Of Girls and Crime and Desks

Okay, here are the quick facts as reported by WCBS, (New York’s CBS affiliate): Thirteen-year-old Chelsea Fraser was sitting in class at Dyker Heights Intermediate School in Brooklyn, and she was having bad day. Her teacher had just accused her of being one of a group of kids who’d plastered stickers around the classroom—although Chelsea repeatedly insisted she hadn’t done it, that she wasn’t that kind of person. And indeed, Chelsea appears not to have a previous record for misbehavior. On her last report card in the section marked conduct, reports WCBS, Fraser earned all “satisfactory” grades and one “excellent.”

Later, as Chelsea was brooding about what she regarded as a grievous injustice, the girl picked up her pen and wrote a single word on her desktop: OKAY.

That was it. Now, certainly we can’t have kids wantonly defacing desks. Some kind of consequence was called for. After school detention, perhaps. Or an extra school assignment. Or a day’s suspension from classes. You know, something proportionate to her action.

So, what did the Dyker Heights principal choose to do when confronted with the first-time desk writing outlaw? She called the police. In short order, four officers arrived, handcuffed Chelsea, placed her under arrest then, as her classmates gawked in astonishment, frog marched her out to the waiting squad car (along with the three boys accused of the stickering) and whisked her to the 68th Precinct station house where she was charged with “criminal mischief and the making of graffiti.”

Righteo. Thirteen-year-old criminal, Chelsea.

When I hear of incidents like this one, I always want to grab the grown-ups involved and ask them a simple question: What exactly did you hope to accomplish here? Clearly, you intended to discourage other would-be desk writers. But what larger lesson do you hope Chelsea (and her classmates, while we’re at it) will take away from this experience?—I mean, other than the obvious: Don’t write on desks.

I admit the story of Chelsea’s arrest may seem trivial in the greater scheme of things-–what with our government itching to attack Iran, and yesterday’s UN panel on global warming predicting a Mad Max-level apocalypse (albeit a watered-down version since China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia evidently felt that a full-out apocalyptic prediction was in bad taste). But, Chelsea’s frog march is emblematic of a decade-and-a-half-long slide into criminalizing our children—a trend that’s proved as ineffective as it is immoral.

Anyway. As of yesterday, Friday, the New York ACLU has gotten into the mix. Somebody has to, I guess. Although I admit the thought makes me tired.

For my money, it would have been preferable if, instead, all the adults at Dyker Heights had simply behaved like adults. Or better yet, like good parents. Discipline the kid, yes, absolutely. Without discipline we have chaos. Heck, without discipline—as every study on the subject in the last 20 years has shown—kids feel unloved.

But do it as if this girl mattered to you, as if she was of value.

Of more value, at least, than a damned desk.