Zero Tolerance

Manta: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I learned all that in Drug Dealing 101

Every year I seem to hear more and more about 'zero tolerance.'

For the most part I never really paid much attention, I thought it was just a phrase people used like 'we're fed up and we're just not going to take it anymore.' I really thought it was just some hyperbole people used to emphasize a point they were trying to make.

I don't know if I'm really hearing the phrase more and more, or if I'm just sick of hearing it and so sensitized that I just think I'm hearing it more and more. One day I got so fed up with being annoyed I thought I better find out what the phrase means as see if there really is anything to be annoyed with.

Much to my surprise this is no idle phrase people use as hyperbole, this is a serious point of law in many places. Basically the idea is - that for certain 'crimes' the law prescribes a punishment, and neither the police nor judges can exercise any discretion arresting or sentencing offenders, nor consider any mitigating factors.

I read a news story (still looking for a reference to the actual story) about an incident down in the states. There were these teenage girls on the side of the road flashing their bare titties at motorists driving by. Some sorry dude decides to stop and take a picture with his mobile phone. Little does he know there is a police officer nearby monitoring the situation. So the officer arrests this guy, and the judge slaps him with a 15 year sentence. It turns out neither the officer nor the judge had any choice because that state has a zero tolerance policy on child pornography.

After mulling over the implications of zero tolerance a little more I can't help but wonder if the advocates for zero tolerance have ever read The Lottery. Part of me knows that even if they had read it, they never understood the message.

I don't know if I'm just paranoid or imagining the worst, but isn't zero tolerance just a little bit of a political spectacle - sort of like the gladiators and public hangings?