30% of Americans arrested by age 23???

[LSN80]

http://www.newser.com/story/135713/...part&utm_medium=newsone&utm_campaign=content>

This marks a tremendous jump from just 4 decades ago, where 1 in 5 Americans were arrested by said age. The biggest reason cited by Criminologist Robert Brame for this are as follows:

Drunk driving, domestic disputes, and drug related offenses have seen a large jump in arrests over the past 40 years.

The author goes on to note that the reason for the rise in these arrests is not due to the frequency of said occurences rising, but rather, people are much more likely to be arrested for said instances today then they were 40 years ago. Often, people were much more likely to be left off with warnings for the Domestic Disturbance and drug related offenses.

Brame notes that the majority of offenses amongst the under 23 group take place between the ages of 19 and 22. His suggestion for decreasing these numbers?

What we're trying to do is heighten pediatricians' awareness of this to have a broader discussion than they otherwise would have. Studies have shown that children who are most at risk of arrest later as teenagers or young adults are hyperactive, have difficulty concentrating, have poor relationships with their parents, suffer from abuse or neglect, or are bullied.

I see the logic in this in that the longer problems persist in childhood undetected or untreated, the more likely they are to worsen in pathology heading into adulthood. I also see the merit in counseling, and medication if necessary, as an arrest could directly lead to less employment opportunities and college denials, not to mention escalation of criminal behavior.

With regards to the drastic increase in arrests amongst this age group, have laws become too strict, or are they now being properly enforced?

If you are or(hypothetically) were a parent, what steps would you take to help your child if you saw they were presenting with at-risk symptoms?

The questions are simply here to provide possible discussion points, please feel free to discuss the topic in any manner you see fit.

 

[Mustang Sally]

The author goes on to note that the reason for the rise in these arrests is not due to the frequency of said occurrences rising, but rather, people are much more likely to be arrested for said instances today then they were 40 years ago.

This makes me think of the liquor store my folks used to own. My Dad said that in the 80's, when a kid who had used a phony ID to induce the store owner (or bar, or restaurant) to sell him liquor, the only one the police and Liquor Commission were interested in prosecuting was the person who sold the product, not the one who bought it under false pretenses, drank it, drove under the influence, and got stopped by the police.

The people who sold the liquor thought it was highly unfair to blame only them, saying that the kid who took the trouble to procure a phony ID and take it to the store to fool the owner into thinking he was over 21, should be prosecuted, too. After all, the kid is the one who started the whole thing, yet the police would often say to the kid: "We'll make it easy on you if you just tell us where you got the liquor." The liquor industry's position was to ask what deterrent was there to stop the same kid from doing this again? After all, he did it once and got clean away with it, didn't he?

My Dad said that the climate started to change in the late 90's, and it continues today. In addition to prosecuting the seller of liquor, authorities also started holding the kid responsible, even though the kid isn't as "juicy" a bust as the store owner. But Dad said that, after awhile, less and less kids were coming to his store to try and buy liquor, which he attributed to the notion that the kids saw friends of theirs being arrested...... and were now more cautious about trying it themselves.

So yes, at least in that small corner of society, it's been shown that prosecuting people, rather than just giving them a "stern lecture," yields more adherence to the law, which I believe fits with the passage quoted at the top of this post. I'd not be surprised to learn that it applies in other areas of society, too.

You want to stop a damaging behavior? Don't convene an encounter group to "teach" the offender......punish him. Either he'll learn or he'll burn.

 

[George Steele's Barber]

Remember 40 years ago, the legal drinking age in America was 19. That means a lot more college students, military personnel and other young adults could do what 19 and 20 year olds like to do. For the 19 and 20 year olds that want to drink and can't get their hands on it, they are more likely going to turn to other drugs (drugs that have gotten way more creative and potent). Drunk driving laws have gotten more strict and cops have more technology to detect drinking.

Also 40 years ago, wealth was distributed more equally. Not as much anger and jealousy throughout towns. We didn't have 1,000 TV stations or the internet influencing our citizens in different directions and turning on another against their neighbors.

I don't have the stats but voters tend to love having a larger police presence. I am willing to bet that we have more police per citizen. Just to add to Sally's story, the police have budgets. In order to justify their budgets and keep their officers employed at a desired wage they need to bring in offsetting revenue (I am not sure if this pressure existed 40 years ago).

