A zero-tolerance policy is one which imposes a punishment for every infraction of a stated rule.zero tolerance, n. (under zero, n.). The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Ed. 1989. Retrieved 10 November 2009. zero tolerance. (n.d.). The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Ed. Retrieved 10 November 2009, Dictionary.com. Zero-tolerance policies forbid people in positions of authority from exercising discretion or changing punishments to fit the circumstances subjectively; they are required to impose a predetermined punishment regardless of individual culpability, extenuating circumstances, or history. This predetermined punishment, whether mild or severe, is always meted out.
Zero-tolerance policies are studied in criminology and are common in both formal and informal policing systems around the world. The policies also appear in informal situations where there may be sexual harassment or Internet misuse in educational and workplace environments. In 2014, the mass incarceration in the United States based upon low-level offenses has resulted in an outcry on the use of zero tolerance in schools and communities.Ben-Moshe, L., Chapman, C. & Carey, A.C. (2014). Disability Incarcerated: Imprisonment and Disability in the United States and Canada. NY, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.Ervelles, N. (2014). Crippin' Jim Crow: Disability, Dis-location, and the School to Prison Pipeline. In: Carey, A., Ben-Moshe, L., & Chapman, C., Disability Incarcerated: Imprisonment and Disability in the United States and Canada. NY, NY: Palgrave MacMillan.
Little evidence supports the claimed effectiveness of zero-tolerance policies.Rowe & Bendersky, 2002 One underlying problem is that there are a great many reasons why people hesitate to intervene, or to report behavior they find to be unacceptable or unlawful. Zero-tolerance policies address, at best, only a few of these reasons.'Dealing with—or Reporting—"Unacceptable" Behavior – with additional thoughts about the Bystander Effect' 2009 Mary Rowe MIT, Linda Wilcox HMS, Howard Gadlin NIH, JIOA, vol 2, no 1, p. 52.
Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the first recorded use of the term "zero tolerance" was in 1972 and was originally used in US politics.
However, the term appears as early as 1939 in reference to plant diseases ("While a zero tolerance may seem a severe penalty ..."), in 1942 in reference to optical equipment ("They cut and polish glass precisely to 'zero tolerance,' ..."), and in 1945 in reference to poultry diseases ("Your safety is in buying chicks hatched from breeders showing zero tolerance."). It also appeared in the mid-1960s, in reference to an absolute ban on the pesticide heptachlor by the US Food and Drug Administration. For example, an article that appeared in the June 1963 issue of Popular Mechanics stated "Heptachlor, though, is even more toxic and has been given a 'zero tolerance' by the FDA; that is, not even the slightest trace of heptachlor is permitted on food."Clifford B. Hicks, "And Was It a Silent Spring?", Popular Mechanics 119 (6), June 1963, p. 87.
History The idea behind zero-tolerance policies can be traced back to the Safe and Clean Neighborhoods Act, which was approved in New Jersey in 1973 and had the same underlying assumptions.Tonello 2007.Wacquant, Loïc 1999.Marshall 1999, p. 2. The ideas behind the 1973 New Jersey policy were later popularized in 1982, when a US cultural magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, published an article by James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling about the broken windows theory of crime.Wilson & Kelling 1982. Their name for the idea comes from the following example:
According to scholars, zero tolerance is the concept of giving carte blanche to the police for the inflexible repression of minor offenses, homeless people, and the disorders associated with them. A well-known criticism to this approach is that it redefines social problems in terms of security,Wacquant, Loïc 1999: "une comparaison méthodique montrerait tout de suite que la prétendue "montée inexorable » des "violences urbaines" est avant tout une thématique politico-médiatique visant à faciliter la redéfinition des problèmes sociaux en termes de sécurité", Eng.: "A comparison would show immediately that the so-called "inexorable rise" of the "urban violence" is first and foremost a political-media theme aimed at facilitating the redefinition of social problems in terms of security$" it considers the poor as criminals, and it reduces crimes to only "street crimes," those committed by lower social classes and excludes white-collar crimes.Wacquant, Loïc 2002.
