Honor Codes Dbq

Many high schools, colleges, and universities have honor codes or honor systems. These are suppose to stop cheating, stealing, plagiarizing, as well as the consequences of violating the established codes. However, even though students sign honor codes, that doesn't mean that they will stop their behavior. My school, Sheyenne High School, should not establish an honor code, because if a student disobeys the code, they don't have a punishment and wouldn't take honor codes seriously since they don't get caught.
The earlier drafts of the honor codes included penalties that the students opposed. However, they aren't effective. In Sheyenne High School, we currently don't have honor codes, which is good, because it is a problem that punishments are not being effective. This will cause students to encourage their behavior of cheating, plagiarizing, and stealing. Honor codes would not be effect in my school. High Schools aren't the only school that don't have effective penalties, colleges do too. If students enter college that were considered cheaters in
the past, not only are the costs of cheating low, but the costs of not cheating are very high. This leads more students "to cheat than they normally do so, creating a culture of dishonesty"(Source C). This cheating situation, shows how students aren't having effective consequences. However, sometimes there are effective punishments. Since last spring, 157 students have been invested by their peers in "the largest cheating scandal in memory"(Source D). 39 students accused of violating the honor codes have either dropped out or been expelled. Another punishment that students have to endure is the loss of their diplomas. This has caused a decrease in cheating, plagiarizing, and stealing work.
Since there aren't effective punishments, students don't take honor codes seriously.
Another reason they don't take it seriously is because they don't get caught. In fact, 40% of students who have violated the honor code haven't been caught (Source E). This shows that just under 50% of students don't get caught. This is a huge percentage considering that honor codes are suppose to stop student's scandals. In Sheyenne High School, if we had honor codes, student's wouldn't take it seriously either because they can get away with their behavior. Also, the fact that students fail to confront or report a student encourages student's behavior of disobeying the school's honor code. Students wouldn't confront or report their peer(s) because it would "create friction" and they feared that their report wouldn't be confidential. Therefore, Sheyenne High School shouldn't establish a honor code because they won't take them
seriously.
In conclusion, honor codes are not effective. They don't have effective punishments which then makes students not to take honor codes seriously. Also, students can get away from punishments because their peers don't report them and therefore don't get caught. Therefore, honor codes let students cheat, plagiarize and steal their peers work, when they should instead be preventing these behaviors.