But mostly I blame a lack of breast feeding, youth sports head injuries, the cry-it-out method of baby sleep training and the Attitude Era for most of the US's problems.

 

[Bernkastel]

This actually does not surprise me at all. The majority of the people that I've met in college, especially those from Bowling Green and the surrounding area, have all been arrested for something during their young lives. The most common thing that I found was a DUI or theft. My good friend of three years was arrested for DUI about a month before I met him. And another was arrested for public indecency.

Kids in this area treat getting arrested like it's a rite of passage. I remember going to a party one night, and everyone there was looking up their mugshots from the county jail [one guy claimed his entire immediate family was arrested in a single night] and they looked at me weird because I've never been arrested before.

 

[H33LTurn]

I dont think laws have become too strict. Its hard to falsely accuse someone of drunk driving or a domestic offense since the evidence is pretty obvious. Its just the newer generation not thinking things through as usual. If I was a parent I'd just lay down the law. Parents act like home training is insignificant and only decide to interfere when the situation is out of their control. A generation that once fears jail now sees it as a stamp of manliness.

 

[Larry]

This marks a tremendous jump from just 4 decades ago, where 1 in 5 Americans were arrested by said age.

The author goes on to note that the reason for the rise in these arrests is not due to the frequency of said occurences rising, but rather, people are much more likely to be arrested for said instances today then they were 40 years ago.

With regards to the drastic increase in arrests amongst this age group, have laws become too strict, or are they now being properly enforced?


I think first you need to look at what happened 40 years ago to change the culture that is mentioned right there in the above quoted text I emboldened and underlined. It was in 1971 that Richard Nixon officially launched the national "War on Drugs" that had incarcerated millions of non-violent Americans, filling our prisons, and fueling what has become the business of prison operation. Think of all the people that are employed from one marijuana conviction. You've got the cop, the booker, the jailer, the judge, the DA, the public defense attorney, possibly a bail bondsman, a probation or parole officer, prison officers, wardens, and the list goes on. It's a big money making business that the government doesn't have any interest in stopping.

Here is something I wrote in "The Conservative Corner" Thread that explains this perfectly.

I think we also need to take a long hard look and have a serious discussion about our legal and penal system. We have got to end the costly and failed war on drugs. This is especially a problem now because the prison system has been privatized all over the country and it is in the interest of these corporations who run these privately run prisons to keep arresting non-violent drug offenders who make up the majority of the prison population to keep turning a profit. Yes, look up the CCA(Corrections Corporation of America). They sent letters to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission stating and I quote:

that their BUSINESS could be adversely affected by relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole standards and sentencing practices, or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal law. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.

That's Verbatim. When you have businesses, corporations, whose business is incarcerating people going to the government and telling them not to change things because it's bad for BUSINESS, there is something wrong. When Freedom is less precious than a dollar there is something wrong. We need to seriously look at this and make some changes.

How does it make you feel to know that your freedom is less valuable than a monetary return to a group of investors? I don't think it's a matter of laws being properly enforced, but a matter of more people being criminalized for non-criminal acts. A domestic disturbance isn't a criminal act in itself, but you can guarantee when the police show up someone is going to jail.

There is nothing criminally wrong with smoking marijuana, but get busted with it and you are going to jail, getting put on probation, probably violated somehow on probation to put you back in jail, put back on probation, made to go to treatment, and what is the bottom of line of all of it? Take a look, you pay fines for every day you are in jail, you pay court costs, you pay probation fees, you pay for treatment, you pay and pay and pay and that's all that the system is set up to do, to make you pay. They haul you in, call you a criminal no matter how harmless anything you do is, put you in front of a judge who doesn't see you as a person but another criminal who is guilty no matter what, they move you through the system, and another conviction is another dollar earned.

 

[RockFan89]

I think first you need to look at what happened 40 years ago to change the culture that is mentioned right there in the above quoted text I emboldened and underlined. It was in 1971 that Richard Nixon officially launched the national "War on Drugs" that had incarcerated millions of non-violent Americans, filling our prisons, and fueling what has become the business of prison operation.

