25.

All it takes is a few nightly news stories showing young bodies being wheeled out of
schools on gurneys to convince the world that violence in our schools is increasing.
Certainly, it is shocking when a couple of adolescents open fire in a school with
semiautomatic weapons. It is shocking when a sixteen-year-old in Pearl, Mississippi, stabs
his mother to death and then shoots two classmates to death and wounds several others.
When adolescents are depicted on the evening news, it is often in the context of violence,
particularly at schools.
In fact, according to the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics and the
Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, crime in the nation's
schools has been decreasing since 1993. Victimization rates at schools have dropped from
48 crimes per 1,000 students to 43 crimes per 1,000 students. The fact is, only one-half of 1
percent of juveniles are arrested for violent crime in any given year today. School shootings
are still extremely rare; they are not on the increase. In the 1992-1993 school year, there
were fifty-five school-associated violent deaths. In the 2001-2002 school year, there were
only four.
Indeed, adolescents are not really killing other adolescents at an increasing rate. They rarely
kill one another. Less than 3 percent of homicides in the United States involve an individual
under the age of eighteen killing another person under eighteen.
Nevertheless, Americans believe that juveniles are responsible for 43 percent of all
homicides. In fact, they are responsible for only 9 percent. The Wall Street Journal took a
poll a few years ago. Seventy-one percent of respondents believed that a killing was likely
in their schools. In reality, the chances of that happening are one in a million.
Perhaps as a result of a misguided perception about school violence, we are in an era of
zero tolerance. Authorities seize not only weapons and illegal drugs at school, but also nail
clippers, asthma inhalers, and headgear. Even though less than 1 percent of all violent
incidents involving teen-agers occur on school grounds, authorities believe that zero
tolerance is necessary. As a consequence, a large number of innocent schoolchildren are
being accused of violating the rules. Sometimes, accusations border on the bizarre. In one
case, a six-year-old was apprehended for bringing a "weapon" to school. The weapon was a
plastic knife given to him by his grandmother so that he could spread peanut butter on his
sandwich.
26. he Bill of Rights is really a list of promises by the government to the people. There is
no similar list of constitutional obligations of the people to the government. Nevertheless,
for a democracy to work, citizens must be willing to participate in the political process.
When Americans work for a better environment, support political candidates, or speak out
or organize on public issues, whether they dissent from established policy or support it,
they are participating in the democratic process. Their opinions and actions are inputs to the
political system. Freedom to dissent is an important aspect of democracy. In fact, it may be
argued that one of the most important responsibilities Americans have is to exercise the
rights protected by the Constitution, including those of free speech and dissent.
Voting in elections, participating in political party activity and community programs,
forming and expressing political opinions, either singly or through groups—all are
necessary to the workings of a healthy political system.
Many Americans, however, lament that the system is not responsive enough to their
interests. They complain that politicians are only interested in getting reelected and lining
their own pockets. Often, they are right. But sometimes those who feel this way fail to take
as simple a step as registering to vote. Frequently it does seem that the political system is
slow to respond to pressures for change, and that ordinary citizens have no way to express
themselves to influence political leaders. Yet, at times, individual citizens have shown that
it is not only possible to "fight City Hall" but, occasionally, to win.