Posted on 12/20/2011 5:00:59 AM PST by Libloather
Many in U.S. Are Arrested by Age 23, Study Finds
By ERICA GOODE
Published: December 19, 2011
By age 23, almost a third of Americans have been arrested for a crime, according to a new study that researchers say is a measure of growing exposure to the criminal justice system in everyday life.
The study, the first since the 1960s to look at the arrest histories of a national sample of adolescents and young adults over time, found that 30.2 percent of the 23-year-olds who participated reported having been arrested for an offense other than a minor traffic violation.
That figure is significantly higher than the 22 percent found in a 1965 study that examined the same issue using different methods. The increase may be a reflection of the justice system becoming more punitive and more aggressive in its reach during the last half-century, the researchers said. Arrests for drug-related offenses, for example, have become far more common, as have zero-tolerance policies in schools.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
10 of 10 men and 1 of 10 women would be 11 of 20 or 55% (assuming equal numbers of men and women). You could get 30% by assuming 5 of 10 men and 1 of 10 women. Also, the study uses 'arrested', not 'convicted.' I was arrested at about 21 for essentially being there when the police wanted to arrest someone. Having done nothing wrong, the charges were dropped. I bet my experience is not all that unusual. This statistic may show a change in police behavior more than a change in societal behavior.
I read about that. Evidently the young bull elephants needed a male role model in order to learn proper male behavior.
Doesn’t apply to humans though, because we are too smart. /S
Yep. I have never been arrested, but I grew up in the 1960s and 70s before all this cr@p became common. I doodled ever more detailed weapons and battles, did projects on Norman Knights and Greek Hoplites, got in fights with kids who wouldn’t leave me alone, etc.
Today, I could never get through school without being suspended, expelled or arrested.
Damn city people.
Amazingly flawed methodology combined with absurd interpolation based on a limited dataset gleaned from a questionable sampling.
Arrest data while very interesting is pretty much meaningless when it comes to the real world. Especially with such a small sample. Conviction data is what needs to be looked at.
This appears to be a classic example of what results when too much grant money meets academics who have a conclusion they need to support. A lot of dollars get spent to say something that does not need to be listened to.
The eggheaded idiots.that did this “study” appear to have met their main goal and that is to put themselves in a situation where they can continue to milk the government breast as they continue their important “work”.
***a third of Americans have been arrested for a crime***
Worth repeating. ARRESTED! not CONVICTED. And no description of what the offense may have been.
The OWSers numbers would have been huge - if the police had been allowed to perform their duty - for all public offenses of every degree.
Some of the ‘new’ laws are directed at normal, law abiding citizens of all ages (as one poster mentioned) i.e. politically correct infractions of recycling, speech, signs and trying to board a plane while white and senile.
I’ve lived and worked long-term in two outright communist countries, and also in one with Marxists in the congress and provincial legislatures, with Marxist land reform and other laws (along with ridiculous “offending feelings” laws).
Where do I now look over my shoulder the most? Right here in the USA, wondering when I might be nabbed for some environmental, weapons or other “violation.”
“When everything is a crime, everyone’s a criminal”.
I agree. I can give a prime example of people being arrested under age 21 that is a joke. In my county, if the police find one person at a party with alcohol (under age 21)... then everyone at the party under age 21 is given a citation (an arrest). It makes no difference whatsoever if the other participants drank the alcohol. I know many, many neighbors/friends who have had high school and college age kids “arrested” at a party with not so much as a drop of beer in them. The county police even have a “hotline” number where you can call and give information anonymously about possible underage drinking.
Ah, yes, exactly what I meant—shouldn’t post before coffee. Thanks.
>> ... they were having problems with the adolescent male elephants killing younger hippos. They brought in a bull elephant from another park. When the adolescents harassed the hippos the bull elephant smacked them around. The killing stopped.
Anyone who has ever raised horses knows this - you bring in a mature gelding and he kicks the crap out of the young’uns. Literally.
Some years ago, a neighboring couple decided they were going to go into the horse breeding business.
They bought a young, high value stallion. The thing had never been socialized, had no manners, and would challenge you at the drop of a pin. They were repeatedly told: “Put him in the field with your geldings; they’ll straighten him out.” Having over $30,000 invested in the animal, they refused: “He’ll get hurt.”. After he charged and almost trampled the wife, they had him gelded.
He was still useless. They shoulda shot the damn thing and fed him to the lions in the zoo.
I am still amazed they can arrest kids today for possession of cigarettes......................
I can believe this. Cops in our town are chasing down 18 to 21 year olds on weekends for underage drinking. It’s a huge money maker.
I believe it since it’s anything other than traffic violations. I know lots of people who got arrested in high school. There were normally two reasons:
1. Curfew
2. A “good” party
Rumor had it that one kid who got put in jail for in a big bust for number two was left there until eight in the morning because his mother wasn’t getting out of bed at an indecent hour to go get him.
You think that guy was ever arrested again?
“This statistic may show a change in police behavior more than a change in societal behavior.”
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I would bet on it, back in the sixties you could get away with doing something, OBSERVED BY A POLICEMAN, that would land you in jail or possibly prison now.
Attending were a dozen of the best educated, smartest, high-earning individuals I had ever worked with.
A little more than half of them had spent at least a night in jail. None of them were ever sentenced to jail, though. Mind-altering seemed to be the common bond.
Attending were a dozen of the best educated, smartest, high-earning individuals I had ever worked with.
A little more than half of them had spent at least a night in jail. None of them were ever sentenced to jail, though. Mind-altering seemed to be the common bond.
‘Worth repeating. ARRESTED! not CONVICTED.’
That is a distinction without a difference to most employers.
This is another reason young people have trouble getting a job these days.
.
Our schools and media should be able to teach more youth than a 1/3 not to respect law (or anything for that matter)!
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