I don't generally like to quote Wikipedia, but I don't know enough of the subject and am too lazy to research, I don't think Nixon's to blame:

Although Nixon coined the term "War on Drugs" in 1971, the policies that his administration implemented as part of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 were a continuation of drug prohibition policies in the U.S., which started in 1914.[9][10] Less well known today is that the Nixon Administration also repealed the federal 2-10 year mandatory minimum sentences for possession of marijuana and started federal demand reduction programs and drug treatment programs. Robert DuPont, the "Drug czar" in the Nixon Administration, stated it would be more accurate to say that Nixon ended, rather than launched, the "war on drugs". DuPont also argued that it was the proponents of drug legalization that popularized the term "war on drugs".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Drugs

I would think Regan was the far bigger proponent of anti-drug laws.

Anyways, I think there are things mentioned in the USA today article that was cited that may clear things up:

The new study is an analysis of data collected between 1997 and 2008 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The annual surveys conducted over 11 years asked children, teens and young adults between the ages of 8 and 23 whether they had ever been arrested by police or taken into custody for illegal or delinquent offenses.

The question excluded only minor traffic offenses, so youth could have included arrests for a wide variety of offenses such as truancy, vandalism, underage drinking, shoplifting, robbery, assault and murder — any encounter with police perceived as an arrest, Brame says. Some of the incidents perceived and reported by the young people as arrests may not have resulted in criminal charges, he says.

Localities handled many minor offenses more informally 40 years ago than they do now, criminologist Megan Kurlychek says. "Society is a lot less tolerant of these teenage behaviors," she says.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation... usatoday-NewsTopStories (News - Top Stories)

So the study basically includes any event someone less than 23 years old views as an arrest. A self reported study like this has its weaknesses.

With that aside, as a society, we've become less tolerant of crimes. I honestly think that's a good thing. We've also become better at arresting and prosecuting people. Part of that probably is because of the issues Ba-Bomb brought up.

But is any of this surprising? Have 30% of the people you know ever done anything illegal? Kids at college do the stupidest, and often illegal, things. And kids who don't go to college are often at risk to get caught up in petty crimes.

 

[Larry]

I don't generally like to quote Wikipedia, but I don't know enough of the subject and am too lazy to research, I don't think Nixon's to blame:

I would think Regan was the far bigger proponent of anti-drug laws.

Well, Nixon was the guy to officially launch the "War on Drugs", and as your article said he built on the policies that had already stood. You are right however that it was under the Reagan Administration that the "War on Drugs" really heated up, I merely noted Nixon's declaration as starting point of the trend leading us into today as there hadn't been a strong "War on Drugs" or real government backed effort to control them until then. It was also Nixon who formed the DEA in 1973.

Reagan had to deal the with crack epidemic which his administration inadvertently nurtured and caused by allowing cocaine to come in the country with the CIA during the Iran-Contra affair. It was during the 80's as well that we began to see the spike in the prison population as his administration began to crack down on drugs in general.

 

[Calderownz]

With regards to the drastic increase in arrests amongst this age group, have laws become too strict, or are they now being properly enforced?

It's not about them being too strict or being properly enforced. I think the laws have finally been invented and put into place.

Domestic violence, for example wasn't really in the books. You couldn't beat someone without proper cause. But, unfortunately for women 30 or 40 years ago, it was probable cause if she didn't "obey" her husband.

It was also a bit harder to prove someone was drunk until the technology came to fruition.

There is far more access to drugs now as well and it's easier to do the testing. So, in that sense, it does have to do with enforcing the laws. However, we now have drugs that you couldn't have imagined 40 years ago.

If you are or(hypothetically) were a parent, what steps would you take to help your child if you saw they were presenting with at-risk symptoms?

You have to take it case by case, especially if you don't have children (such as myself).

However, I would let my child know the ramifications and I would be harsh when need be and nurturing when need be. You have to know when to play which cards.

Still, it's always dependent upon the exact circumstances, so it's hard to say.

 

[TWJC: The Beginning]

What is the stereotype 40 years ago? That you could beat your wife and get away with it. There's the answer to why there is a jump. Pretty simple. In the 60s your (in a lot of places, and my source is every woman of that age who I've discussed this with) wife couldn't even buy a car unless the husband was there. Not that it wasn't legal, but that the salesman just wouldn't accept you.

It's kind of like saying "in the 1980s there weren't as many people with AIDS, so that proves we are more promiscuous" no, it's just the measurements are skewed by the data and how you sample the data.