I have a friend who used to be an IBM employee back in the day. One of his responsibilities was to drive all over Texas and repair the computers deliberately broken by inmates at the prisons. It was more interesting to most of them to have the computer guy show up, and interrupt the monotony of their daily routine, than actually use the computers for their intended purpose.

I also suspect that these statistics aren’t measuring what you think they are. Smarter and better educated criminals are less likely to get caught and also more likely to find a way to stay out of the system. A 13 percent increase in employability is almost within the margin or error.

In general, education is not a magic bullet. Former criminals are unlikely to be employed in many high trust/high wage jobs for the obvious reasons.

In general, education is not a magic bullet. Former criminals are unlikely to be employed in many high trust/high wage jobs for the obvious reasons. ~ Isab at January 9, 2021 3:44 AM

While I will argue that poverty does not cause crime, I think education at least offers prisoners some shot at redemption and should be on offer to prisoners.

The behavioral outlook of most people who end up in prison is not likely to be changed by having a degree. In prison, the process of getting an education itself provides a break from an otherwise very monotonous routine. Once out, however, the distractions and temptations of outside life return front and center.

Thomas Dalrymple (pen-name of Anthony Daniels) has written a very interesting book on this from his perspective as a psychiatrist in the UK, Life at the Bottom. He writes of his experience working in an NHS hospital in one of London's poorer neighborhoods and in a British prison. He contrasts that experience with his experience working as a doctor in some of the poorest countries in Africa. It's worth a read.

Bad habits become ingrained when you grow up poor. Longterm poverty is a mindset, not a circumstance, and it's a very difficult mindset to escape.

Cornell University researchers have also shown that poverty causes adverse neurological changes in children, hamstringing memory, language, and analytical thinking skills. Children who had grown up poor scored 20 percent lower on short-term memory assessments, and blew away the never-poor children when tested for stress hormones like cortisol. Researchers believe that these constantly elevated levels of stress hormones lead to a cumulative reduction in brain power. This isn't just an inner-city phenomenon, as children tempered by rural poverty displayed similar learning impediments.

Coney— A favorite recent tweet from Henderson on such things:

Environmental unpredictability is typically indexed by the number of parental transitions experienced in childhood (e.g., Simpson, Griskevicius, Kou, Sung, & Collins, 2012). Greater environmental unpredictability is associated with earlier sexual debut, greater number of sexual partners, more aggressive and delinquent behavior Belsky et al., 2012; Simpson et al., 2012), and lesser parental investment per child (Ellis et al., 2009).

Gee, great - like this hasn't been watched by wardens and police for decades.

I am sure that a bedazzled smartphone knows more about this. Right?

"A cause of this dysfunction is the notion that criminals can “pay their debt to society,” and then be all better, as if crimes were purchases made on a credit card. Say that a marginal human wielding a bolo knife crawls through a window, burglarizes the house, and gets caught and sentenced to five years. He gets out some time later having “paid his debt”—actually the citizenry have paid $20K a year to keep him fed and comfortable. He is now thought to have been cleansed and ready to make a fresh start.

Not a chance.

As any cop can tell you, career criminals commit almost all crime. When Willy Bill gets caught carrying a television out from someone’s window,, you will find, with the absolute certainty one associates with bankruptcy in a Democratic administration, that he has a rap sheet going back to puberty. Two years after getting out for one offense, he will be arrested for another. Normal, civilized people don’t suddenly think, “Gosh, slow day. I guess I’ll do a little burglary.” Either you don’t do it at all, or it’s all you do."

I suggest that the time for, er, education of some kind must occur before incarceration - and that this education does NOT consist of showing the student that Daddy Government is the source of all food, shelter and money.

Unreadable, because you pack not one, not two, but three levels of sarcasm into every clause of every sentence. Back! Forth! No, back again! No, really, back again, no... Yeah! Forth to the backles! Was there something you wanted to share?

"It makes me a better lover! My foreplay is gentler, more-novel, and more-expressive; Erections are firmer, longer-lasting, and somehow sparkier; afterglow is more restful, emotional, and gratitude-inducing... Because I smoke weed.

Also it improves my guitar playing... Melodies are crisper and better-supported in rhythmic and harmonic structure, dynamics are better articulated for listeners both closer and farther away, and the finish of the guitar is shinier. For everyone.

I can't say enough about what smoking dope does for the food I cook, for the fashions I wear, for the charities I fund, or for conversations with co-workers. You'll just have to guess.

Yes, I think we can all agree that nothing improves a person's relationships with others like smoking weed." - Crid, September 2012

So, dood, I get it - you're out.

You respond with sarcasm, willfully disregarding the satire in your cite.

Can you understand why all these extra layers of contradiction leave your meaning unclear?

Make your point, okay? Then have some fun: Sex jokes, insults, puns, pop songs… But make your point.