Is this right, or even legal?

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ToastiestZombie

Don't worry. Be happy!
Mar 21, 2011
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Scarim Coral said:
While the punishment is extreme but it did get the result. (I mean he won't be stealing again?) Overall however this probably wouldn't help him in the long run.
He will be stealing again, he'll just be a bit sneakier next time. He is a messed up kid and all he really needs is a parent who loves him and a counseller he can go to to talk about his problems.
 

EHKOS

Madness to my Methods
Feb 28, 2010
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I feel like putting kids like this down. This is why I condone abortion, because if you're not wanted by your parents, you will have problems. It's setting you up to fail from the start...I got a little off topic, I apologize.
I really think that that is too much. Even though I'm from the US (and I regret being able to say that) that kind of punishment is just too cruel and does not meet the severity of the offense.
 
May 28, 2009
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I forgot a lot of people here believe emotion is for the weak. Of course, he shouldn't have stolen the drink, but damn, you don't gloss over emotional issues by causing more. Sure, twatty kids need discipline, but all that's been said is he stole a £1 drink and has a fucked up family life, and sounds like he's been driven to admitting it openly.

Does he get in fights? Does he bully people? Does he damage property? Maybe, but all I know right now is he stole a drink, and there are already people going "Quite right! Bravo! Shoot all those children! Good thing I never was one!"

Not saying some children don't need a smacked bottom, but this guy sounds more like he needs help than anything else.

lacktheknack said:
I've had to do toilet washing before against my will, and if they give you long gloves, it's not a quarter as bad as it sounds.
Even if the toilets hadn't been as disgusting as the OP has indicated, I'd utterly hate it. I can't stand having to clean up the filth of other people, and really wouldn't be able to do it. Also, the idea that school toilets could actually be clean is alien to me. Where on earth did you go to school?
 

orangeban

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Nov 27, 2009
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It pisses me off this obsession with discipline in schools. I'm of the opinion that punishment doesn't tend to work, it merely makes the offender hate the punisher, which leads to more misbehaviour. Sure, there isn't really any alternative with a kid who is, say, talking back in class and being a general dick, but with a kid like this who has serious and clear troubles then what the kid needs is help, not discipline.

And to give my claim a bit of support, I'll point out that I have indeed been punished for stuff at school. Pretty much the worst "minor" punishment you can get is a punishment essay (with major punishments being a meeting with the teachers and parents, suspension, being expelled, ect.) and I get a bit of a kick outta them actually. I've made a game out of making them as sarcastic and pedantic as possible.
 

Smooth Operator

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Oct 5, 2010
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Forced labor for a minor, I highly doubt it's legal.
Furthermore it's highly immoral, the kid already has a bad social status now you are punishing him with demeaning labor... what the shit is wrong with you people.
So what is normal detention like, cotton fields and a spiked whip?

Yes the kid needs to be punished but this is as wrong as you can possibly make it.
 

ToastiestZombie

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Mar 21, 2011
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The-Epicly-Named-Man said:
Not sure of the legality of the punishment, but the sharing of the information with you, and in turn anyone who visits this thread probably isn't.
Why is that? Im pretty sure that he would of told his mates, and the fact will be open to all the boys in the school since he's doing it in school hours.
 

Trelmayas

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Dec 8, 2009
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Doesn't like water? Give me a break. I certainly feel sorry for him, but he didn't steal out of some dire survival need. He can drink water like me and everyone else. It's actually pretty important to your basic health to drink straight water every day.

As far as the punishment, it's pretty light considering he could have been expelled and/or faced criminal charges. As far as it's legality, the school is perfectly justified in saying "either clean the bathrooms or your expelled". Having to clean bathrooms isn't some cruel torture.

Seriously OP. What would you have the school do? Tell him it's okay to steal and not do anything? Expel him outright? What's your alternative approach?

tl;dr kid needs help, but a little bit of discipline won't hurt either. OP doesn't realize real world outside school is a lot harsher.
 

nohorsetown

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Dec 8, 2007
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The toilet-scrubbing thing seems a bit extreme to me, but I don't know if it's illegal. I suspect it might be. If they want him doing manual labor, there are other options. I doubt he'll contract shit-and-piss-disease, but it's pretty humiliating, and if the other kids are anything like they were in my school, he's never gonna live it down. This may just make things worse for him. Get this fuckup some counseling, stat!

