RELATED STUDY The central idea of social control theory-that crime and deviance are more likely when

an individual's bond to society is weak or broken-is an organizing principle in our theory of social bonding over the life course (Sampson and Laub 1993). The life course has been defined as "pathways through the age differentiated life span" (Elder 1985: 17), in particular the "sequence of culturally defined age-graded roles and social transitions that are enacted over time" (Caspi et al. 1990: 15). Two central concepts underlie the analysis of life course dynamics. A trajectory is a pathway or line of development over the life span such as worklife, parenthood, and criminal behavior. Trajectories refer to long-term patterns of behavior and are marked by a sequence of transitions. Transitions are marked by life events (e.g., first job or first marriage) that are embedded in trajectories and evolve over shorter time spans (see also Elder 1985: 31-32). Following Elder (1985). we differentiate the life course of individuals on the basis of age and argue that the important institutions of both formal and informal social control vary across the life span. However, we emphasize the role of age-graded informal social control as reflected in the structure of interpersonal bonds linking members of society to one another and to wider social institutions (e.g., work, family, school). Unlike formal sanctions that originate in purposeful efforts to control crime, informal social controls "emerge as by-products of role relationships established for other purposes and are components of role reciprocities" (Kornhauser 1978: 24). Although traditional control theory (e.g., Hirschi 1969) is static, we believe its integration with the life course framework may be used to understand the dynamics of both continuity and change in behavior over time. In particular, a major thesis of our work is that social bonds in adolescence (e.g., to family, peers, and school) and adulthood (e.g., attachment to the labor force, cohesive marriage) explain criminal behavior regardless of prior differences in criminal propensity--that age-graded changes in social bonds explain changes in crime. We also contend that early (and distal) precursors to adult crime (e.g., conduct disorder, low self-control) are mediated in developmental pathways by key age-graded institutions of informal and formal social control. especially in the transition to adulthood (e.g., via employment, military service, marriage, official sanctions). In uniting continuity and change within the context of a sociological understanding of crime through life, a major concept in our framework is

the dynamic process whereby the interlocking nature of trajectories and transitions generate turning points or a change in life course (Elder 1985: A Life-Course Theory of Cumulative Disadvantage ... 11 32). Adaptation to life events is crucial because the same event or transition followed by different adaptations can lead to different trajectories (Elder 1985: 35). That is, despite the connection between childhood events and experiences in adulthood, turning points can modify life trajectoriesthey can "redirect paths." For some individuals, turning points are abrupt-radical "turnarounds" or changes in life history that separate the past from the future (Elder et al. 199 1.: 2 15). For most individuals, however, we conceptualize turning points as "part of a process over time and not as a dramatic lasting change that takes place at any one time" (Pickles and Rutter 1991: 134; Rutter 1989; Clausen 1993). The process-oriented nature of turning points leads to a focus on incremental change and age-related progressions and events, which carry forward or set in motion dynamic processes that shape future outcomes (Rutter and Rutter 1993: 64). In our theoretical model, turning points may be positive or negative because they represent "times of decision or opportunity when life trajectories may be directed on to more adaptive or maladaptive paths" (Rutter and Rutter 1993: 244). As Rutter and Rutter recognize, "Life-span transitions have a crucial role in the processes involved, strengthening emerging patterns of behavior or providing a means by which life trajectories may change pattern" (1993: 109; see also Maughan and Champion 1990: 3 10). This variability results because life transitions do not have the same impact on everyone. For instance, getting married may be beneficial or deleterious depending on "when a person marries, whom a person marries, the quality of the relationship formed and whether or not changes in social group and life patterns are involved" (Rutter and Rutter 1993: 356, emphasis in the original). Although not usually thought of as such, some turning points are thus negative, serving to exacerbate early trajectories of antisocial conduct.

Family The importance of family management and socialization practices (e.g., monitoring and supervision, consistent punishment, and the formation of close social bonds among parents and children) for explaining crime and delinquency has been well established (see e.g., Loeber and Stouthamer-

Loeber 1986: 29). When considering the role of families and crime, however, criminologists generally view childrearing in a static framework that flows from parent to child. This static view ignores the fact that parenting styles are also an adaptation to children in a process of reciprocal interaction. An example of interactional continuity in the family is when the child with temper tantrums provokes angry and hostile reactions in parents, which in turn feeds back to trigger further antisocial behavior by the child. In support of this idea, there is evidence that styles of parenting are very sensitive to these troublesome behaviors on the part of children. Lytton (1990) has written an excellent overview of this complex body of research, which he subsumes under the theoretical umbrella of "control systems theory." This theory argues that parent and child display reciprocal adaptation to each other's behavior level, leading to what Lytton calls "child effects" on parents. One reason for these child effects is that reinforcement does not work in the usual way for conduct disordered children. As Lytton (1990: 688) notes, conduct disordered children "may be underresponsive to social reinforcement and punishment." Hence normal routines of parental childrearing become subject to disruption based on early antisocial behavior-i.e., children themselves differentially engender parenting styles likely to further exacerbate antisocial behavior. The behavior that prompts parental frustration is not merely aggressiveness or delinquency, however. Lytton (1990: 690) reviews evidence showing a connection between a child being rated "difficult9*in preschool (e.g., whining, restlessness, strong-willed resistance) and the child's delinquency as an adolescent- relation that holds independent of the quality of parents' childrearing practices. For example, Olweus (1980) showed that mothers of boys who displayed a strong-will and hot temper in infancy later became more permissive of aggression, which in turn led to greater aggressiveness in middle childhood. Moreover, there is experimental evidence that when children's inattentive and noncompliant behavior is improved by administering stimulant drugs, their mothers become less controlling and mother-child interaction patterns are nearly normalized (Lytton 1990: 688). All of this suggests that parenting, at least in part, is a reaction to children's temperament, especially difficult ones. Although rarely studied directly, it seems likely that delinquent behavior and other deliberate violations of parental authority spark retaliation in the form of harsh physical punishment and, in some cases, parental abuse. In turn, child abuse and violent punishment have been linked to later violent offending on the part of victims (Widom 1989). To the extent

that children's appraisals of themselves are powerfully influenced by negative parental labeling (Matsueda 1992). the consequences of violent interactional styles, parent-child conflict, and violent punishment for later life are potentially quite large. In any case, our point is that interactional continuity begins in the family. This is not a simultaneous relationship at one point in time so much as a reinforcing cycle that builds over time to further increase the probability of antisocial behavior (see also Thornberry 1987: 869). In Nagin and Paternoster's (1991) terminology, this process captures the state dependence effect of prior delinquency on future crime. School and Peers Many years ago, the Gluecks observed that poor school attachment may be a consequence of misbehavior more than a cause (1964: 23). Teachers may be particularly sensitive to unruly and difficult children, leading to rejection of the child or at least a strained teacher-student relationship. This rejection undermines the attachment of the child to the school, and ultimately, the child's performance in the school. More recent evidence on the reciprocal relationship between delinquency and school attachment has been uncovered in research by Liska and Reed (1985), Olweus (1983), and Thornberry et al. (1991). Similar processes have been revealed for peer interactions. For instance, children who are aggressive are more likely to be rejected by their peers compared with less aggressive children (see Cairns and Cairns 1992; Coie et al. 1991; Dodge 1983; Patterson et a]. 1989). This process creates a vicious cycle of negative interactions and is consistent with Caspi's (1987) idea of interactional continuity. Dishion and his colleagues (1991) have also found that poor family practices, peer rejection, and academic failure at age ten increased the likelihood of involvement with antisocial peers at age twelve. In this sense, peer rejection and the deviant peer group contribute to the maintenance of antisocial behavior through mid-adolescence (see also Thornberry et al. 1994). Although further discussion is beyond the scope of this article, the existing evidence thus suggests that the reciprocal interactional dynamics of teacher and peer rejection contribute to the continuity of aggression and other forms of delinquent behavior.

Americas standard of living and international competitiveness will be strengthened if its high

schools are improved. Research indicates that about 75 percent of Americas state prison inmates, almost 59 percent of federal inmates, and 69 percent of jail inmates did not complete high school. Additionally, the number of prison inmates without a high school diploma has increased over time (Harlow, 2003). Reforming the nations high schools could potentially increase the number of graduates and, as a result, significantly reduce the nations crime-related costs and add billions of dollars to the economy through the additional wages they would earn. Increasing the graduation rate and college matriculation of male students by only 5 percent could lead to combined savings and revenue of almost $8 billion each year.

