How is it that our elected officials can be so wrong so often?

Take Senate Bill 100, introduced and passed as Public Act 99-0456 in 2015, which was intended to eliminate the so-called school-to-prison pipeline by eliminating the disparate discipline of minority students.

Too many minority students were being expelled.

At least that was the conclusion of Voices of Youth in Chicago Education (VOYCE), an initiative of the Chicago-based nonprofit Communities United. According to a press release by the organization, following the passage of the bill:

“The effort to pass SB 100 was led by VOYCE (Voices of Youth in Chicago Education), a group of mostly high school students from Chicago. They created the bill in 2012 to address the impact of out-of-school suspensions and expulsions on their peers and schools. For over two years, dozens of students traveled regularly to the Capitol in Springfield to educate their legislators on how disciplinary practices were pushing students out of school and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems.”

The U.S. Office of Education earlier had noted that Chicago Public Schools had one of the worst disparities in suspension of black versus white students. For black students out of out-of-school suspensions totaled 32 per 100, while the total for white students was 5 per 100.

This is one of the early manifestations of confusing inequality of outcomes with actual discrimination.

Subsequent events have demonstrated that this thinking was wrong. Since the law was passed and implemented, there has been no decline in lawbreaking. Even worse, assaults against school personnel have nearly doubled since 2015 as a direct result of this law. This was entirely predictable.

Anyone with a drop of common sense should have known that removing penalties for misconduct would inevitably lead to an increase in misconduct.

No doubt, there have been increases in assaults on other students as well.

We saw an indication of this recently when it was disclosed that a 14-year-old boy had sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl multiple times over several days, a little over a year ago. They rode the same bus to Taylorville Junior High School in Stonington, IL, and the boy assaulted her ON THE BUS.

He wasn’t caught until he chased her off the bus, pinned her down, covered her mouth, and “committed violent sexual acts” on her. After that violent assault, the girl turned to trusted adults for help. When questioned, the teen admitted to what he had done.

There are minimal details available on all that happened because both the perpetrator and the victim are minors. What we know is only what the mother of the girl, Ashley Peden, a Springfield teacher who lives in Stonington, has shared.

After the teen admitted to his crimes, for some unknown reason, he was not sent to a juvenile detention center. Law enforcement became involved, but took no action? Instead, he was released and returned to school. He was not expelled or even suspended.

He admitted to sexually assaulting a ten-year-old child. Yet he was allowed out on the street and back in school. Why wasn’t he kept in detention? How is it possible he was allowed back on the bus and back to school?

But he was.

According to the mother, an order of protection was obtained on behalf of the child, and the school principal assured Ashley Peden that the school would develop an effective safety plan. However, implementing that plan became a fiasco that played out over several weeks. Eventually, the perpetrator was sent to an alternative school but was allowed back at Taylorville Junior High the following year.

In response to this series of events, Senator Steve McClure introduced Senate Bill 98 in January this year. Several other Senators have signed on, but the bill is currently languishing in the Assignments Committee. Not that it matters much.

All the bill does is require that any student who sexually assaults another student at school, a school event, or any activity that is connected to the school be expelled for a minimum of one year. It’s full of holes, is far too little, and way too late.

Almost thirty years ago, Jonathan Kellerman, a mystery novelist who also holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology, penned Savage Spawn, a warning about violent youths. In that short book, he laid out his concern that America’s youth are becoming more violent and vicious.

He argued for firm disciplinary measures for children who exhibit violent tendencies, arguing that leniency can reinforce harmful behaviors. He stressed the need for strong legal and institutional measures to prevent violent youth from harming others, including incarceration in extreme cases.

In these intervening years, our legislators have done the exact opposite. Expulsion for one year for sexual assault on a fellow student just doesn’t cut it.

We need to bring back zero tolerance for bullying and violence, start opening more juvenile detention facilities, and stop making excuses for childhood violence. Our whole educational system needs to be torn down and rebuilt from the ground up.

Bring back classical education, where character and virtue are central to a child’s education. Cut out the sex education where children literally are encouraged to experiment sexually. Stop allowing children to threaten, assault, or even show disrespect to their teachers. Hold back children who don’t meet the grade level standards. Enforce truancy laws. Remove children from unfit parents, and while we are at it, increase the standards for what we consider fit.

This is the bill Senator McClure should have introduced. Or, maybe, just repealing the failed Public Act 99-0456 would be a good start.

I just saw a video of a mother at a fast-food restaurant who did not like the service. She was with her child, a boy about 8 years old. She started cursing, throwing objects at the staff, and knocking all the items on the counter onto the floor. All the while, she had her arm around her little boy. To that boy, her violent actions and profanity, her aggression and assaults on others, are normal—examples to be followed.

Growing up with a mother like that, that boy is going to wind up in jail. The mother is beyond help. The boy is being psychologically and emotionally destroyed, but could be saved if he were removed from her custody and placed with a loving family. This used to be commonplace. What happened?

Without aggressive intervention, this young child is destined to grow up and become one of Dr. Kellerman’s Savage Spawn.

The predator who assaulted the little girl already is one.