Summary: Effects Of Arrest On College Enrollment

The American dream is a rhetoric of hope and mobility to reach the heights of economic sustainability that you wish to achieve. The idea is that the amount of effort you put forth will emanate the amount of success you can produce as a byproduct of American society. This concept however couldn’t be further from the truth, as many have tried to work up for years but only got slightly better at best then they say what they were nearly a decade ago. Many researchers have demonstrated that not only has the American Dream often times been influenced by our socioeconomic roots, but that to progress out of it is like a dime in a dozen. Since education provides students the material to move onto the larger job industry, and because the disparity between high school graduates and college graduate has increased so drastically, Americans are clamoring for college now more so than ever before. Student debt has been an issue that has kept many Americans in the lower end of the social class spectrum to miss out on utilizing college resources. Many financial aid programs have been established to attempt to decrease this tendency, particularly the Pell grant having the most success. Unfortunately, despite the initial success of the Pell grant program, it still has its limitations on how much help it can provide to underprivileged students. An incentive based scholarship program such as the Performance-based scholarships where attendance rates, passing classes, and student involvement

2. Kupchik suggests that there are three ways in which a child’s introduction to the system can take place. The first being, it is the first setting in which a “child’s deficits become apparent,” which increase their risk of school failure and incarceration (94). Secondly, he insists that students who underperform, academically, are more likely not to graduate. Thus, without a basic education, these underperforming students are likely to pursue illegitimate activity/careers that lead to incarceration (94). Finally, Kupchik explains that the way a school reacts to a child’s bad behavior is important. He argues that a school’s disciplinary process does not curb a student’s future involvement with the criminal justice system, but can potentially catalyze their involvement with the criminal justice system (94).

Most people have preconceived notions regarding the relationship between social class and delinquency. A common assumption is that lower-class juveniles are more likely to engage in delinquent behavior than their higher-class counterparts. Criminologists have performed a large number of studies examining the socio-demographic characteristics of delinquents, which often yielded contradictory results. When analyzing the extent and trend of juvenile delinquency in the United States conclusions can be drawn from estimates derived from arrest records, self-reports, and victimization data. Arrest estimates, self-reported information, and victimization data provide different estimates of the extent of delinquency in the United States (Maxfield et

Mass incarceration has been a huge social problem since the 1980s; it came hand in hand with the war on drugs. Elliott Currie, a professor of criminology and law, suggests that building more prisons, imposing longer sentences, and applying harsh punishments will not lower the incarceration rate. In his chapter on “Assessing the Prison Experiment,” he explained that the increase of crime rate is not the sole reason that mass incarceration occurs, and it was also because courts

For a portion of their lives, the average person most likely believes that the criminal justice system executes justice and disciplines offenders accordingly. Reflecting upon the United States’ history, it is proven that this is not always the case. When the phrases “school” and “prison” come to mind, they typically have no correlation to each other⎼until the topic of the "school-to-prison pipeline" is introduced. The school-to-prison pipeline refers to policies and procedures within the classroom that push our nation's schoolchildren, especially those most at-risk, out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. This pipeline reflects the prioritization of incarceration over education. Reform within schools is crucial

The Urban Institute Study also studied the effect of a variety of Truth in Sentence reforms that were put into practices in the States for the period of the early-to mid-1990’s on their prison population. The study conducted a quantitative examination of crime, arrest, population, and corrections data from seven States that focused on whether State Truth in Sentence reform actually paved the road to changes in punishments for offenders who were violent and also increased the prison population. The study found that possibility of a prison admission given arrest for serious violent offenses did not automatically increase. However, the use of incarceration augmented in four States, but diminished in the other three. But, there was an increase in expected stay depending on the severity of punishment for serious

College has always been used as a means to an end, with that end being their American Dream. Through college, they would gain knowledge that could help them achieve that dream. Over the recent years, with the economic troubles, people have shifted from the idea of

The fourth article that I reviewed, focused on labeling theory. In this article, Labeling Effects of First Juvenile Arrests authors Liberman, Kirk, and Kim focused on how the first arrest increases the likelihood of reoffending for juveniles. The idea of labels triggers “secondary sanctioning” processes. Labeling is a powerful mechanism that can lead to crime.