Education as Crime Prevention As we have pointed out in past articles on this blog, the last couple of decades have seen increased crowding in our jails and prisons. Since about two-thirds of those released are re-arrested within three years, and about half reconvicted, its time to reconsider the purpose of incarceration. No longer can we accept the traditional principle of lock them up and throw away the key. Instead, we must consider recent research findings that show many prisoners can be rehabilitated, through education and training, and eventually contribute constructively to society upon their reentry. While illiteracy and poor academic performance are not direct causes of criminal behavior, young people with insufficient education and/or poor literacy skills are disproportionately found within the criminal justice system. The National Center for Education Statistics recently released Literacy Behind Bars: Results From the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy Prison Survey, the first assessment of the English literacy of incarcerated adults since 1992. It looks at the relationship between literacy, criminal history, and current offense, and compares the literacy of adults in the prison and household populations and across groups of prison inmates. The report finds that both male and female inmates had lower average literacy than adults of the same

gender living in households, and that a higher percentage of prison inmates had been diagnosed with a learning disability. Other studies, from the Correctional Education Association (PDF) and the Open Society Institute (PDF), present data on the impact of education on crime and crime prevention, and examine the debate on providing higher education to inmates. They find that education programs can reduce the likelihood of repeat offending and improve public safety. Education has been proven to be a great catalyst for change. These studies find that correctional education works, and that it can be particularly positive for juveniles in helping them acquire the skills they need to be responsible, independent members of society. As a costeffective and continually beneficial approach, education is one the most successful means we have of preventing and reducing crime. National Crime Prevention Council, May 21, 2007

EducationalBackground Researchers have consistently documented a number of educational deficiencies among delinquent youth in local samples. Delinquent youth perform at less than expected academic levels (Wang, Blomberg, and Li, 2005; Zabel and Nigro, 2001). They have poor school attendance and greater rates of grade retention9 (Laird, 1980; Silberberg and Silberberg, 1971; Wang, Blomberg, and Li, 2005; Zabel and Nigro,1999). When they are in school, they exhibit more disciplinary problems, resulting in greater suspension rates (Finn, Scott, and Zarichny, 1988; Loeber and Farrington, 1998; Wang, Blomberg, and Li, 2005; Zabel and Nigro, 1999). SYRP results corroborate these findings in the nationwide population of youth in custody. SYRP asks youth about their enrollment, school experience, grade level, and learning disabilities. Although a majority (76 percent) of youth were enrolled in school when they entered custody, this is significantly less than the rate of youth in the general population who are

the same age (88 percent) (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005). Only 3 percent of youth who were not enrolled when they entered custody had already graduated from high school or earned their general equivalency diploma. More than one-half (53 percent) of youth in custody admit skipping classes in the year before they entered custody, and the majority (57 percent) had been suspended in the same year. Also, 26 percent of 12- to 17-year-olds say they repeated a grade in the year prior to entering custody, which is more than twice the lifetime rate of grade retention (11 percent) among youth of the same age in the general population (Lugaila, 2003). Almost one-half (48 percent) of youth in custody are at less than the typical grade level for their age, compared with 28 percent of youth in the general population (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005). Additionally, SYRP data indicate that youth in custody have disabilities that would make school more difficult for them. Thirty percent of youth in custody report that they have been diagnosed with a learning disability, compared with 5 percent of youth between the ages of 10 and 20 in the general population (U.S. Office of Special Education Programs, 2003). Nonetheless, more than two-thirds of youth in custody report that they have aspirations of higher education. About one-half (47 percent) say they want to go to college and another one-fifth of youth (21 percent) say they would like to go to graduate school, medical school, or law school. Females are significantly more likely than males to aspire to some type of advanced degree (37 percent of females versus 18 percent of males). Most youth in custody think they will achieve their educational goals. When asked how far they thought they would go in school, the majority (57 percent) say they expect to go at least as far as they want. Youths positive aspirations also apply to their future employment. Most youth in custody (88 percent) say they expect to have a steady job in the future. This paper provides an estimate of the impact of educational attainment on juvenile conviction rates using information at the Local Education Authority in England. The empirical analysis uses aggregate conviction rates over time for three cohorts of young

people, born between 1981 and 1983, and their corresponding educational attainments, poverty indicators, time away from school and school resources. Results using mixed-effects models show that the increase in educational attainment between cohorts is associated with reductions in conviction rates for most offences (burglary, theft, criminal damage and drug-related offences) but not for violent crime. Reductions in poverty are associated with decreasing conviction rates for violent crime, criminal damage and drug-related offences, whereas increasing unauthorized time away from school is associated with higher convictions rates for theft. The results are important, as they complement current empirical studies by looking at the impact of education on cohort-specific conviction rates over time and at the impact of education on different types of offences. Educational Attainment and Juvenile Crime Area-Level Evidence Using Three Cohorts of Young People 1. Ricardo Sabates* 1. *Dr Ricardo Sabates, Senior Research Officer and NIACE Fellow, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, UK; R.Sabates@ioe.ac.uk. http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/165/preventing-juvenile-delinquencyearly-intervention-and-comprehensiveness-as-critical-factors

Every single person living in the United States today is affected by juvenile crime. It affects parents, neighbors, teachers, and families. It affects the victims of crime, the perpetrators, and the bystanders. While delinquency rates have been decreasing, rates are still too high. There have been numerous programs that have attempted to lower this rate. Some are

greatly successful, while many others have minimal or no impact. These programs are a waste of our resources. It is essential to determine the efficacy of different programs, and to see what works and what does not. In this way, the most successful programs can continue to be implemented and improved, while those that do not work are discontinued. A number of different types of programs currently exist. Those that get involved with the delinquent after the occurrence of deviant behavior tend to be less succesful, since by that point antisocial habits are well developed. More effective programs are ones that intervene before the onset of delinquent behavior and prevent that behavior prevention programs. By getting involved in childrens lives early, later crime can be effectively reduced (Zagar, Busch, and Hughes 282). Prevention programs positively impact the general public because they stop this crime from happening in the first place. And there are even some prevention programs that are more successful than others. One aspect of exceptionally successful prevention programs is their comprehensive nature. Programs that are more holistic prevent future crime better because they deal with various aspects of a childs life, not just a single one. Two programs that have both of these features early intervention and comprehensiveness - are home visitation programs and Head Start. Both of these programs have shown incredible results by targeting specific risk factors that lead to delinquent behavior. Once these risk factors are lessened, the problem behavior is much less likely to occur. In conclusion, juvenile justice prevention programs such as prenatal and early childhood nurse visitation programs and Head Start are largely successful at deterring crime for the children involved because they occur early in the childs development and because they focus on holistic and general aspects of the childs life rather than focusing on crime itself. Although there is really no way to completely predict which children will behave in delinquent and criminal ways in the future, there are a multitude of risk factors that have been shown to correlate with these behaviors. Fetal substance exposure, prenatal difficulties, an abusive and violent family are

all risk factors related to poorer executive functioning. This weakness is then shown to lead to violent behavior (Zagar, Busch, and Hughes 281). Other precursors to later frequent offending include poor child-rearing practices, poor parental supervision, criminal parents and siblings, low family income, large family size, poor housing, low intelligence, and low educational attainment (Zigler and Taussig 998). Physical and/or sexual abuse are specifically risk factors for homicidal behavior (Zagar, Busch, and Hughes 288). It has also been shown that early-onset antisocial behavior is associated with more severe outcomes compared with antisocial behavior that occurs later, and it is more likely to persist into adulthood (Olds et al. 66). But these risk factors generally have a more complicated connection to problem behavior than simply increasing it directly. For example, low intelligence is considered a risk factor since children with below-average intelligence have a good chance of doing poorly in school. They may also have some sort of mental retardation. Both of these factors are correlated with physical abuse from the parents. Therefore, a child that has low intelligence and is also dealing with parental abuse must face two external events that preclude delinquent outcomes (Zigler and Taussig 999). Socioeconomic status is another interesting risk factor. While in some studies it is directly associated with delinquent behavior, other studies have found that regardless of socioeconomic status, those children who were raised by distressed and unsupportive caregivers in unstable families had a greater chance of developing problem behavior than did children who had nurturing caregivers and grew up in supportive homes (Zigler and Taussig 999). Once again, it is the combination of factors and the interactions among them that best forecasts behavior. So one risk factor alone will hardly predict any future behavior. What is important to look at is the co-occurrence of any number of risk factors. As the number of risk factors that a child possesses increases, that may predict with increasing accuracy if they will develop delinquent behavior (Zigler and Taussig 998). So what does that mean for prevention programs? It

