A return to common sense

The charges have been dropped against the two middle school boys who were being charged with criminal sexual harassment from slapping girls' bottoms and poking their breasts. Even the so-called victims of their harassment wanted the charges dropped, but a runaway prosecutor thought that the perfect solution for the boys' stupid and insulting behavior was to threaten them with prison and have them labeled felony sexual offenders.

Come on, people. Can't we have some return to common sense when dealing with children? A good principal can deal with this sort of problem at school by meeting with the kids and their parents and than meting out some appropriate punishment. For example, I'd recommend that kids who have their minds in the gutter mind benefit from after-school service cleaning bathrooms at the school. Whenever I proposed such punishments when I taught in middle school I was told that we weren't allowed to assign kids such labor as any sort of discipline. After or in-school suspension when they'd sit in a study hall and do homework and then read a book was the preferred punishment. Somehow I think that scrubbing a toilet or two or emptying garbage cans would be more of a deterrent than sitting in an air-conditioned study hall. But we need to get away from criminalizing piggish behavior.