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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 30, 1994)
EDITORIAL Paddling for tagging is not the way to go In (hat child a delinquent? Unruly, always "tagging" public property with graffiti? Never fear, the California State Assem bly Public Safety Committee has approved a hill allowing juve nile court judges to issue parents of the adolescent vandals this command: whack the little bugger 10 times with a wooden paddle. Do it right here, in the courtroom. The landmark bill, which still must survive another com mittee hearing and an Assembly floor vote, would, if enacted, institute court-ordered corporal punishment for the first time in more than 40 years. This is not the way to deter crime. It may have worked to deter Michael Fay, the spray-paint wielding American ado lescent who got coned in Singapore for his deeds of vandalism. But that was Singapore, where they have caned vandals all the time without a munnur from the United States until an Amer ican boy received the punishment. Rather, the proposed measure is a way for the state to control Cirenting. For a young person, a parent's advice and then the w provide the most powerful deterrents against wrongdoing. For example, a parent tells a child not to spray paint cars or else they will be grounded. To reinforce how wrong the act is. the state will enact a law punishing juveniles who spray paint cars. The threat of spanking is a deterrent reserved for two to three year olds in a family setting. The state has no business autho rizing that a child be spanked. Furthermore, they have loss business authorizing that a parent spank their own child in a courtroom. Threatening a naughty child with some swift swat* works as a deterrent because the act of spanking is one that humiliates the child. The judge-sanctioned swatting proposed in Califor nia works upon the humiliation principle as well. In fact, the hill requires that the names of juvenile offenders who get juid died be made public — a tactic used to humiliate the offender and deter other would-be taggers. This punishment is not aimed at two and three- year-olds. It is aimed at teen-agers, many of whom presumably have been subjected to worse acts of violence than a spank with a wood en paddle. This bill seems to say that the Assembly of Cali fornia makes no distinction between the intellects of three and 13-year-olds, and that they deserve the same punishments. This hill is not geared toward making a child understand that there are other outlets for fun besides spray painting black let ters on public property. Like a throe year old who gets hit. the adolescent will not understand why his act was wrong, hut only that he has done something Iwtd. The proposed legislation, which was not inspired by any court case but by an Assembly member who admired the out come of the Fay case, is not going to stop kids from tagging. Ordering a parent to whack their child with a paddle of spec ified size (throe-fourths inch thick. IB inches long and 6 inch es wide with a 6-inch handle) while a judge looks on to deter mine whether the paddling is "satisfactory" is only going to create an unfavorable situation. The child will probably Iks angrv and humiliated (and per haps inclined to retaliate with another act of violence), the par ent will 1m* a instrument, instructed by the stale on how to pun ish the child and the judge will have too much power in telling the parent to whack harder or more times. In order to deter a crime, a balance must bo struck between telling a would-be offender what will happen if the crime is committed, tolling him how his criminal actions will affect society and tolling him what options are available for him besides crime. Why not enact a punishment that puts something back into the community and make the adolescent offender scrub graf fiti-covered walls for a few hundred hours? Some may argue that if that worked, it would have been tried already and would still bo happening. Well, whacking the offender will not make him understand the consequences of his actions any better. If the vandalizing teen-ager doesn't realize the consequences of his actions after hours of scrubbing and repainting walls, at least the state has a clean wall and not someone else’s sore behind to show for it. Oregon Daily PQ PO*JiVr fuCtNl OREGON ».’40J The Oregon Omiy Emerald >* pubfeshed cta^y Monday through f nd*y dunog the school y«»r and T uetday and Thursday during me by the Oregon Daily EntriM PubAshmn Co Inc . at the University ol Dragon, E ugene Oregon Tna Emerald operates >r*deper*lentty oi th# University with oftcet at Su«e 300 of iha f rb Memorial l*>on and n a member ot the Associated Press The l mar aid «a private property The unlawful removal or use o» papers >.