means that targeting risk factors is a great way to prevent crime. As more and more risk factors are diffused, the child has less and less reason to misbehave. First, it is important to define what exactly early intervention is. A program is considered early if it occurs from before birth until early adolescence, and before the onset of delinquent behavior. This is a valuable time period because early childhood provides an unusual window of opportunity for young children to be uniquely receptive to enriching and supportive environments (Welsh and Farrington 872). Research has shown that the later the intervention occurs in the childs life, the more therapeutic effort is required to return the child to a pattern of normal development (Zagar, Busch, and Hughes 286). If these programs are successful, they should alleviate some of the risk factors associated with delinquency and antisocial behavior and have lasting effects on socially competent behavior (Zigler and Taussig 999). The results of high-quality early prevention programs can be tremendous. Looking specifically at preschool programs and parent educational services that improve school readiness, they help to set a pattern that prevents delinquency in later years. Children who participate are less likely to drop out and perform delinquent behavior because they have had better early school experiences and a stronger commitment to education (Zigler 5). Early interventions also show increases in IQ scores and executive functioning, better elementary school achievement, and lower rates of aggression and other antisocial behavior (Zagar, Busch, and Hughes 291). These programs focus on the risk factors that were mentioned before, and that is why they actually reduce crime. The best programs, in fact, deal with a variety of risk factors, including ones that come from the home. The best of the early intervention programs build on the strengths of families as well as children (Zigler 5). Adults that are offered practical and social support are in a better position to become effective parents than parents who are stressed and alienated. Early intervention programs offer a support system of parental involvement and

education that works to improve family functioning and with that, child functioning (Zigler and Taussig 1003). This aspect of dealing with the family also makes these programs more comprehensive, which is another factor of good programs. Anyway, the effects of successful experiences early in childhood build on each other to generate further success in school and in other social contexts (Zigler and Taussig 1002). An important point to make is that no child is inaccessible. In fact, the greater risk factors a child has, the more they will benefit from additional support such as a strong and encompassing program (Zagar, Busch, and Hughes 291). Even in terms of cost these programs succeed. Various cost-benefit analyses show that early prevention programs provide value for money and can be a worthwhile investment of government resources compared with prison and other criminal justice responses (Welsh and Farrington 871). Especially since today the majority of money in crime prevention goes towards incarceration (Zagar, Busch, and Hughes 285). If that same money could be used for prevention programs instead, the results would be outstanding. Home Topics Criminal Justice Juvenile Delinquency Preventing Juvenile Delinquency: Early Intervention and Comprehensiveness as Critical Factors By ALINA SAMINSKY By now it is clear that programs that target youth early in their lives are generally more successful than programs with a later onset. This is one important aspect of good programs. Another facet that predicts success is how well a particular program addresses various aspects of the childs life. Some programs only focus on a childs schoolwork and academic achievement. Other programs focus solely on the parents. But the programs that seem to work the best are ones that incorporate many different aspects of a childs life into their curriculum. One particular study used a review-of-reviews approach to identify general principles of effective prevention programs that might transcend specific

content areas (Nation et al. 450). This meta-analysis found that one of these principles is comprehensiveness. The study defines comprehensive as providing an array of interventions to address the salient precursors or mediators of the target problem (Nation et al. 451). Two important factors of comprehensive programming are multiple interventions and multiple settings (Nation et al. 451). The idea of multiple interventions and multiple settings relates to Bronfenbrenners Ecological Systems theory. This theory states that there are a multitude of systems surrounding a child that all influence the development of the child. Therefore it is not enough to work with just one of the systems. True progress can only be made when many of the systems are involved. This Ecological Systems theory influenced another article to come up with an ecological approach to enrich child development by trying to promote social competence in the various systems that children encounter. This approach is based on the assumption that the most proximal influence on children is the family, however, both children and families are interactive members of a larger system of social institutions (Zigler and Taussig 997). So by targeting these various systems as opposed to just one or a few of them, a program is able to more fully aide in the appropriate development of a child. Because the risk factors associated with delinquent behavior are based in many different systems, comprehensive prevention approaches are bound to be more effective than those of more narrow range (Zigler and Taussig 1004). One prevention program stands out among the sea of others. It is implemented early on in a childs life, and it takes a holistic approach in order to deal with the many aspects of the childs life. It is also one of the most famous early prevention programs out there. Head Start began as part of Lyndon Johnsons War on Poverty. The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 gave enormous power to the Office of Economic Opportunities, who then founded the program (Zigler and Muenchow 2). Sargent Shriver, the initial creator, states that he had the idea for Head Start after a revelation that almost half the people living in poverty were children

(Zigler and Muenchow 3). Although Head Start was roughly based on some other educational experiments, it was a very unique undertaking truly the first of its kind. The program provides comprehensive education, health services, nutritional guidance, parental involvement, and social services to low-income children and their families (Zigler and Muenchow 5). Almost 50 years later, Head Start has enrolled over 22 million children in its history (Mills 4). It has been called the best investment this country has ever made in its young children (Mills 165). The program, which is based on income to determine eligible families, aims to improve the intellectual capacity and school performance of poor children (Zigler and Muenchow 4). The ultimate goal is to prepare kids to enter school to give underprivileged kids a head start (Mills 304). So in the beginning, juvenile delinquency was nowhere in the picture. In fact, the goals spanned no later than the first few years of school. No one expected the huge impact that the Head Start program would have on its participants. In fact, the main long-term impact is indeed reducing school failure (Mills 169). But the side effects have been unexpected and tremendous. Head Start has been shown to improve intelligence, academic readiness and achievement, self-esteem, social behavior, and physical health (Mills 165). In addition, results are also highly favorable for impacts on future government assistance, employment, income, substance abuse, and family stability. There is evidence that suggests that these programs not only pay back their costs but also earn a profit for the government and taxpayers in terms of deflecting costs of social assistance and judicial costs, and adding to tax revenue. And finally, a meta-review of programs concludes that preschool intellectual enrichment is effective in ultimately preventing delinquency (Welsh and Farrington 873). Again, this is most likely due to the curbing of early risk factors that set children up for future success. Another preschool program, the High/Scope Perry Preschool Project, was similar to the Head Start program. It was a short-term experiment however, and therefore was more concentrated and had more funding. But

the basis of the program was very similar to Head Start. The Perry Preschool Project was shown to be very effective in decreasing arrest rates, and increasing achievement and success in school (Zagar, Busch, and Hughes 298). Children who participated in the project also used less special education services, relied less on public assistance in the future, had better jobs and more stable employment, showed increased home ownership, and had less children out of wedlock (Zagar, Busch, and Hughes 301). It is clear that programs such as Head Start do much more than just prepare kids for school. Their effects cover various areas of childrens lives, and are visible many years later. Another highly successful type of program, that also combines early intervention with comprehensive care, is home visitation. There are many different types of home visitation programs, but most of them share a few common factors. The premise of this program is that nurses or trained professionals meet with usually low-income and/or high-risk mothers. Often times these women are teen mothers. The professionals meet with them throughout their pregnancy and then until the child is around 24 months of age. The general goal of these visits is to provide information and support to the mother. More specifically, the nurses aim to reduce environmental hazards, instruct mothers about nutrition for themselves and for their infants, effectively correct behavior, and reduce substance abuse by the mother (Zagar, Busch, and Hughes 297). Yet before discussing the outcomes of home visiting, it is important to understand just how crucial parenting is to the healthy development of the child. Good parenting provides children with a variety of different skills for them to use for the rest of their lives. Two of these important skills are impulse regulation and empathy. When these skills are lacking, the risk for adolescent criminal behavior increases. Another valuable skill that parents generally instill in their children is the ability to regulate their emotions, which the lack of can also predict future delinquency (Olds et al. 70). Recent research supports the relationship between antisocial behavior and problems in emotional self-regulation and impulse control specifically

emotions like anger and aggressiveness (Olds et al. 71). Other parental factors include an increased family size. This may lead to reduced parental influence and monitoring and greater peer influence (Olds et al. 74). Moreover, increased economic difficulties and parent depression may lead to a lack of nurturing and involved parenting, which is associated with negative peer relations as well (Olds et al. 77). As the number of risk factors increase, the likelihood of delinquency increases as well. When rejecting parenting is combined with other risk factors, such as neurodevelopmental impairment, the chance that child maltreatment or rejecting parenting will be associated with future violence is increased substantially (Olds et al. 70). Recent evidence from a Danish longitudinal study stresses the volatility of combining neurodevelopmental impairment and dysfunctional parenting early in the life cycle. The odds of poor behavior increase exponentially (Olds et al. 75). From this research, it is clear that both effective discipline and nurturing caregiving is especially crucial in preventing future delinquency (Olds et al. 78). So do home visitation programs really improve parenting? In fact, the results speak for themselves. The effects of visitation programs include a reduction in maternal substance abuse during pregnancy, a reduction in child maltreatment, a reduction in family size, closely spaced pregnancies, and chronic welfare dependence. The negative effects of cigarette smoking on childrens IQ at ages 3 and 4 were completely eliminated among nursevisited children (Olds et al. 67). Nurse-visited women reported that their infants were less fussy and irritable than did women who were not part of the program. The improved temperament seemed to be directly related to a decrease in maternal smoking and a better diet (Olds et al. 69). Visitation program reduced the rates of state-verified cases of child maltreatment and health care encounters for injuries and ingestions, while improving maternal involvement with their children and use of consistent discipline techniques. Two years after the end of the program, children from nursevisited families were much less likely to be seen in the physicians office for