On the historical examples of the application of zero tolerance kind of policies, nearly all the scientific studies conclude that it failed to play the leading role in the reduction of crimes that is claimed by its advocates. On the other hand, large majorities of people who are living in communities in which zero-tolerance policing has been followed believe that it has actually played a key, leading role in reducing crime in their communities. It has been alleged that in New York City, the decline of the crime rate had started well before Rudy Giuliani came to power in 1993. None of the decreasing processes had any particular inflection under him,Fagan et al. 1998. and during the same period, the decrease in crime was the same in the other major US cities, even those with an opposite security policy. However, the experience of the vast majority of New Yorkers led them to precisely the opposite conclusion and allowed a Republican to win and retain the Mayor's office for the first time in decades, in large part because of the perception that zero-tolerance policing was playing key to the city's improving crime situation. On the other hand, some argue that in 1984-1987, the city had already experienced a policy similar to Giuliani's but instead faced an increase in the crime rate.
Two American specialists, Edward Maguire, a professor at American University, and John Eck from the University of Cincinnati, rigorously evaluated all the scientific work designed to test the effectiveness of the police in the fight against crime. They concluded that "neither the number of policemen engaged in the battle, or internal changes and organizational culture of law enforcement agencies (such as the introduction of community policing) have by themselves any impact on the evolution of offenses."Eck & Maguire 2000. They argue that the crime decrease was caused by not the work of the police and the judiciary but economic and demographic factors: mainly an unprecedented economic growth with jobs for millions of young people and a shift from the use of crack towards other drugs.Bowling 1999.
An alternative argument comes from Kelling and William Bratton, Giuliani's original police chief, who argue that broken windows policing methods contributed to the decrease in crime but they were not a form of zero tolerance:
Sheldon Wein has set out a list of six characteristics of a zero-tolerance policy:, Centre for Research on Reasoning, Argumentation, and Rhetoric (CRRAR) publishing. Full enforcement (all those for whom there is adequate evidence that they have violated the rule are to be identified) Lack of prosecutorial discretion (for every plausibly accused person, it is determined whether the person has in fact violated the policy) Strict constructivist interpretation (no room for narrow interpretation of the rule) Strict liability (no excuses or justifications) Mandatory punishment (not under a mandatory minimum penalty) Harsh punishment (mandatory minimum penalty is considered relatively harsh given the nature of the crime).
Wein sees those points as representing "focal meaning" of the concept. Not all must met literally, but any policy that clearly meets all six of those conditions would definitely be seen as a case of a zero-tolerance policy.
Applications Bullying in the workplace
Various institutions have undertaken zero-tolerance policies such as in the military, in the workplace, and in schools in an effort to propagate the persecution of behavior deemed socially disordered or unacceptable. Proponents hope that such policies will underscore the commitment of administrators to prevent such behavior.
Others raise a concern about that use of zero-tolerance policies, a concern that derives from an analysis of errors of omission and errors of commission. The reasoning is that failure to proscribe unacceptable behavior may lead to errors of omission, and too little will be done. However, zero tolerance may be seen as a kind of ruthless management, which may lead to a perception of "too much being done." If people fear that their co-workers or fellow students may be fired, terminated, or expelled, they may not come forward at all when they see behavior deemed unacceptable. Thus, a too stringent policy may actually reduce reports of illegal behavior."Workplace Justice, Zero Tolerance and Zero Barriers: Getting People to Come Forward in Conflict Management Systems," with Corinne Bendersky, in Negotiations and Change, From the Workplace to Society, Thomas Kochan and Richard Locke (editors), Cornell University Press, 2002.
Narcotics
In the United States, zero tolerance, an approach against drugs, was originally designed as a part of the war on drugs under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush – ostensibly to curb the transfer of drugs at the borders. Law enforcement was to target the drug users, rather than the transporters or suppliers, under the assumption that harsh sentences and strict enforcement of personal use would reduce demand and strike at root cause of the drug problem. The policy did not require additional laws; existing law was instead enacted with less leniency.See zero tolerance in Similar concepts in other countries, such as Sweden,UNODC: Sweden's successful drug policy, 2007 Italy, Japan, Singapore China, India, and Russia have since been labeled zero-tolerance.
A consistence of zero tolerance is the absolute dichotomy between the legality of any use and no use and the equating all illicit drugs and any form of use as undesirable and harmful to society. That contrasts the views of those who stress the disparity in harmfulness among drugs and would like to distinguish between occasional drug use and problem drug use. Although some harm reductionists also see drug use as generally undesirable, they hold that the resources would do more good if they were allocated toward helping problem drug users, instead of combating all drug users.Ming-sum Tsui "The harm reduction approach revisited: An international perspective" International Social Work 2000, vol 43, page 243 For example, research from Switzerland indicates that emphasis on problem drug users "seems to have contributed to the image of heroin as unattractive for young people."