Holy overreaction…

As a father of two girls, I suspect I would be beyond livid if my daughters were being slapped on the rump by some unruly 13-year-old thugs. (Though it would also be my job to teach them how to deal with situation — violently.)

This story from Oregon, however, illustrates the utter idiocy of one-size fits all policy for children. Do rowdy ass-slapping boys deserve suspensions or even expulsions from school? Perhaps. But does the crime necessitate a police officer reading 13-year-old boys their Miranda rights, placing them in handcuffs and sending them to jail for five days?

The two boys tore down the hall of Patton Middle School after lunch, swatting the bottoms of girls as they ran — what some kids later said was a common form of greeting.

But bottom-slapping is against policy in McMinnville Public Schools. So a teacher’s aide sent the gawky seventh-graders to the office, where the vice principal and a police officer stationed at the school soon interrogated them.

These boys now face the prospect of 10 years in juvenile detention and an inclusion on the sex-offender registry. In other words, this is a crime they may never escape.