injuries, ingestions, or social problems, and they had 35% fewer visits to the emergency department (Olds et al. 72). Other benefits include improved school readiness, school performance, greater employment and educational opportunities for parents, and greater family stability in general. There is evidence that suggests that home visiting programs can pay back program costs as well as produce monetary benefits for the government and for taxpayers. Parents are also taught how to use rewards and punishment effectively (Welsh and Farrington 874). In addition, maternal attitudes toward childrearing improved and there were noticeable enhancements in the home environment (Olds et al. 74). Within four years after the birth of the first child, rates of subsequent pregnancy were lower, participation in the work force was higher, and dependence on the Aid to Families with Dependent Children Program was lower (Olds et al. 75). From this extensive list of positive outcomes, it can be concluded that home visitation programs decrease the occurrence of prominent risk factors, and consequently reduce delinquent behavior later in life. One specific program, the University of Rochester Nurse Home-Visitation Program was particularly successful. It was conducted with 400 women, and home visits emphasized the mother's health throughout pregnancy, the child's health and development, and enrichment of the family's support systems within the community. The most striking result of the program was the decline of child abuse and neglect among high-risk mothers, a major risk factor in future deviant and violent behavior (Zigler and Taussig 1002). Juvenile delinquency is a serious problem in our society that needs to receive serious attention. Even those who are not directly affected end up being touched by this issue through governmental allocation of tax dollars and the general safety of our communities. This crisis is not managed by simply throwing money at programs expecting them to work. There has been enough research in this field done to conclude what works and what does not. Early interventions have proven to be effective. These programs focus not on reducing crime, since at this point children are too young to

commit crimes. Rather, the focus is on targeting risk factors that later predict delinquent behavior. If these risk factors are properly dealt with, they will decrease the chances of this future negative behavior. Comprehensive programs also have high success rates. By working with various aspects of a childs life including the ecological systems surrounding a child these programs are able to mitigate more risk factors than solely working with one or two aspects. An early start and a broad approach are signs of a good program, and many programs out there successfully integrate these two concepts. The Head Start program aims to prepare kids for school and by doing so alleviates risk factors for delinquency. The main Head Start program works with three and four-year-olds in the classroom and in the home. In addition to offering educational services, it provides health services as well as social services for the parents. The program has been very popular and successful, and has expanded a great deal since its creation in the 1960s. Today, Head Start is considered an educational achievement program as well as an early intervention delinquency program. Home visitation has also been hugely successful in mediating risk factors. Nurses or trained professionals visit the homes of low-income and high-risk soon-to-be mothers and offer advice, counseling, support, and social and health services. These services continue until the second year after the childs birth. Once again, this program not only helps foster healthy childhood development, but it sets children up for future success and deters them from committing crimes in the future. While these two programs have been beacons of light within the fog of an assortment of programs, there is always room for improvement. Research shows that truly successful programs continue beyond childhood years to provide support to at-risk youth (Zigler and Taussig 1003). The best programs do not end once a child enters school. They instead continue to provide support for as long as the particular child requires it. The key is continuity of intervention, and that is a goal all prevention programs should strive for (Zigler and Taussig 1003). Both Head Start and early

childhood home visitation programs that combine early intervention with comprehensive curriculums provide very strong examples of programs that decrease the rates of delinquent behavior in the future. However, they are only the beginning, and our society must turn to research and investigation to create programs that will bring us closer to finding an end to this far-reaching problem of juvenile delinquency. Koffman, Stephen, et al. "Impact of a Comprehensive Whole Child Intervention and Prevention Program among Youths at Risk of Gang Involvement and Other Forms of Delinquency." Children & Schools 31.4 (2009): 239-45.Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 8 Nov. 2009. Mills, Kay. Something Better for My Children: The History and People of Head Start. New York: Dutton, 1998. Print. Nation, Maury, et al. "What Works in Prevention." American Psychologist 58.6/7 (2003): 449- 57. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 8 Nov. 2009. Olds, David, et al. "Reducing Risks for Antisocial Behavior with a Program of Prenatal and Early Childhood Home Visitation." Journal of Community Psychology 26.1 (1998): 65-83. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 11 Nov. 2009. Wasik, Barbara Hanna, and Donna M. Bryant. Home Visiting: Procedures for Helping Families. 2nd ed. California: Sage, 2001. Print. Welsh, Brandon C., and David P. Farrington. Save Children From a Life of Crime. Criminology & Public Policy 6.4 (2007): 871-79. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 9 Nov. 2009. Zagar, Robert John, Kenneth G. Busch, and John Russell Hughes. "Empirical Risk Factors for Delinquency and Best Treatments: Where Do We Go from Here?" Psychological Reports 104.1 (2009): 279-308. Academic Search Premier.EBSCO. Web. 8 Nov. 2009.

Zigler, Edward. "Early Intervention to Prevent Juvenile Delinquency." Harvard Mental Health Letter 11.3 (1994): 5-8.Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 9 Nov. 2009. Zigler, Edward, and Cara Taussig. "Early Childhood Intervention." American Psychologist 47.8 (1992): 997-1007.Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 9 Nov. 2009. Zigler, Edward, and Susan Muenchow. Head Start: The Inside Story of America's Most Successful Educational Experiment. New York: BasicBooks, 1992. Print. http://www.prisonpolicy.org/scans/research_brief__2.pdf

http://www.soencouragement.org/articles/Education%20Reform%20Will%20Sto p%20the%20Crime.pdf

Survey: Education key to reducing crime By Qiu Quanlin and Sun Xiaohua (China Daily) Updated: 2006-02-04 07:16 Criminal activities by migrant teenagers have been increasing in South China's Guangdong Province due to a lack of proper education within families and schools, according to a recent survey. The survey, conducted by the Guangdong Provincial Prevention and Control of Juvenile Crime Organization, found that migrant teenage criminal cases accounted for nearly 52 per cent of the province's juvenile crime last year. The survey was carried out across 10 major cities and over 20 counties in the province last year, including Guangzhou,

Shenzhen and Dongguan, which have seen hundreds of thousands of migrant workers moving in over the last decade. Guangdong currently has the largest number of migrant workers, accounting for nearly one third of the nation's total. Officials and experts blamed the lack of proper education and protection by families and schools for the increase in migrant juvenile criminal activity. "Most migrant youngsters quit school after they move to the province, and then begin roaming the streets," said Ou Hui, deputy director of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of Caring for the Next Generation. Rural workers, who move to urban areas in search of work, usually attach more importance to money rather than good education, Ou said. Ou called the situation "an empty education" within the migrant family, which has become one of the major causes for the juvenile criminal cases. A migrant teenager surnamed Wang, who comes from the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, said his parents paid less attention to his studies after they moved to Guangzhou in early 2003. After a row with his parents Wang left for Shenzhen. It was in the southern city that the 17-year-old boy became homeless and joined a criminal gang comprising mostly youngsters. Wang was detained by local police in November 2003 after committing a robbery.

Ou called for effective measures to prevent juvenile delinquency and create a favourable social environment for the growth of migrant youngsters. "Protection of legal rights in terms of education and work is key to preventing migrant youngsters from committing crimes," Ou said. He also called for government-run schools to give free access to migrant workers' children. Usually, these children have to quit schools due to high fees. "If the educational rights of the migrant children are encroached upon, they may violate the legal system in retaliation," Ou said. Ou said that a complete database to collect migrant teenagers' information is also a must to strengthen the legal position of their parents. Meanwhile, prefectural-level cities that still do not have drop-in centres for homeless kids have been urged to establish them in 2006, so as to protect children's interests and cut the number of teenage criminals, Xinhua News Agency reported. Currently among the country's more than 280 large-and-mediumsized cities, there are 130 such centres for collecting homeless kids. Criminal groups controlling and instigating youngster to commit crimes will also be major targets this year. The decisions were made at a conference aimed at strengthening management procedures for protecting street children, which was held at the end of January and attended by 19 central government departments. At the conference, it was said that funds would be increased to update equipment and improve staff in existing drop-in centres.

