing a kiss.
Since when did it become illegal to be a stupid teenager and do stupid teenager things?
I mean, what do I know? I’m Just A Mom. I don’t know anything about raising kids, right? Certainly, as Just A Mom I don’t know as much about raising teens as the police. Is this an intervention? Is stealing a kiss a gateway crime to bigger and worse crimes in the future? Are they pressing the 2nd degree assault charges to teach him a lesson? What lesson would that be? That it is unacceptable to be a normal teenage boy?
Yes, stealing the kiss wasn’t the brightest thing in the world to do. There should be some ramification suffered for violating the young lady’s space. But 2nd degree assault charges? There were so many other avenues open to discipline the young man and teach him a more valuable lesson than he will learn from being dragged through our criminal justice system for the simple crime of being a stupid teenage boy.
He could have received detention.
He could have been instructed to write a letter of apology and read it to the girl in the principal’s office, in front of both sets of parents.
He could have been suspended from school for a day or two.
He could have been assigned a research paper on any number of subjects that would teach him a much better lesson about why accepting the dare was wrong.
The school may opt to administer disciplinary actions also, in addition to the formal 2nd degree assault charges.
So many other options were available, but none used. Why? Zero tolerance. That’s why. As school budgets have been sliced and districts have made personnel cuts – the school counselors and resource officers were among the first sacrifices. That left routine discipline in the hands of teachers and administrators. Not having time to deal with troublesome teens, the schools developed the habit of calling the police. Police arrest people. That’s what they do.
And people wonder why citizens think we have developed a school to prison pipeline? Because we have.
But I’m Just A Mom – what do I know?
I know that this is totally cray cray.
Middle school boys dare each other to do things all the time. Sometimes they dare each other to eat worms. Sometimes they dare each other to leave a tack on the teacher’s chair. Sometimes they dare each other talk to a girl, or even sneak a kiss.
Kids at that age are impulsive.
Kids that age are dumb.
Now this poor kid will have a 2nd degree assault charge on his juvenile police record forever. What purpose does that serve? There was a time when situations like this were handled with a phone call to the parents. The school would administer discipline, the parents would be notified, and the kid would usually suffer a grounding, extra chores, or other discipline at home. But now? I guess it’s just easier to call the police and let them deal with non-criminal disciplinary problems in our understaffed schools.
Why don’t more people see the problem with this and the harm it is causing our society?
