The disorderly conduct charge is seeing a lot of use these days, as it seems to be the catch-all charge filed against those whose behavior may technically be legal, but is found upsetting by some.

At Wauwatosa East High School, near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a 14-year-old girl was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct — for texting messages during math class.

According to the police report, the teacher demanded the female student stop texting in class and asked for the phone — the student refused. Two other students said the girl did indeed have the phone out, hiding it under her desk as she used it.

The school’s liaison officer was called and he escorted the student to the principal’s office. Officer Jeffrey Griffin observed the student sliding an object up the sleeve of her sweatshirt as they walked through the halls. Upon questioning, the girl denied having any phone and says she was only looking down, not texting on a phone. The sweatshirt was removed — no phone. 

Officer Griffin placed the girl under arrest, telling her, “disruption in class with the phone out, the refusal to obey the teacher, and her not telling us the truth is what got her arrested.” A female officer was called in and a full body search revealed the phone was down the girl’s pants.

The result: a disorderly conduct charge against a juvenile based on lying, disobedience, and disrupting a class by using a phone.

Are lying, disobedience, and disruption worthy of criminal charges? 

I do not condone the bad behavior. I wouldn’t tolerate it in my classroom. Students are in school ostensibly to pay attention and learn — at great cost to taxpayers. But I probably would have had little trouble in ending such behavior — without calling in the police and having the girl arrested.

Behavioral problems, acting out, disobedience, and even rude and offensive behavior are surely commonplace in today’s government school system. Walk through one at any given time — it’s a real eye-opener.

Surely there has to be a huge difference between an infraction being seriously disruptive — one that causes harm, or threatens harm or physical violence — and one that is just plain bad behavior. Not every violation of school rules or policy gives cause for criminal prosecution.

Some common sense is needed here. We shouldn’t allow police involvement as a method of dealing with a disobedient, deceitful 14-year-old. There should be detention, demerits, extra assignments, removal of privileges, or temporary expulsion — this one works wonders because mom and dad have to be available to be supervisor for little junior for the length of the expulsion, and with most parents working these days, just the inconvenience is enough to straighten weak backbones in parents.

We continue to see the stretching of the disorderly conduct charge to cover a multitude of bad behaviors — and legal behavior that is often politically incorrect — that aren’t serious disturbances by definition. Using it as a punishment for school behavioral problems is just plain crazy — unless the object is a total police state.

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danwhitehead1 said:

	Disorderly conduct? Sounds more like normal teenage behavior to me; that will probably be illegal next. Nazi Germany, here we come!!
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February 25, 2009
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Lal Wynstrom said:

Psychological conditioning in the making In my time in school such behavior would have earned the recalcitrant student a day or two in detention where they would have plenty of time to catch up on that math lesson missed by playing on the mobile, but never having a police officer show up and pronounce them under arrest like a common criminal! But let's be clear about something, my little reminisce aside, the purpose of this kind of action today is more akin to indoctrination, where, in the emerging police state we find ourselves, *every* act of disobedience or defiance will find one subject to the magistrates, themselves there to place people into The System, not to mete out justice upon the guilty or to protect the innocent. Such indoctrination is about teaching the citizen to submit, that he is a ward of the State, with no rights or responsibilities other than those privileged to him by its omnipotence.

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February 25, 2009
Votes: +0

MarkGlen said:

School teachers or Brown Shirts, which is it? My son was thrown out of a Biology class in Ada Oklahoma for challenging the teacher's views on evolutuon. It seems my son had gotten into my anti-evolution books. Man, I'm proud of that boy, who is now a 44 year old man. School teachers think they are Gods. They better walk light around my house. I'm not saying I would knock them in the head, but I would sure tell them off.

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March 01, 2009 | url
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Joe, Webster, NY said:

	Are you serious? You must be kidding me. Kids, in my school text all the time in class, and even sometimes refuse to give the phone up. BUT NEVER have they called the cops. This is unacceptable, give them a detention or In/out of school suspension,but calling the cops on them just because she was being disobedient Call her goddamn parents i mean really, are you serious?
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March 12, 2009
Votes: +1