Hall, Harger, and Stansel (2015) report that while the United States (US) mass incarcerates offenders, they also release many; 700,000 inmates were released in 2011 (1). Statistics suggest that rates as high as sixty-six percent, 462,000, will be re-incarcerated within three years and seventy -five percent within five (Jonson 2010). Many factors may acerbate the propensity toward incarceration, thereby creating inmates, however, what may be the most significant consequence of incarceration is that once an inmate is released, the odds support that the process will repeat itself (Jonson 2010). Thereby it is almost considered a normal process .to accept that released inmates will have a substantial impact on future incarceration

Contemporary criminological approaches to life-course theory place importance on the factors taking place in each phase of life (classified as childhood, adolescence, and adulthood) and how those factors piece a role in the contribution of criminal behavior. Childhood elements Development events regarding primarily on parental guidance and a single parent household is a common scenario. Studies have displayed a higher risk for criminal activity later in one’s life if the adaptation to social bonds are not instilled in the adolescence phase (Piquero, 2015). When adolescents are proficient to excel in institutions such as schools, churches, and community centers they are less likely to turn to criminal activities to occupy their time (Piquero, 2015).

“States reported that approximately 9,900 incarcerated persons earned a certificate in the 2009–10 academic year; 2,200 associate’s degrees were awarded, and nearly 400 students earned bachelor’s degrees” Sponsler and Gorgol (2011). Education has the ability to positively impact any individual especially those who face the challenges of incarceration. Although this is not a topic that influential individuals in the U.S. seem to discuss too often, it is something that impacts a large number of people in the institutional system, thus having universal impacts on the rest of the population.

Therefore, the Arnold Foundation’s study reveals that the “hidden costs of jail” are increased rates of recidivism among low and moderate risk offenders when they spend anywhere from two to thirty days in pretrial detention (Lowenkamp, VanNostrand, & Holsinger, 2013). Jail to the general public is believed to be a place where offenders are held for punishment, rehabilitation and ultimately to protect the public. The study conducted by the Arnold Foundation contradicts this belief. Low and moderate risk offenders generally are not rehabilitated from their stay in jail and the public’s safety is not increased by their pretrial detention. Once released from pretrial detention these defendants are more likely to recidivate than if they had been

Arrests and detentions can influence the social learning of crime when juveniles are directly exposed to other delinquent people and are being labeled as delinquent. Juveniles are more likely to model their delinquent peers because they are under less direct control at their age or they value their peer’s beliefs and actions because they admire their privileges. Even the certainty/ severity of a punishment whether it be through parents, schools, or the juvenile justice system can help deter juveniles from engaging in

The authors address a significant gap in the literature on school punishment by being the first to examine the cumulative effect of school suspension on future contact with the criminal justice system. Using longitudinal hierarchical generalized linear models, the authors discovered two important findings: 1) youth who receive school suspension have an increased likelihood of experiencing arrest over time, and 2) youth who are suspended are more likely to be arrested than their non-suspended counterparts. From a theoretical standpoint, the authors conclude that school suspension may serve as a negative turning point within the life history of youth who are affected, thus fitting in with the life-course perspective. School suspension is also

It seems the longer criminals stay, again the more punitive the sentencing, the higher chance of recidivism. “Based upon the existing evidence, both crime and imprisonment can be simultaneously reduced if policy-makers reconsider their overreliance on severity based policies such as long prison sentences” (Wright, 12).There is an infinite amount of variables contributing to the rate of recidivism.Three extralegal variables are included in the analysis: age, gender, and race/ethnicity. Age, one of the most robust predictors of recidivism, is measured from the offender’s date of birth, supplied by state Department of Corrections files. Aside from the length of time and stay in prison, each criminal and criminal act is different. Younger offenders are more likely to recidivate than older offenders (Benedict, Huff-Corzine, & Corzine, 1998; Hepburn & Albonetti 1994). Male’s recidivate more than female, (BJS). Both male and female prisoners come from different communities, families, but in the male population alone the criminals are sentenced differently. African Americans (63.9 months) were given longer sentences on average, followed by Caucasian s (58.0 months) and Hispanics (52.8 months) (McGovern, 319). Since African Americans and Hispanics are given longer sentences their recidivism rate is much higher than that of Caucasian . These different variables are major flaws in the criminal justice system that needs to be taken into consideration. Additional problems when they are