Where does childhood misbehavior end and criminal behavior begin? In a growing number of cases around the country, children—some as young as 6 years old—who act out at school are being treated as criminal offenders: arrested, handcuffed, and taken to the police station. That we have reached such a state of affairs boggles the mind. Bob Herbert of the New York Times (via the San Jose Mercury News) captures it best:
In child-arrest case, the adults are the ones out of control
AVON PARK, Fla. – When 6-year-old Desre’e Watson threw a tantrum in her kindergarten class a couple of weeks ago she could not have known that the full force of the law would be brought down on her and that she would be carted off by the police as a felon.
But that’s what happened in this small, backward city in central Florida. According to the authorities, there were no other options.
“The student became violent,” said Frank Mercurio, the no-nonsense chief of the Avon Park police. “She was yelling, screaming – just being uncontrollable. Defiant.”
“But she was 6,” I said.
The chief’s reply came faster than a speeding bullet: “Do you think this is the first 6-year-old we’ve arrested?”
The child’s tantrum occurred on the morning of March 28 at the Avon Elementary School. According to the police report, “Watson was upset and crying and wailing and would not leave the classroom to let them study, causing a disruption of the normal class activities.”
After a few minutes, Desre’e was, in fact, taken to another room. She was “isolated,” the chief said. But she would not calm down. She flailed away at the teachers who tried to control her. She pulled one woman’s hair. She was kicking.
I asked the chief if anyone had been hurt. “Yes,” he said. At least one woman reported “some redness.”
After 20 minutes of this “uncontrollable” behavior, the police were called in. At the sight of the two officers, Mercurio said, Desre’e “tried to take flight.”
She went under a table. One of the police officers went after her. Each time the officer tried to grab her to drag her out, Desre’e would pull her legs away, the chief said.
Ultimately the child was no match for Avon Park’s finest. The cops pulled her from under the table and handcuffed her. The officers were not fooling around. In the eyes of the cops the 6-year-old was a criminal, and in Avon Park she would be treated like any other felon.
There was a problem, though. The handcuffs were not manufactured with kindergarten kids in mind. The chief explained: “You can’t handcuff them on their wrists because their wrists are too small, so you have to handcuff them up by their biceps.” [full text]
What are we teaching our children when we resort to such unduly harsh and drastic measures, when we abandon all pretense of understanding and sensitivity and instead opt for mindless authoritarianism? This trend is deeply disturbing. In any regard, here’s a couple of other recent cases to make you question our collective moral and mental integrity, one from Shady Cove, Oregon and the other from Brooklyn, New York:
Kmareka.com 
Why in the world didn’t the school call the child’s mother and/or father.
A 6 year old should not be treated as a criminal, because what will happen in the future is that, with such treatment, more children WILL become criminals.
What has happened to “common sense”?