More services, such as psychological guidance and different kinds of skills training, will be offered. In 2005, China had about 150,000 homeless children, according to statistics from the Ministry of Civil Affairs. (China Daily 02/04/2006 page2) http://www.betterworld.net/quotes/youth-quotes.htm

http://www.iza.org/conference_files/SUMS2010/aoki_y6093.pdf

As more and more low-income families move into neighborhoods that once catered to the middle or upper class, one must be on the lookout for his own personal safety and report any criminal activity going on in their surroundings. Crime is everywhere in these neighborhoods where kids find too much time on their hands after school hours or after the school year lets out. What also contributes to the crime rate in such places? Is it just the lack of money for low income families? Sometimes, crime can be attributed to the lack of education on the part of the perpetrator or their families. It is a statistical fact that the crime rate is inversely proportional to the education level of the culprit. Kids who grow up in families that do not stress the importance of getting an education are more likely to be living out on the streets, doing drugs, joining gangs, or ending up in prison. Sometimes parents who raise such kids were raised in similar conditions when they were youngsters. Nothing has changed. An education should be foremost on parents' minds when rearing their kids. In fact, an education is the key out of poverty. As the old saying goes, "The way out of the gutter is with a book and not a basketball."

Kids who do not have a good education in school are more likely to have difficulty with finding jobs, getting into college, or staying out of trouble with the law. Many times they have family issues that are attributed to the loss of a parent at a young age due to a death or an incarceration. Kids from single-parent homes run that risk of growing up as an "at-risk" child. This is due to the fact that the parent must work to provide food and shelter for the child, and the absence of the other parent fails to provide leadership and guidance for a growing mind. A parent who is incarcerated will definitely not be around to guide the child to getting good grades in school. What kind of message does an incarcerated parent send to a child? Is it okay to be dumb and stupid and end up in prison like their daddy? Like father, like son. Right? Is it okay to skip school and join a gang like their daddy once did? The truth of the matter is that kids who drop out of school will face hardship in their lives as they grow older. Lack of education on their part means lack of money to support a family. Lack of money translates into robbing a bank or convenience store. We hear in the news every day a robbery that occurs in our city or elsewhere. Or perhaps a shooting on the part of the perpetrator that caused an innocent life come to an abrupt halt. What are kids doing nowadays? How can we prevent our own kids from becoming troubled kids? For one, a parent must be a good role model and stress the importance of a good education. That means the parents must take an active role in their child's education by monitoring how much television the child is allowed to watch and taking charge of knowing the kinds of friends that his child associates with. Furthermore, this means maintaining communication with his teachers at school and looking over his report card regularly. A child with poor academic performance may indicate something wrong at school. Perhaps he does not like school due to external influences; i.e. bullying, difficult teachers, taunting by other students, or peer pressure.

It is better to catch the child's problem as early as possible before it comes to the point that the child is truant from school, or worse, acts out his frustration that is reflected in another Virginia Tech-like massacre. A child should like his studies and should show interest in his schoolwork. He should be taught that good grades will help him get a good education so that he can get a good paying job and be a productive member of society after he graduates. Teach your child that involvement in gangs, violence, drugs, and/or extortion will not get him anywhere but prison. Once a person ends up doing life in prison, there IS no second chance. There is no freedom for him. There is no TV, no video games, no music, nothing! Not even a chance to get an education behind bars. If there is school in prison, the education is very limited. If you are raising a child, question your child as to what is going on in school if he/she displays academic difficulty. Spend some quality time with him/her. Help them with their homework if possible. Remember, you are not just his/her friend, you are their parents. You are the first role model that a child looks toward from infancy. So be a good one and teach him/her what is right by staying in school. There is a story in Austin, Texas a few years ago. It involved a troubled 17year-old kid, Manuel Cortez, a high school dropout, who went out with his friends in a stolen car one sunny afternoon, and shot another student, Christopher Briseno, whom he did not even know because Briseno allegedly was teasing the sister of Manuel's friend. Manuel Cortez is now serving life in prison because he made a stupid decision. Now families of the victim and the perpetrator are suffering two losses from society. All for what? Because Mr. Cortez chose to drop out of school and associate with gangs and/or violence? He chose to give up the possibility of an education so that he can run around gang banging? Or did he not have the proper support and guidance from his parents? Fabiola Castillo is an online marketer for the website NinjaCOPS SuperStore. This virtual store specializes in personal defense products

where you can buy pepper spray, kubaton keychains, wireless hidden cameras, nunchaku technique videos, Taser stun guns, expandable steel batons, and many other home security products.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/530150

In modern societies, an individual's life trajectoryincluding an individual's involvement in criminal activityhas become increasingly determined by his or her educational experiences. Over the past few centuries, schools have in many ways come to challenge families as the primary site for childhood socialization. The expanding role of formal education in the lives of youth has many causes. Economic production has become more dependent on cognitive skills taught in schools. Work has become typically set off from home life, limiting parents' ability to monitor and train children informally. Increasing female labor participation rates in recent decades have accelerated this trend, with over twothirds of mothers with children under age eighteen now currently employed. At the same time that work responsibilities have increasingly separated parents from their children, public education has been expanded to command greater portions of a youth's time. At the beginning of the nineteenth century only about ten percent of U.S. individuals age fourteen to seventeen attended high school; by the end of the century, only about ten percent of young adults failed to complete high school. As recently as in the 1940s, less than ten percent of individuals attained a bachelor's degree; by the end of the century, almost one-third of young adults were expected to attain such degrees. Not only have the number of years an individual is involved in a formal education system increased, but the amount of time per year has also dramatically expanded. The length of the school day has grown and the days in an academic school year have roughly doubled over the past century. Research has clearly demonstrated how an individual's educational outcomes structure a wide range of adult life-course outcomes. Given the prominent role of education in an individual's life, educational experience has both significant direct and indirect effects on criminality. Over the past decade, educational experience has come to mediate the influence of

social background on occupational destinations. By the end of the twentieth century, educational attainment had come to replace social origins as the primary determinant of occupational status, earnings, and even one's choice of marital partners. It is not surprising, therefore, that educational attainment plays a prominent role in explaining who is likely to commit criminal acts or subsequently to become incarcerated. Individuals who are incarcerated are less likely to have had previous success either in labor or marriage markets: about half of jail and prison inmates have never been married, close to half were unemployed prior to incarceration, and more than half had been living in poverty. More direct effects of educational experience are apparent when one examines the educational characteristics of those who are incarcerated. Only about 28 percent of incarcerated individuals in state and federal prisons have successfully graduated from high school (U.S. Department of Justice). Schools play such a critical role in adult life-course outcomes because they affect individuals through several important social mechanisms. Schools are responsible for the socialization of youth. Schools work to train individuals for different roles in society and thus determine the selection of individuals for the allocation of scarce resources. Schools also structure an individual's interpersonal interactions and associations. The criminological significance of these distinct educational functions will first be explored and then connected to the relationship between crime and variation in educational performance and the structure of schooling. Lastly, conclusions and implications about the relationship between education and crime will be identified. Mechanisms producing education-crime associations As youth increasingly spend time in educational (rather than family) settings, the role of schools in the socialization of children and adolescents increases. Schools provide the context where much of the drama of the maturation process now unfolds. Children and particularly adolescents struggleoften in interaction with school authorityto define themselves as individuals with distinct identities. Identity formation involves challenges in many social psychological domains, including moral development. Educational psychologists have long argued that a critical stage in the process of moral development occurs during adolescence. Youths struggle to create their own definitions of right and wrong, as well as their own place in such a moral order (see Gilligan; Kohlberg).

