Zero-tolerance policies were enacted to combat the seemingly overwhelming increase in school violence during the 1990s. As the media focused on violence in schools, pressure increased on legislators to take action against weapons in schools. Following enactment of the Gun-Free Schools Act, all 50 states adopted some variation of the law. Some states went beyond this focus on guns and decided to apply zero tolerance to the entire breadth of possible disciplinary infractions in an effort to weed out violators and standardize discipline. The popularity of zero-tolerance policies may have less to do with their actual effect than the image they portray of schools taking resolute measures to prevent violence.
Some schools report positive results from their policies.
After one year, the policy resulted in a 95 percent drop in violent behavior on campus. When students are not in school, they are on the streets and, more often than not, getting in more serious trouble than they could at school. Zero-tolerance policies have undoubtedly created legal headaches for some school administrators. Perhaps the biggest problem with zero-tolerance policies is inconsistent application and interpretation. A weak link in the chain connecting policy to practice is that those responsible for implementation often haven't heard of, or don't clearly understand, the policy.