But what really bugs me: Another damn person who won't drink water. I've met quite a few adults like this. There's this one friend I play cards with, and when he drinks alcohol, he goes way overboard. He starts spilling things, knocking things over, repeating himself, puking in his beard.. yeah, it's pretty bad. Of course he suffers from legendary hangovers. Every time I see the warning signs, I offer him some water, but the guy just won't drink the stuff. He'll say something along the lines of "Uh, yeah.. you *do* know I've got a *beer* right here?", totally baffled (and a little insulted) at the concept of drinking boring ol' water. Hangover prevention/mitigation? General health/hydration? Pshaw, not worth it. Water is for the lower animals, or something. Dude is fat and unhealthy and too old to treat his body so badly, but he's not gonna change. My father was the same way: just whiskey or coca-cola or both. He died fat and relatively young.

So yeah, your headmaster is weird, and that kid needs counseling, and EVERYONE DRINK SOME GODDAMN WATER, or I'll rant about it some more.
 

freaper

snuggere mongool
Apr 3, 2010
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SuperiorityComplex said:
Don't leave him standing cleaning toilets half the school day (and essentially missing out on classes as a result), with kids around using said toilets and probably making his job far more difficult as a result.
This. They should've let him come over during the weekends, since his home situation is a wreck anyway. After school counselling could do him some good.
 

crixus

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May 25, 2010
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i think that you should do something to help this person. like you said he needs a counselor. why don't you be that counselor / mentor and try to help him so shit like this doesn't happen again.
 

ToastiestZombie

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Mar 21, 2011
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Trelmayas said:
Doesn't like water? Give me a break. I certainly feel sorry for him, but he didn't steal out of some dire survival need. He can drink water like me and everyone else. It's actually pretty important to your basic health to drink straight water every day.

As far as the punishment, it's pretty light considering he could have been expelled and/or faced criminal charges. As far as it's legality, the school is perfectly justified in saying "either clean the bathrooms or your expelled". Having to clean bathrooms isn't some cruel torture.

Seriously OP. What would you have the school do? Tell him it's okay to steal and not do anything? Expel him outright? What's your alternative approach?

tl;dr kid needs help, but a little bit of discipline won't hurt either. OP doesn't realize real world outside school is a lot harsher.
I know that in the adult world, if you're cleaning toilets you will pretty much always be being payed for it. If you steal say a pen from your office your boss will never punish you by making you clean the toilets. He would sit you down and maybe give you a warning. Still, £1 worth of stuff stolen does not equal 5 hours of work as a punishment.
 

Agayek

Ravenous Gormandizer
Oct 23, 2008
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I would say the punishment is a little excessive in light of the crime, but not by too much.

I would have just picked a bathroom at random and made him clean the one up instead of spending all day doing it.

Other than that, the school handled it properly.
 

ToastiestZombie

Don't worry. Be happy!
Mar 21, 2011
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crixus said:
i think that you should do something to help this person. like you said he needs a counselor. why don't you be that counselor / mentor and try to help him so shit like this doesn't happen again.
Cant really since I dont know him and i've only heard of him from my mum's story. But when this does happen my mum will be taking the incident to the governors and she will maybe get the head and the senior staff member fired.
 

Agayek

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Oct 23, 2008
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ToastiestZombie said:
I know that in the adult world, if you're cleaning toilets you will pretty much always be being payed for it. If you steal say a pen from your office your boss will never punish you by making you clean the toilets. He would sit you down and maybe give you a warning. Still, £1 worth of stuff stolen does not equal 5 hours of work as a punishment.
Actually, depending on your attitude about it, your boss would be well within their rights to fire your ass on the spot. It doesn't usually happen because a couple dollars in office supplies does not make up for having to train and integrate a new employee, but if you're a dick about it it's not unlikely you wouldn't have a job afterwards.
 