mile Durkheim, one of the founding influences on modern sociology, devoted a significant portion of his writings to how schools contribute to this socialization process. In Moral Education: A Study in the Theory and Application of the Sociology of Education (1903), Durkheim argued that schools confront individual students as the embodiment of society's moral authority. Youths learn in schools to respect society's moral authority if the rules they confront do not appear arbitrary, unenforceable, or unjust. Durkheim argued that discipline is needed in education "to teach the child to rein in his desires, to set limits on his appetites of all kinds, to limit and, through limitation, to define the goals of his activity" (p. 43). Essential to Durkheim's conception of the role of school discipline in the socialization of youth is his attention to the Hobbesian problem of order. The philosopher Thomas Hobbes argued that since individuals are governed by passions and desires, the threat of sanctions from a greater authority was necessary to constrain individual actions and promote social order. Durkheim countered that the strength of external sanctions was ultimately dependent on individuals internalizing these restrictions as normative rules. Durkheim argued that schools provide social settings whereby individuals are able to develop attachments to and integration with a larger societal moral order. Durkheim's insights were most effectively introduced into contemporary criminological research by Travis Hirschi. Following Durkheim's insights, Hirschi was instrumental in developing criminological control theory, which has argued that individuals are subject to greater likelihood of criminal involvement when they have less attachment and integration with conventional authority. Since control theory owes its intellectual origins to earlier explorations of the role of schools in moral development, it is not surprising thatgiven the dramatic expansion of the role of schools in the lives of youthmuch of the contemporary research from this perspective has emphasized the relationship between educational experience and criminality. Hirschi in later work with Michael Gottfredson argued that schools in fact were in many respects better situated than families to control and properly socialize youth. School personnel were argued to have a greater ability than family members to monitor, assess, and sanction youth misbehavior. School personnel were also claimed to have a greater incentive and need to control youthful behavior because of the large concentration of children and adolescents in close proximity to each other. Regardless of whether it has in any way replaced family-based socialization, involvement in schooling also serves an important role in the

socialization of individuals. Schools provide youth with forms of attachment to conventional activities and thus increase an individual's ability to resist the temptations of criminal behavior. While socialization of youth is one of the primary mechanisms whereby a causal relationship develops between educational experience and crime, the role of the education system in training, selection, and allocation is also critical. Sociologists Max Weber and Pitrim Sorokin, writing in the first third of the twentieth century, highlighted the fact that schools not only were responsible for training individuals for specific occupational tasks, but more importantly schools also served as closure mechanisms preventing individuals from gaining access to lucrative subsequent occupational positions. A second primary function of schools is thus "to sort and sieve" students for either success or failure. Schools directly determine through grades and promotions which students will have access to privileged advanced training leading to coveted occupational positions in a society and which will instead face the greatest risk of economic hardship. Criminologists have argued that since schools are involved in selection and the allocation of scarce resources, they are sites where individuals confront obstacles to their aspirations for upward social mobility. Social scientists such as Richard Cloward, Lloyd Ohlin, and Arthur Stinchombe have developed strain theories of delinquency that link criminal behavior to blocked and frustrated status attainment. To the extent that schools produce resistance and misbehavior associated with institutional barriers to adult occupational success, a second mechanism underlying an association between crime and education is identified. In addition to socialization and selection, schools also function to structure patterns of individual interpersonal interactions and associations. Social scientists, such as George Simmel and George Herbert Mead, argued early in the twentieth century that interpersonal interactions and associations were critical dimensions of how individuals came to understand and act in society. Criminologists have applied these insights by focusing on two processes. First, researchers such as Edwin Sutherland argued that delinquency could result from patterns of differential association. Since schools can structure youth interaction through a variety of mechanisms, the likelihood of youth misbehavior could be increased or dampened through such a structuring process. Second, schools provide settings where individual interactions occur. Researchers have argued that personnel within formal institutions often engage in a labeling process.

Students are argued to have negative labels applied to them, which carry social stigmas. Since this research tradition assumes that individual meanings are the product of the dynamics of social interactions, often students will accept the negative labels assigned to them by authority figures. Rather than labels being easily rejected by students as being erroneous, they instead are argued to often become self-fulfilling prophecies. Crime and educational performance Given the multiple mechanisms whereby schools can influence adult lifecourse outcomes, it is not surprising that researchers repeatedly and consistently have demonstrated that educational performance and commitment are both negatively associated with adolescent delinquency, adult criminality, and incarceration. The more education an individual has the lower the risk of both criminal behavior and penal sanction. The higher the score on standardized cognitive tests, which partially reflect school learning, the lower the risk of criminality. High grade point averages and positive student attitudes toward school also have repeatedly been demonstrated to reduce the likelihood of adolescent delinquency and presumably adult criminality. Youth records of school sanction for student misbehavior, such as expulsion and suspension, are also clearly associated with adult criminality (Laub and Sampson; Gottfredson and Hirschi; Wilson and Herrnstein). These patterns are consistent with various criminological theoretical expectations discussed above. Students who are successful in terms of test score, grade point average, and years of education, are: defined as "bright" and "good" (labeling theory); have generally high degrees of attachment to conventional school activities (control theory); face easier success in pursuit of their ambitions (strain theory); and often are segregated off from students who are disruptive (differential association). Several important research efforts have documented the relationship between school performance and crime. In 1950, Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck published an influential study of delinquency that documented the early onset of delinquent behaviors. Nearly half the delinquent youth had identifiable behavior problems before entering the fourth grade. Individuals who demonstrate early onset of serious identifiable misbehavior are likely to have entered school predisposed to failure as a result of the absence of early childhood family socialization. Even for these students, however, it is likely that schools can serve to either reinforce or dampen their preexisting

tendencies for misbehavior. In 1969, Travis Hirschi published a seminal study of delinquency that focused much greater attention on educational behavior than did the earlier study by the Gluecks. Hirschi surveyed over five thousand junior and senior high school students in the San Francisco Bay area. He found systematic evidence that school performance and attachment (as measured by cognitive test scores, grades, and attitudes toward school) each had significant effects on the number of self-reported delinquent acts. Hirschi attributed this pattern of results to variation in the extent to which students formed positive attachments to school authority and activities. In the early 1990s, criminologists John Laub and Robert Sampson extended Hirschi's work, demonstrating that school attitudes and performance (as measured by grades) affect delinquency rates. Variation in the structure of schooling and crime Years of educational attainment, cognitive test score, student grades, and attitudes toward school, however, are only a small part of how schools structure adolescent experience. Educational research demonstrates that other school factorssuch as curriculum, resources, and school peer climatesalso strongly influence a student's life chances. While numerous studies have examined the overall effect of schooling on deviance and crime, much of the existing criminological research has largely ignored the actual character of schooling. Criminological research has only begun to provide a more pedagogically sensitive examination of an adolescent's involvement with educational institutions. Such an examination requires a more complete elaboration and specification of the high school context that serves to diminish or increase the probability of criminality. Educational research has begun to inform criminological investigation by focusing on the role of vocational education, educational resources, and peer climates in affecting the incidence of delinquency, crime, and incarceration. Vocational education Vocational programs were instituted and expanded in high schools based on proponents' claims that occupational course work would reduce unemployment, crime, and deviant behavior in young adults. Criminological research has suggested mixed evidence on whether these programs have actually served to reduce individual propensity for criminal behavior. Because vocational education can function to segregate lowachieving students in particular courses either within a school or actually in a separate school within a larger district, many criminologists are skeptical that any positive effects of the programs can emerge. Setting vocational

students off from academic students could lead to detrimental patterns of differential association or the labeling of vocational students as "less able" or as "youthful troublemakers." It is important to note, however, that such negative effects are conditional on the actual structure of how vocational programs are organized. In many European countries such as Germany, for example, vocational programs and adolescent apprenticeships are an integral part of a socially validated educational system. In these settings, there is neither great stigma nor profound social segregation associated with these programs. In the United States, many schools in recent years have attempted to adopt an academy model for their vocational programs, where vocational education is integrated into both academic course work and the world of work: in these programs significant stigma or segregation is less likely. In 1971, Ahlstrom and Havighurst published what became a prominent skeptical evaluation of the role of vocational education in reducing the prevalence of delinquency. Ahlstrom and Havighurst investigated a specialized vocational work-study program designed for four hundred inner-city, maladjusted youth. The program was shown to have little effect on crime rates during student teen years. Vocational education, however, has been demonstrated to have positive effects on student reports of satisfaction with school and positive perceptions of their teachers. Positive adolescent work experience is also related to psychological feelings of mastery, internal control, and selfcompetence. Given the significance of these factors in predicting criminality, it is likely that under certain circumstances vocational education can significantly discourage criminality. Recent criminological research has demonstrated that vocational education course work significantly reduces the likelihood of adult incarceration, if the course work occurs in an educational setting that does not concentrate and segregate high proportions of economically disadvantaged youth (Arum and Beattie). Educational resources Few criminological studies have attempted to estimate the effects of educational resources on individual delinquency and propensity for criminal behavior. One exception is Gary Gottfredson and Denise Gottfredson's Victimization in Schools (1985). The Gottfredsons argue that rates of student and teacher victimization in schools are a product of a range of school characteristics, including school resources, peer composition, and vocational curricular emphasis. Educational resources

are likely important in that they can allow schools to reduce class size and thus increase a student's opportunities for learning from, and relating to, their teachersthat is, their likelihood of attachment to conventional activities. Educational resources can also be used to ensure greater monitoring of youth. Educational resources likely affect a school's ability to influence positively an individual's life course, since schools with greater resources are better able to provide more positive enriched educational experiences for adolescents (such as costly vocational education programs). Recent noncriminological research has identified a clear pattern of the effects of educational resources on a range of socioeconomic outcomes including growth in test scores, increased years of educational attainment, and higher lifetime earnings. These socioeconomic outcomes have all been related to individual criminality and incarceration risk. It is therefore not surprising that high school student-teacher ratios have also been demonstrated to affect adult incarceration risk (Arum and Beattie). Peer climates Peer climates can affect criminality in a number of ways, including differential association and altering social norms for acceptable behavior. Peer climates emerge in school as a product of both ecological and institutional factors. While peer climates are partly a reflection of peer composition, they are also structured by institutional factors. School practices in general and school disciplinary practices in particular define the parameters in which specific peer climates emerge and flourish. In the United States, significant variation in disciplinary practices exist: many public schools still practice corporal punishment, while in other schools often little is done to control student misbehavior and gang activity. Peer composition has been demonstrated to be clearly associated with delinquency and subsequent incarceration in a large number of studies. Peer climates characterized by higher dropout rates and students of lower socioeconomic origins provide settings that make conventional school attachment more difficult. Research by James Coleman has emphasized, however, that schools have a role in structuring the manner in which peer climates exist. Work by mile Durkheim also suggests the importance of school disciplinary practices in the socialization of youth. Punishment is necessary, according to Durkheim, because it unequivocally communicates that a normative rule has been broken.

