BLEEDING EMO MONKEYS

thedailywhat:

The Kids Are All In Jail of the Day: According to a study published in the latest issue of the scientific journal Pediatrics, just under a third of all American citizens will be arrested before the age of 23.

When a similar study, published nearly half a century ago by criminologist Ron Christensen, claimed that 22% of Americans under 23 would be arrested, the result shocked the country.

The latest study, compiled by University of North Carolina-Charlotte criminologist Robert Brame and his team using over a decade’s worth of data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, suggests that number may have increased by as much as 8.2% over the past 44 years.

“There’s a lot more arresting going on now,” said Carnegie Mellon criminologist Alfred Blumstein, who was a member of President Lyndon Johnson’s crime task force alongside Christensen. Blumstein pointed out that drugs and domestic violence — crimes that would not have been a priority for police in the 60s — account for some of the increase in arrests.

Criminologist Megan Kurlychek also noted that most smaller offenses were handled informally by local authorities 40 years ago. “Society is a lot less tolerant of these teenage behaviors,” she said, emphasizing that “arrests have worse consequences than ever for these juveniles.”

“[Arrest records] follow you forever,” Kurlychek said. “The average teenager who steals an iPod or is arrested for possession of marijuana — why do we make that define their lives?” 

[usatoday.]

Oh hai, look what mandatory arrest laws for domestic violence that are ineffective and progressively-more-stringent drug laws do. This is what happens when laws fail to understand and address the actual source of the actions they wish to stop. Not to mention when laws are imposed on a society that contradicts the majority’s opinions, values, and morals (oh hay whats up drugs? im talking about you).