"You've Got to Jar Them Emotionally"

A Southern California High School experienced an all-too-real brush with death last week when a police officer visited several classrooms and declared 36 of the high school students dead as a result of drunk driving accidents. The police officer was operating in conjunction with Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) to raise student awareness towards the dangerous involved in getting behind the wheel while drunk.

MADD's mission is to stop drunk driving, support victims of violent crime, and to prevent underage drinking. Officer Eric Newbury of the California Highway Patrol administers the program--called "every 15 minutes"--at local high schools.

I remember similar programs from my high school days. A group of student volunteers would go from classroom to classroom, selecting one student from each class and designating them "drunk driving casualties" and removing them from class. A rose was placed on the missing student's desk and a brief eulogy was read before the remaining students. All students were corralled into the gymnasium after the morning's "eulogies" were read and we were lectured about the dangers of drunk driving by a local police officer.

Today, however, it's not enough to lecture students about the dangers of drunk driving. According to Officer Newbury, "Standard speeches don't get the desired reaction."

And how, pray tell, Officer Newbury, do you reach today's student?

“If I sit there and lecture somebody in a nice way, it's going to go in one ear and out the other,” he said. “In today's world, where they have all sorts of gore and fantastic things that kids can access on the computer, if you want to compete with that, you have to jar them emotionally.

“I want them to be an emotional wreck. I don't want them to have to live through this for real.”

I want them to be an emotional wreck. This is coming from a police officer, someone who's supposed to be a leader in a community? Yikes.

The author's sycophantic defense of Officer Newbury and MADD's policies of scaring the you-know-what out of high school students only make matters worse. Since when is it acceptable for someone in position of authority--like Officer Newbury--to outright lie to a captive, easily-influenced audience like a group of high school students?

This morning I heard two radio personalities arguing over the merits (or lack thereof) of programs like these achieving their desired goals. One of the personalities defended the program, comparing it to the "scared straight" program, now known as the Juvenile Awareness Program. I'm not positive about this, but I remember the scared straight program involving teenagers who had already been identified as having trouble with the law. In other words, "Scared Straight" was not offered to broad swaths of the high school population.

Regardless, at issue here is the State using fear, lies, and intimidation to coerce high school students into remaining submissive. When a police officer such as Eric Newbury is allowed to lie to a group of students in order to prove his point--and is celebrated for it in the press--there should be widespread outrage. Unfortunately, based on the feedback I've read/listened to, the majority of people agree with Officer Newbury: in order to reach today's student, you've got to 'jar them emotionally.'