Challenges to school disciplinary practices, regardless of whether they are from external environmental or internal organizational sources, would be particularly unsettling to the normative order of the school. Conservatives argue that due to administrative and legal challenges to school authority, students no longer view school rules as inviolate (Toby). At a practical level, school discipline works to generate student compliance and academically focused peer cultures. Peer climates have long been associated with student academic performance. In recent work, Coleman and his colleagues have argued that private schools outperform public schools in part because they are able to maintain stricter disciplinary climates with lower rates of student absenteeism, vandalism, drug use, and disobedience. Sociologists have also found that rates of misbehavior during the senior year are lower in schools that have higher rates of disciplining of sophomore students (Diprete et al.). Misbehaving students also have lower levels of educational achievement as measured by change in grades and test scores. Conservatives claim that without proper order and discipline, schools are unable to function properly and effective socialization is impossible. Progressive educators, however, have countered that as traditional authoritarian disciplinary practices are eliminated from public schools, students will be less alienated from their educational environments, and more likely to remain in school and apply themselves to their studies. Support for this is suggested by the fact that the use of strict disciplinary practices, such as corporal punishment, leads to lower educational achievement and higher rates of delinquency. Researchers also argue that these school practices can lead to the formation of oppositional peer groups that resist formal education. Conclusions and implications Criminologists who believe that propensity for adult criminality is established in early childhood attempt to dismiss empirical research that identifies significant school effects on delinquency and crime. These critics argue that selection bias accounts for education-crime associations. That is, some criminologists will argue that both educational and criminal trajectories are set at a very early preschool age. By the time that children enter school, the argument goes, families (or genetics) have already produced "bad kids." Individuals fail in school because they lack social control: failure in school thus reflects individual-level socialization problems that underlie criminal propensity; poor educational performance itself

therefore does not produce criminal behavior. While some criminologists might still argue this position, it is fundamentally inconsistent with the larger social scientific research community's understanding of the role of education in life course development. At least since the late 1960s, social scientists have recognized that educational experience has come to mediate the relationship between social origins and adult life-course outcomes. While poorly socialized youth certainly are less likely to do well in terms of educational attainment, schoolsif properly structuredcan successfully counter these tendencies. Schools are institutions that can serve as "turning points" in individual lives. As the criminologists John Laub and Robert Sampson have argued: "despite the connection between childhood events and experiences in adulthood, turning points can modify life trajectoriesthey can 'redirect paths."' Since schools play a critical role in determining the likelihood of delinquency, crime, and incarceration, policymakers historically have turned to educational reform to address social problems associated with adolescent delinquency and adult criminality. The last two decades of the twentieth century, however, were exceptional in U.S. history in terms of both educational and criminological policy. In unprecedented ways, policymakers have relied on incapacitation by the penal system to address the crime problem in society. Concurrently, educational policy has lost its focus on designing programs to integrate and socialize economically disadvantaged youths to become productive members of society. Instead, educational policymakers have become fixated on the narrow task of improving school performance and efficiency in terms of measurable student gains on cognitive standardized tests. While prison rolls have more than doubled in the last two decades of the twentieth century, high school vocational education enrollments have plummeted as the programs have been dismantled due to their high cost. While the penal system has demanded an increasing portion of local, state, and federal finances, educational budgets have struggled just to keep up with inflation and demographic growth in school age populations. While government officials increasingly threaten to sanction schools for the lack of student progress on cognitive tests, schools as institutions have become legally constrained from applying disciplinary sanctions to maintain peer climates conducive to learning and socialization. How policy reformers reconcile these tensions and contradictions in educational and social policy will determine the character of the education-crime relationship in the future.

Richard Arum See also Class and Crime; Crime Causation: Sociological Theories; Family Relationships and Crime; Intelligence and Crime; Juvenile and Youth Gangs;Schools and Crime. BIBLIOGRAPHY Ahlstrom, Winton, and Havighurst, Robert. 400 Losers: Delinquent Boys in High School. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1971. Arum, Richard, and Beattie, Irene. "High School Experience and the Risk of Adult Incarceration." Criminology 37, 3 (1999): 515538. Cloward, Richard, and Ohlin, Lloyd. Delinquency and Opportunity. New York: Free Press, 1960. Coleman, James, and Hoffer, Thomas. Public and Private High Schools: The Impact of Communities. New York: Basic Books, 1987. Coleman, James; Campbell, Ernest; Hobson, Carol; McPartland, James; Mood, Alexander; Weinfeld, Frederich D.; and York, Robert. Equality of Educational Opportunity. Washington, D.C.: Department of Health, Education and Welfare, 1966. Diprete, Thomas; Muller, Chandra; and Shaeffer, Nora. Discipline and Order in American High Schools. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1981. Durkheim, mile. Moral Education: A Study in the Theory and Application of the Sociology of Education (1903). New York: Free Press, 1961. Gilligan, Carol. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982. Glueck, Sheldon, and Glueck, Eleanor. Five Hundred Criminal Careers. New York: Knopf, 1930. Gottfredson, Gary, and Gottfredson, Denise. Victimization in Schools. New York: Plenum Press, 1985. Gottfredson, Michael, and Hirschi, Travis. A General Theory of Crime. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1990.

Hirschi, Travis. Causes of Delinquency. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969. Kohlberg, Lawrence. Essays on Moral Development. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981. Laub, John, and Sampson, Robert. "Turning Points in the Life Course: Why Change Matters to the Study of Crime." Criminology 31 (1993): 301325. Polk, Kenneth, and Schafer, Walter. Schools and Delinquency. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1972. Rutter, M.; Maughan, B.; Mortimore, P.; and Ouston, J. Fifteen Thousand Hours: Secondary Schools and Their Effects on Children. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979. Sampson, Robert, and Laub, John. Crime in the Making: Pathways and Turning Points Through Life. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993. Sorokin, Pitrim. Social and Cultural Mobility. New York: Free Press, 1927. Stinchombe, Arthur. Rebellion in a High School. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1993. Sutherland, Edwin. Principles of Criminology. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1937. Toby, Jackson. "The Schools." In Crime. Edited by James Q. Wilson and Joan Petersilia. San Francisco, Calif.: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1995. U.S. Department of Justice. Report to the Nation on Crime and Justice.Washington D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1988. Weber, Max. "The Rationalization of Education and Training." Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1946. Wilson, James Q., and Herrnstein, Richard. Crime and Human Nature. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985.