% prosecutable by tew Editor Ktfy Soto Associate Editors: Meg Dedolph. I* Safccoa. Deed Thom Photo Editor Mchaei Sh»nc*er Night Editor: Kaly Soto Oenerai Manager Judy R<ecS Advertising Director Mu * Waiter Production Manager M Nws Rota Advertising Bn an Davis. Sutw Dutta. Tony To* Je*t Manon Michae M*i«tte Classified Bec*y Merchant. Manager Business: Kafhy Carbone Sup#rv»so/ Production Dee McCot*. Production Qx*&ri*tot Tara Gauttney. Jennifer Roland Hwvrtfoom Butin«M OfltC*. 146-5511 146-5512 Dt»pJ«y Actv*ftl*ing.546-3712 Adv#rtl*mg . 546-4543 I «lAi. A»>, • wMXM BO'^S Mf rOKfAtTHCARE - G J COMMENTARY Growing up is hard these days Summer brings many things vegetables, trips to the beach, suntans and class reunions This year marks the tenth anniversary of my gradua tion from high school I got my invitation to the class reunion a little while ago and it started me thinking about what it was like growing up and being a teen ager So much has changed since l‘>H4 Kids today have it harder. They're faced with increased pressures surrounding their future The |ob market is inse cure Life as a kid is tougher. Besides the pressure to wear out rageously expensive clothing, life itself is more unsettled Nothing is as it was When I was in high school, the cliques were defined as the prep py-smart kids, the losers and the non-conformists. Unless kids came from back grounds where they experienced abuse at home, basically every one was going to go on to college after graduation Today teens and adults have become more divided. One gen eration has no idea what the next is doing or what they want What are adults over HO afraid that teens are going to do7 Just because a kid expresses his or her anger doesn't moan he or she is going to lash out at strangers on a street comer. Adolescent* coming up in our society are not alone in their feel ings of anger. Even hack in 19H4. the world was changing in dra matic ways. Teens today are living with social problems that, in the past, have been exclusively thought of as "adult in nature.” Kids don't have much of a childhood any more. The anger manifested by teen agers isn't directed into con structive venues. Kids don't have any place to vent their pent-up emotions and they don't get the attention they need to learn about their choices. Teen pregnancy and drugs become alternatives because they feel good — not because teens are aware of the outcome of their actions. As\f Moser Kornkfjj) Kids have figured out how to gain access to illegal drugs and alcohol. Teen pregnancy is per vasive Denying that this access exists, or believing it exists among only the had kids, shows how little responsibility we, ns a society, want to share for our future. Some young teen-age mothers are tomorrow's leaders. When those leaders are, as the Vine Mender characterized them, “disaed and totally pissed." what will their response lie toward the elderly 20. 30 or 40 years from now? Given the opportunity to give back to sex uity. will they, or will they just turn off as they feel they're Ixung turned away from today? If a teen mother is forced off welfare after two years and can't give her children proper < are. how will her kids make a difference later? Society is changing at an incredibly fast rate The infor mation superhighway is permit ting people to meet each other and communicate in ways they've never met and commu nicated before. Men and women relate to each other differently and address issues of equality and violence. There are no clear guidelines as to how to achieve balance in a culture spinning around and around. The complex energy and intense feelings a kid experiences from 13 to 17. compounded with parental figures who are them selves uncertain as to what will happen next, are overwhelming and intense It’s no wonder they're going crazy and acting out. Teen-agers at 1H know more about life than people of the same age at any time in our history. But kids are still kids. They still eat candy. They still feel growing pains and they still have to have a first time for everything. The high school I went to was located in an African-American community. Most of the students wen* white and middle-class We wore bused in and the experience as a whole was wrenching for the mostly affluent students of that Ohio public school. Teen-agers at 18 know more about life than people of the same age at any time in our history. But kids are still kids. They still eat candy. They still feel growing pains and they still have have a first time for everything. Thu limo of my life, which for many people is high school, was diflerent for me, and is probably what brought mo to the Univer sity last fall. It isn't what teens have to deal with every day in 1994 I may have escaped the boredom and uncertainty a kid who graduated from high school this past June has to face. Now, with young people. I'm stumbling along trying to deter mine my future. At least I'm not going to an overpriced, formal dinner with a bunch of losers from high school, and then a class picnic. Gee Well, teens can be assured of one thing after grad uation. Class rounions are so cheesv. Anne Moser Komfeld will be a columnist for the Kmerald next fall
