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Zero tolerance for victimization of students: the implications of House Bill 267 on juvenile offenders.

Article Excerpt
In an effort to protect school-aged victims of crime, the Florida Legislature recently passed House Bill 267. Codified as F.S. [section] 232.265 (2001), effective October 1, 2001, the bill in essence mandates that Florida's public school districts adopt a zero tolerance for victimization of students. Consequently, the bill is designed to eliminate contact between a violent offender and his or her victim or the sibling of the victim in an effort to protect the victim of any violent crime from any further victimization.

The bill was born out of concerns that the state was not doing enough to enforce the constitutional guarantees of a safe school environment. The Florida Constitution provides in pertinent part that, "It is ... a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provisions for the education of all children residing within its borders. Adequate provisions shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education. (1)

It has been reported that statewide 6,213 children were sexually assaulted by other children from July 1, 1988 to June 1999. During the 1998-99 school year, 159 rapes and 2,830 incidents of sexual harassment were reported to schools across Florida. (2) One mental health counselor has opined that forcing a child to attend the same school or ride the same school bus as his or her sex offender is tantamount to asking rape victims to go home with their rapist. (3)

The bill's sponsors...