House Bill 630

Statement

House Bill 630 of the 2006 session was a legislator "feel good" bill that is un-needed. It is a bill that criminalizes threatening statements between people on school grounds including students. With HB 630, making a statement between students like "I am going to blow your head off" is a criminal act.

The United States leads the world in incarcerating its people at 712 persons per 100,000 in population. Russia is second at 568 people in prison per 100,000. Most of Europe and Canada falls in the range of 100 to 150 persons in prison per 100,000. House Bill 630 follows a misguided assumption that every problem can be solved by making it a crime and putting people in prison. We owe it to our students to try harder to solve problems before we call law enforcement and have them arrested.

We already have plenty of statues on the code books to handle bonafide threats or acts of violence between students, and we don't need to pile on more. Most inappropriate behavior on a school grounds should be handled by the school principal with a wooden paddle. Our rush to involve law enforcement is actually an abdication a responsibility that belongs to the school administrators.