Forums:
How was Nikolas Cruz able to buy a gun after so many reports to both school officials and law enforcement that he was “dangerous” and “about to blow”? The short answer is that even though Cruz had likely broken the law, he had no record. Why? Because schools and law enforcement cover up crimes by kids like Cruz in Florida and elsewhere. Why? Because it keeps budgets down and they get awards for doing it.
Juvenile delinquents aged 14-18 were my first students in 1975, but weren’t called that. Under the Massachusetts’ first-in-the-nation special ed law “juvenile delinquents" were re-labeled “emotionally disturbed.” They had a “disability.” That didn’t make them any less delinquent, but it signaled a new approach with lots of tax dollars to implement it. The special ed bureaucracy was born and eventually grew into the national behemoth it is now.
My “disabled” students were habitually absent Mondays because they were being arraigned after getting arrested over the weekend for shoplifting, drug possession, breaking and entering, purse-snatching, and other crimes. When I asked if they were afraid of going to jail they said, “They can’t do anything to me until I’m eighteen. I’ll stop then.” Massachusetts had closed all its county reform schools as part of its new approach.
Special ed law gave my students a legal right to a free, appropriate education to “meet their needs” in the “least restrictive environment” no matter what the cost. Mine was a private day school with 100 students and 36 professional staff. Tuition was expensive, but not as costly as a residential school which would be the next step on the restrictive environment continuum. Those could cost $80,000 per year in 1980 dollars — much more now I’m sure.
At such prices, school systems kept residential placements to a minimum. My day school clearly wasn’t “meeting their needs” if students were arrested so often, but “evaluation team” meetings were confidential, inclined to smooth things over with little or no oversight. Only rapists and murderers went to residential placement. The rest avoided punishment because they attended our special school, but unlike in today’s Florida, their crimes were on record at least.
The rest is here.