Detention (Academia)

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Detention is a form of punishment used in schools, where a student is required to spend extra time in school. A detention usually takes place during a period after the end of the school day. However, other times may also be used such as before the school day, weekend, and breaks in the school day, such as lunch.

A detention typically lasts for one hour and carried out in a room that offers no amenities for leisure, so that students serving detention will have no outlet to distract them from their punishment. The students are usually monitored by a teacher, and may be required to either bring homework, sit quietly, or perform some punitive or non-punitive task, usually to decrease boredom. Such tasks may take the form of housekeeping, such as clapping blackboard erasers or picking up litter; academic such as writing an essay or answering questions on why the detention was given, or copying out paragraphs from a text; or moral drilling. A common example of the latter is repeatedly writing some admonishment, a punishment often known as Lines.

Detention is usually considered to be one the milder punishments available to a school. Multiple detentions may be given as for more severe offences. However, if detention fails to cure the student's behaviour, and for more severe behaviour, harsher punishments such as suspension, or expulsion may be used.

Detention is usually given for offences such as:

Untidy Appearance - Incorrect uniform (where the school has a uniform), untucked shirts or not having top buttons done up.
Lack of punctuality - Detention may be used if the student is persistently late for lessons.
Eating - Eating or chewing gum, which many schools ban, particularly in lessons.
Not handing in homework on time
Minor Unruly Behaviour - Minor infractions of school rules, such as talking out of turn.

Concerns have been raised about the fact that detentions can be given without due process of law, fair trial or any investigation of what happened, and are often given by the victim of the act being punished. This can lead to the wrong student being punished, or a student being discriminated against. Appeals procedures are also questionable. For example, in the United Kingdom, a detention generally cannot be overturned before it has been served. Detention is considered by some to be incompatible with the right to freedom of movement.

Pop culture references

There are numerous pop culture references to the practice of detention. For example, the opening credits to "The Simpsons" shows Bart Simpson in detention, repeatedly writing some ironic phrase along the lines of "I will not instigate revolution", "I do not have diplomatic immunity", or "I will not waste chalk".

"Detention" was also the name of an animated series that had a brief run on the Kids' WB in 1999 and 2000.[link] The series portrayed a group of misfit middle-schoolers who were constantly in detention, and scheming to overcome the obstacles that said condition presented.

The movie The Breakfast Club revolves around five disparate students bonding during a day in detention. The movie Some Kind of Wonderful features a significant detention twist — a student intentionally misbehaves in order to be put in detention with the girl of his dreams — but later learns that she has managed to talk her way out of the punishment. However, the student ends up befriending the dangerous-looking derelicts who are regularly on detention, and they ultimately help him out in his moment of greatest need.

In Hogwarts school in the Harry Potter books, detention is practiced as a disciplinary measure. Ironically, when in book one Harry Potter and two other students are caught wandering in the castle at night, which is considered dangerous, they are sent to the even more dangerous Forbidden Forest for detention.

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