The Criminalization of Adolescence

Mistermix on inducting America's teenagers into the Bush-Obama surveillance state:

While children are learning to tolerate more surveillance, I don’t think that our current society is set up for kids to be completely dutiful. The drinking age is now 21 everywhere, smoking pot is still more-or-less illegal, and the downloading of media (music or movies) can come with bigger fines than smoking a joint. Teenagers still engage in all of these activities, and in order to do so, they’re sneaking around. There may be more surveillance, but the need to evade it is as strong as ever, and I have faith that the desire to smoke a joint, drink a beer or download a pirated movie will trump whatever indoctrination occurs in the schools.

Just to be clear: I think the increasing criminalization of adolescence is outrageous – I’m just observing how things are, not how I wish they were.

Teenagers going to methods of communication outside phone calls these days -- and putting a premium on privacy in those communications -- is pretty normal.  Unfortunately we're treating kids like potential terrorists for their efforts.

The increasing use of student surveillance and intrusion of school districts into students’ extra-curricular conduct should alarm us all.   Whether it is a district surveilling students in their bedrooms via webcam, conducting random drug or locker searches, strip-searching students, lowering the standard for searching students to “reasonable suspicion” from “probable cause,” disciplining students for conduct outside of school hours, searching their cellphones and text messages, or allegedly forcing them to undergo pregnancy testing, student privacy is under increasing threat.

The other day I mentioned a Connecticut school district that wanted to require students to carry an ID card with an RFID chip so that they could track their location. The surveillance capability included locating the student if they were off school premises and in town. Today, I came across another news story from earlier this month that also involves tracking students. KTVU in California reported that the Contra Costa County School District began introducing a tracking system for preschool students that would alert staff when a student leaves school premises. In order to accomplish that, students will reportedly be required to wear a jersey that contains the RFID tag that uses Wi-Fi to send signals to sensors located throughout the school.

Yes, this is going on in America's schools today, now.  Anyone born after, say, Bill Clinton took office has basically always lived in a world with no expectation of privacy and always been under watch by someone electronically because of 9/11.

They expect it now.  That's how the world works because to them that's how it always has been.