Dr Snakeman

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Apr 2, 2010
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I have no idea about legality. Not really that familiar with British law.

Ethically? It's... tricky. This kid needed some form of disciplinary action, but I'm thinking that what he got was too much.

This form of punishment just doesn't seem to have the constructive value that discipline should have. It doesn't seem like he was talked to about it, and I don't think he learned much.

I guess I'm just saying that I don't see much rehabilitative quality to it. They could have handled the situation differently.
 

SuperiorityComplex

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Aug 15, 2011
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Good. If it takes a wakeup call like this to realise that somebody in that school screwed something up, then by all means, do it.

You and I, we don't know this kid. We have details in front of us and it's all we have to go on. We haven't been told the kid is an argumentative destructive piece of shit. We've been told he's had a hard life and can be difficult as a result.

Kids can be difficult in numerous different ways. It was a £1 soda. Phone home, tell his guardians, remind him it needs to be replaced. But essentially force the manual labour on him for something that wasn't actually destructive in the technical terms of the word? No.

A kid is a kid. This kid, he's had a shit life (by the sounds of it), he's got a lot to cope with, he's probably stressed to the eyeballs, and ultimately he wanted a soda, so he took it. You realise you don't get jailed in the UK, or at least where I live in the UK, for a first offence, especially if that offence is shoplifting? A caution, certainly. But not locked up, even just for a couple of days.

It strikes me that those saying this boy deserved what he got, also sound very akin to those saying disabled people deserve what they get, and you get forward by working whether you're able to or not. No, I'm not saying that you say those things, but ultimately, the world isn't so black and white as you may perceive it to be.

This isn't necessarily confidential information, either. We have no names, no name of the school, nothing. We're simply told a story that unless the OP had told us had come from his mother, could've easily come from the OP himself having seen it happen, or a friend in the same school.
 

mjc0961

YOU'RE a pie chart.
Nov 30, 2009
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ToastiestZombie said:
he really does not like water (the only free drink we have). Those are some pretty good reasons
No, that's a piss poor, spoiled brat reason. He's thirsty? Free water, problem solved. If he instead chooses to steal simply because he doesn't like water? I don't care how tough his life has been, there's no excuse for that. If there was nothing else to drink then okay, let it slide, but since he turned down free water just because he doesn't like it and instead chose to steal even though it was not necessary, then he needs to be punished. Whether or not making him clean toilets is fair punishment, I don't know. But they damn well need to do something, that kid does not deserve to get a free ride on this.

SuperiorityComplex said:
It strikes me that those saying this boy deserved what he got, also sound very akin to those saying disabled people deserve what they get
I love it when people completely miss the point and throw out these completely irrelevant comparisons. We aren't talking about a disabled person having it hard because they're disabled, we're talking about a kid who passed up free water and instead stole a drink because "I don't like water".

ToastiestZombie said:
He will be stealing again, he'll just be a bit sneakier next time.
Then he needs stricter punishment. Maybe he should clean more toilets. Maybe just expel him. Don't really care. All I know is that having a rough time at home doesn't give you the excuse to steal stuff just because you don't like water.
 

Nackl of Gilmed

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Sep 13, 2010
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jawakiller said:
Water: it's fucking delicious.

If he had stolen water I would have been cool with that. If he had stolen some food because he was hungry, I could sympathize. But the reason he stole a can of soda was retarded. That's like me stealing a steak because I don't like McDonalds. I don't like the food here at the homeless shelter (which is free) so I think I'll go steal some cake. That's the logic.
I think this is a little off. Working with limited information, of course, but it sounds like the kid's life has gone seriously downhill and he wanted a bit of pleasure. To use your analogy, it was probably more like stealing a steak because you don't like the tasteless gruel you're forced to live on every day. People need some pleasure, and a child (I'm assuming too young to get a job, but I suppose I don't know for sure) in that kind of situation isn't going to have a lot of legal options. That's not to say he should be let off entirely, but I think the school may have been in the wrong to react as if he needs to be taught as harsh a lesson as possible.