Study Finds High Rate of Imprisonment Among Dropouts

On any given day, about one in every 10 young male high school dropouts is in jail or juvenile detention, compared with one in 35 young male high school graduates, according to a new study of the effects of dropping out of school in an America where demand for low-skill workers is plunging.

The picture is even bleaker for African-Americans, with nearly one in four young black male dropouts incarcerated or otherwise institutionalized on an average day, the study said. That compares with about one in 14 young, male, white, Asian or Hispanic dropouts.

Researchers at Northeastern University used census and other government data to carry out the study, which tracks the employment, workplace, parenting and criminal justice experiences of young high school dropouts.

“We’re trying to show what it means to be a dropout in the 21st century United States,” said Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern, who headed a team of researchers that prepared the report. “It’s one of the country’s costliest problems. The unemployment, the incarceration rates — it’s scary.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/education/09dropout.html?th&emc=th

Never finished tenth grade, actually. And yes, my youth was pretty much misspent, but although I got in lots of trouble, including some legal troubles, I was never imprisoned beyond being held at the county jail for relatively short times. Getting my GED and going to college turned my life around, no question.

Is the fact that those with less education have higher rates of imprisonment a matter of contention?

I kill some time going through the Tampa Bay Area mugshots (link below). After doing this for a while, looking for commonalities (because Truman Capote said that the only thing the convicts he interviewed had in common was that they all had tattoos) I realized that there aren't a lot of good looking people in the set. Could looks be part of the reason that people end up as criminals?

To offset my own cultural bias, I narrowed the set to people with blue eyes. The site won't let you do race but blue eyes eliminated all but the rare non-anglo saxon. Sure enough, it's still not a group of pretty people. The occasional DUI or angelic car thief, but by and large these people look exactly as you would expect them to look.


http://mugshots.tampabay.com/

Education provides opportunity. Those with opportunity are less likely to risk their potential gains...partially because that opportunity provides an increased sense of self-worth and partially because those with opportunity are less likely to rich their potential gains.

Does it go to the propensity for criminality or to the type of crime?
Poverty doesn't cause crime. We can demonstrate that in the past, a lack of education could not be said to cause crime.

...but it's still a factor.


There are many factors that contribute to a given person's propensity to commit crimes. Are you arguing that education is not a factor, or simply that a lack of education doesn't CAUSE one to commit a crime?

I was trying to say that I don't see why a lack of education would be a marker for criminality in our time when you couldn't say the same in the past. I come from a long line of modestly educated people on one side, none of which ever saw the inside of a jail for any reason. They were exceedingly moral and principled people, Methodists.

We don't even have one in thirty-five people in jail or juvenile detention on any given day. It's more like 1/150. But it's hardly surprising anyway.

Lots of young people are dropping out of high school and have been for some time. I think it has a lot to do with the promise of the GED being available at a future date. They see no point in going to school for two more years when they can drop out, work at Taco Bell (and buy a car) , and then get the GED when they turn 18.

Listening to RW radio the other day (to warn of the source for what follows) , Neal Boortz reported that an astounding 60% of black male youth report a belief that they are going to "make it" as an athlete or rapper. The real odds of them even working in pro sports are 1/50,000. He thinks they need to know that and that no one is telling them.

to incarcerate one prisoner rather than putting that money into things that help prevent someone choosing a life of crime, that being schools and social programs.

So what do we do? Making dropping out of high school a crime and feed the bulging prison-industrial complex and deny caring students the right to a good education as government spending on criminal justice balloons compared to that on education, which deflates? My diagnosis: More intervention, prevention, and counseling for troubled youth, just like in health care reform where we demand more preventative care.