Education and Crime Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice | 2002 | ARUM, RICHARD | 700+ words | Copyright JAMAICANS ARE very concerned now about the rate of crime in Jamaica. Although we are reportedly ranked as one of the most unsafe countries in the world, Deputy Commissioner of Police Mark Shields has refuted this (and rightly so), pointing out that the majority of our murders are gang related. However, as we say in Jamaica, 'Tek sleep and mark death'. So what can we do about it? Commissioner of Police Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin and the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) have put forward their plan to reduce crime in Jamaica and they must be supported in every way possible. As a country, we cannot only look to short-term measures, as it is not possible to arrest every budding criminal there is in Jamaica. We have to look at the underlying reasons why our youths (boys and girls) choose gangs and what causes us to resort to violence to settle disputes. (Domestic violence is our second-highest cause of murder.) A sense of belonging When someone addresses a situation in an aggressive manner we often say, 'Im ignorant, eeh!' suggesting that if persons do not have adequate information, whether it be through words, exposure or a sense of reasoning, it is harder for them to discuss a disagreement and come to an amicable resolution. Studies have shown that people often join gangs in an effort to have a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose and value. What can we, as a country, do about this? In our schools we have a captive audience of more than 90 per cent of our young people between the ages of six and 15 and about 70 per cent of them between 15 and 18. This presents a great opportunity to make an impact on what our population chooses going forward. We currently place a great deal of emphasis on the academics in our schools, which should not change, as this is the primary purpose of a school. However, we must recognise that we have another role to play: We

must not only give our students the words, but also a sense of belonging, purpose and worth. This is traditionally the role of the parent and the family and these are the values that we need to restore. However, we must accept that the quality parents we have today are those that, as a society, we have created. The quality of teachers we have today are those we have created. So, together they can only give what they have been given. We must break the cycle. The end game we want is to create a population that is self-assured, informed, and one that uses the creativity with which we are so blessed to create wealth and well-being for themselves and, as a result, their country. In this process, we must remember our slogan for education, 'Every child can learn and every child must learn.' What we often forget is that every child IS learning. So, if we are not contributing to that process, then the choices children make are limited to the things to which they are exposed. What can we do differently? 1. The education system must accept there is a parenting role that it has to play. (Some school, principals and teachers already do this, but it is not widespread enough.) The curriculum must purposefully shape our value systems. (This is not new; it has been done before.) Our schools must be a safe place for our children, where they can make mistakes, the appropriate consequence applied, but where they are given a chance to continue to develop. Our schools must reward our children into success and not punish them into submission. Our teachers must be retrained to understand this task and their role, so we can stop making our children feel that they are no good or do not belong anywhere because their parents have not shown up or spent more money on themselves rather than the children. 2. The education system must recognise it is more than just completing the curriculum, but it is the children's resultant learning that counts.

Meet our children where they are. Where necessary make our schools remedial. Believe in our children and help them to achieve the mastery they need to move on to the next level. Assess every child and reorganise our system to allow our children to truly achieve mastery in each grade and not move them on because the age has passed. (Some attempts are being made with this at the grade-four level.) It is now time for us to take this on as an emergency measure and not wait for it to work out in the long run. Every year that we put children through the system and they continue to feel inadequate and 'dunce', we run the risk of creating more and more angry people and criminals. Each cohort is 50,000 children; if 50 per cent of them do not understand what is happening for them at school, then we run the risk every year of having 25,000 students who are 'ignorant', more likely to choose violence as the way out. (That is 25,000 at risk only if you can control those who are in the classroom, so we only count the graduating class). In this emergency, we can't ignore those who would have spent more than 10 years in our system, but they have not achieved mastery even at the grade-four level for some. Let us show our children that we believe in them. Let us invest more in our children, give them an additional two years in school, but make sure we are teaching them and not completing another curriculum. 3. Prepare our teachers to be able to take on remedial teaching for literacy and numeracy. If the children have this foundation, they can learn anything else. 4. Invite our retired teachers to come out and help in this process, whether to train our teachers or to help with the teaching. Resultant crisis As the adults of this country, we (Government, private sector, churches and citizens) have to come together and recognise that we have a crisis in education in this country, and a resultant crisis in crime and violence. We must come together and declare a state of emergency for the education system and let our children know by our words, our actions and

our use of resources, that we believe in them; we believe in their potential and we will do everything in our power to ensure they get the opportunity to learn, not only math and English, but to love themselves and be productive and creative citizens and better parents than we were. Every child can learn, every child must learn, every child is learning. Poor education a driver of crime and violence published: Sunday | August 3, 2008

There are number of theoretical reasons why education may have an effect on crime. From the existing socio-economic literature there are (at least) three main channels through which schooling might affect criminal participation: income effects, time availability, and patience or risk aversion. For most crimes, one would expect that these factors induce a negative effect of schooling on crime. In what follows, we discuss each of these channels in more detail. For the case of income effects, education increases the returns to legitimate work, raising the opportunity costs of illegal behaviour. Consequently, subsidies that encourage investments in human capital reduce crime indirectly by raising future wage rates (Lochner, 2004). Additionally, punishment for criminal behaviour may entail imprisonment. By raising wage rates, schooling makes any time spent out of the labour market more costly (Lochner and Moretti, 2004; Hjalmarsson, 2008). Therefore, those who can earn more are less likely to engage in

crime. The idea that education raises skill levels and wage rates, which then lowers crime, is not a new one. Ehrlich (1975) empirically examined a number of predictions from an intuitive model relating education to crime. Grogger (1998) investigated the relationship between wage rates and criminal participation. The author shows that graduating from high school reduces criminal productivity and that criminals have on average less education than non-criminals. Linking crime to wages, Grogger (1998) concludes that youth offending behaviour is responsive to price incentives and that falling real wages may have been an important factor in rising youth crime during the 1970s and 1980s. Machin and Meghir (2004) look at cross-area changes in crime and the low wage labour market in England and Wales. They find that crime fell in areas where wage growth in the bottom 25th percentile of the distribution was faster and conclude that improvements in human capital accumulation through the education system or other means enhancing individual labour market productivity would be important ingredients in reducing crime. However, there is also some evidence that education can also increase the earnings from crime and the tools learnt in school may be inappropriately used for criminal activities. In this sense, education may have a positive effect on crime. Levitt and Lochner (2001) find that males with higher scores on mechanical

information tests had increased offence rates. Lochner (2004) also estimates that across cohorts, increases in average education are associated with 11% increase in white collar arrest rates (although this estimated effect is not statistically significant). Time spent in education may also be important for teenagers in terms of limiting the time available for participating in criminal activity. This can be thought of as the cynical explanation is that whilst youngsters are at school they are being kept off the streets, (Hansen, 2003). This self-incapacitation effect was documented by Tauchen et al. (1994) who found that time spent at school (and work) during a year is negatively correlated to the probability of arrest that year. Hjalmarsson (2008) looked at the opposite relationship of the impact of being arrested and incarcerated before finishing school on probability to graduate. Her results suggest that the more times you are caught committing crime and the amount of time spent in prison both greatly increases the likelihood of becoming a high school dropout. As these still may be endogenous decisions, Jacobs and Lefgren (2003) instrument days off school with exogenous teacher training days. They find that property crime increases significantly in areas where youths have days off school validating the idea of the self-incapacitation effect of education on criminal participation. However, they also report that violent offences

arrests increase while school is in session and attribute this to a concentration effect.2 This, as Jacobs and Lefgren (2003) point out, only measures potential short-term impacts of education on crime. However, we can easily argue that criminal participation as a youth has longer run effects on future offending behaviour. Moreover, it is important when considering the immediate impact of policies that incentivise youths to stay on at school. Education may also influence crime through its effect on patience and risk aversion (Lochner and Moretti, 2004). Here, future returns from any activity are discounted according to ones patience in waiting for them. Thus, individuals with a lot of patience have low discount rates and value future earnings more highly as compared to those with high discount rates. Oreopoulos (2007) summarizes a sample of studies from the from psychological and neurological literatures, concluding that young people who drop out of school tend to be myopic and more focussed on immediate costs from schooling (stress from taking tests, uninteresting curricula, foregone earnings, etc.), rather than on future gains from an additional year of schooling. This line of literature also suggests that adolescents lack abstract reasoning skills and are predisposed to risky behaviour. Education can increase patience, which reduces the discount rate of future earnings and hence reduces the propensity to commit crimes. Education may also

increase risk aversion that, in turn, increases the weight given by individuals to a possible punishment and consequently reduces the likelihood of committing crimes. In summary, if education increases the marginal returns of earnings from legal more than illegal activities, schooling reduces the time available to commit crimes and positively affects patience levels. We therefore expect crime to be decreasing in the number of years of schooling and higher qualification attainment. It is also very likely that, everything else equal, individuals with higher wage rates, those who spend more time in school, and those with lower discount factors, will commit less crime.

Education can make a positive impact on crime in two ways: 1. If we improve education for Bermudas youth, they will be less likely to enter a life of crime. Many studies in the US, UK, and Caribbean show that quality education for youth helps socialize students, teach patience, help them to relate to others better, and be a positive part of the community. In particular, violent and property crime is reduced the most when education is improved. The studies also point out that the better educated one is, the higher ones salary will be, thus making crime less profitable compared to a legitimate job. In one US study, keeping kids in school for one extra year led to an 11% drop in arrests. Even Bermudas own Hopkins report the report that analyzed the public school system in Bermuda concluded that the future economic health of the island is very closely bound up with the workforce development. 2. If we educate Bermudas incarcerated they will be less likely to commit future offenses. A significant number of people in Bermuda have been incarcerated more than once. The studies on the effects of educating the prison population are also clear: the higher the level of education attained while in prison, the less likely a person will be to commit a future offense. Amazingly, one study in Texas showed that where inmates completed a Masters degree while in prison the likelihood that they would commit another crime was zero.