FALSE ALARM OVER YOUTH

Since man invented language, he has used it to protest the moral
bankruptcy of his children's peers. Intergenerational declamation is
one of the great constants of our species, and older types are always
receptive to the urban myth of the generation gone bad.

Unfortunately, it seems this fascination with juvenile delinquency is
now informing our nation's criminal jurisprudence. In a decision
released on Nov. 26, the Supreme Court of Canada held that high school
officials could search a student's locker for drugs without a warrant,
despite the fact that such a practice is "prima facie unreasonable" by
the normal standards of search and seizure set forth in the Canadian
Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

While there are some good policy reasons to support such a judgment,
it is difficult to escape the conclusion that the court was guided as
much by Hard Copy alarmism as by legal precedent. The court refers
cryptically, for instance, to the especially heavy burden placed on
educators due to "current conditions" that were "unimaginable a
generation ago."

But Canadian experts have debunked several times over the idea that
today's teenagers are somehow more pathologically criminalized than
their predecessors. In fact, the Canadian Centre for Justice
Statistics reports youth criminal charges have gone down every year
since 1991.

While there will always be the odd jaw-dropping tabloid cover story of
an adolescent gone berserk, reflex to these horrible oddities should
not be the basis for our public policy.

A recent episode illustrates the disciplinary excesses to which such
alarmism leads. Just one week after the release of the Supreme Court's
decision, 19 Grade 9 students from Kingsville, Ont., were
strip-searched by a physical education instructor and a vice-principal
ostensibly looking for stolen money. Such extreme behaviour is the
logical extension of the so-called "zero-tolerance" doctrine.

The question of search and seizure in a democratic society is always a
difficult one because it represents a classic trade-off between
individual liberty and group security. We only hope our search for a
balance will not be corrupted by the age-old fallacy that every
generation is more debased than the one that precedes it.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady