Tuesday, March 11, 2008

12 Year Olds Arrested For Having Sex at School

Several days ago, police in my town arrested two 12 year olds for having sex at school. The preteens admitted to having sex there on at least three other occasions.

Both students had asked to be excused from class to go to the restroom. After they'd been gone an unusually long time, teachers went to investigate and found them having sex in the boys' bathroom.

Police arrested them for disrupting school and they've both been suspended from school and may also face expulsion.

Oh, please. I can understand the school suspending them; that is an appropriate response for their misbehavior. But expulsion? That goes over the top considering that even horny kids still need an education and that their actions didn't hurt other students in any way.

And to arrest them for "disrupting school"? I fail to see where the disrupting happened if they were able to successfully engage in clandestine sex at least three times with no one being any the wiser and even in the time they got caught, no other students were witnesses or otherwise involved.

Though their actions were inappropriate as to time and place, I don't think they deserve to be saddled with a criminal record simply for being sexually precocious. Back in the day when I was in school, such a matter would have been handled entirely by the school as an internal matter with suspensions and parent-teacher conferences, which I think still would be the most common sense approach.

Your mileage may vary, of course, as I'm sure it will with my more contentious readers.

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