WHEN ZERO TOLERANCE STARTS TO REPLACE UNDERSTANDING

Perspective

This writer and Jenna and Barbara Bush, the twin daughters of President
George W. Bush, have a common problem, namely the purchase of alcoholic
beverages in the great state of Texas. The twins crossed the news threshold
in embarrassing fashion this week when Jenna, 19, allegedly attempted to
use someone else's ID card in order to obtain a drink in a fashionable
watering-hole in Austin, the state capital. Barbara had meanwhile somehow
managed to get served, and she was cited for possession of alcohol by a minor.

It is an offence to consume or to attempt to buy alcohol in Texas under the
legal drinking age of 21. Let's get this straight; a 19-year-old student
attempts to get a margarita and a police squad car is called to the scene.
I can appreciate the predicament of Bush's twin daughters, because I also
had to prove my age in order to be served a drink in Texas. The police were
not alerted, as I am 48 years young.

I guess it must be fully a quarter of a century since I was last asked for
my papers in this way. However, in the popular panoramic restaurant in
Dallas there is a standing order that everyone should prove their age, and
that means everyone.

This is everyday zero tolerance in action.

Rules are not to be applied or interpreted on a case-by-case basis.

They are to be read by the numbers, just as they are. Zero tolerance became
an international topic when it was introduced into the United States'
criminal justice system.

It was zero tolerance that cleaned up the streets and subways of New York
City, and it was zero tolerance that filled U.S. prisons and
penitentiaries. Even the smallest felony can carry a jail sentence, there
is no room for mitigating circumstances, and repeat offenders will never
get out from behind bars.

Social scientists have debated whether there is any sense in a system that
has put thousands of young first offenders on drug possession charges into
prison, where they are then only schooled in further crimes. Zero tolerance
in the legal context is a perfectly straightforward concept in the sense
that it always places the rights of the victim and society before those of
the defendant.

The guilty will be punished without mercy. End of story. The way in which
zero tolerance has trickled down into other areas of everyday American life
has a more abstruse and difficult logic.

It seeks to provide simple solutions for a complicated society.

Rules come to replace commonsense understanding.

For a start, things are to be explained in such a way that everyone can be
sure to know what is going on. In Washington D.C. there is a building site
not far from Congress that is surrounded by a long fence. Signs have been
placed on this structure at regular intervals, bearing the words "Long
Fence". A couple of weeks ago there were a lot of walkers in downtown
Washington, taking part in a sponsored event for charity.

Along the walking route there were signs bearing the words "Many People
Walking". We've seen this sort of thing in Europe, too. In Stockholm, for
instance, at the bottom end of a down escalator there might be a sign
saying "Ej Upp!", to remind users that it does not go up. Sweden is often
ridiculed in the U.S. for the way in which people are molly-coddled by the
welfare state, but the Swedish model works from a subtly different premise.

One reason for the way in which the totally, blindingly obvious is
announced in the U.S. with such earnest diligence is the power of the legal
profession. Hot coffee is labelled "Hot Coffee" in order that nobody will
get sued - as did McDonalds a while back - for serving hot coffee. Aside
from this, notices are a habit; the USA is after all a veritable fount of
semi-meaningless set phrases. What is most important, however, is that
people who do not communicate well one with another should be able to
function together, when the rules are kept simple and absolute. This helps
the millions of immigrants. It helps those people emerging from the
dreadful schools in the poor inner city areas of the United States to
manage in the sort of jobs that their education would not otherwise prepare
them for.

But what happens when zero tolerance is used as a replacement for thought
and for the use of healthy common sense? Then we have a situation such as
that in which a Florida schoolgirl will not be able to graduate from high
school and will lose her university scholarship, because a bread-knife was
found in her car. The bread-knife had been forgotten there in the course of
moving house, but the rules state that this was in fact a concealed weapon,
and as a result the young lady's life changed in an instant.

That's zero tolerance. Oh, and by the way, that ID paper I flashed in the
Texas restaurant, it doesn't have my date of birth on it. So sue me.