Introduction
In theory, the criminal justice system should effectively ensure both peace and order in society and the protection of the rights of an individual. However, the work of any structure often leads to errors for various reasons – carelessness, neglect, or atypical situations. Hence, society must strike a delicate balance between privacy and public safety. This is especially true in public places such as schools and university campuses, where the serial occurrence of law violations has occurred numerous times (school shootings, campus rapes, drug use, and distribution).
Balance Between Privacy and Public Safety
The Fourth Amendment protects the students from investigating violations such as injudicious searches and seizures. The police tend to use the same investigative methods in schools and universities as in standard practice, without adjusting for age and location (Meadows, 2018). Students must know that they are protected from illegitimate intrusion into personal spaces – lockers and one’s body. Police officers must demonstrate that they have a legitimate reason for conducting an interrogation, search, or seizure and justify their need to run it right now without obtaining a warrant.
Complete removal of student rights is impossible even to fight violence and drugs. Civil society cannot be deprived of its rights and remain civil; it will inevitably degrade into authoritarianism. Although the indisputable right to search and seizure can help solve one crime at a particular moment, such a practice inevitably leads to an increase in state violence and the destruction of democracy. Lack of civil rights and freedoms always leads to more violence, injustice, and harm to society.
Conclusion
Thus, it is hard to separate the rights of students (or citizens in general) from public safety. On the one hand, crime legislation may be unfair, but on the other hand, particular cases of injustice do not refute the system’s effectiveness in most cases (Meadows, 2018). Nevertheless, the prosperity of a society in its historical perspective is based on human rights, therefore, the rights of a separate group cannot be put over the rights of a whole society. The lack of rights will inevitably lead to the greater violence and evil observed throughout the history of totalitarian regimes.
Reference
Meadows, R. J. (2018). Understanding violence and victimization (7th Edition). Pearson Education (US).