Zero Sense

[stickmaker]

 

Bureaucracies love "Zero Tolerance." It means they don't have to think about anything; just treat everyone the same. 

The problem is that everyone is different. Human beings are supposed to use their judgement to treat each person - and each family - as the unique situation they are. 

As has been proven repeatedly and consistently, "Zero Tolerance" makes zero sense. 

Comments

[kengr]

Oh no, it's far more insidious than that.

A "zero tolerance" policy means they don't have to worry about people coming back at them for letting somebody off who later turns out to be a big problem.

as an example the sex offender lists these days pretty much mean that they won't have someone coming back at them for "why did you let this *obviously* dangerous person loose without warning people". Of course, 9 times out of 10 it's only "obvious" in hindsight.

By setting up policies that remove the use of judgement, they can't be blamed for bad judgement.

The fact that this results in a lot of people getting slammed with things they don't actually deserve isn't as important as insulating the people carrying out the policy from any chance of blame.

It even has a built in defense for when they come down hard on someone who doesn't deserve it. "It's policy, I didn't have a choice."

Note that this sort of thing goes back a lot longer than you might think, though not by that name.

Back in the late 60s I suffered an unprovoked attack by a bully. He sprayed me with a (stolen) tear gas pen. In front of a witness.

I went back to school and complained to a counselor.

Result? We *both* got suspended for several days. He also got into trouble for having the tear gas pen.

If I knew then, what I know now, I'd have gone the my friend's (the witness) place and called the cops. And left the school out of it.