14 ms·

Study finds most unemployed young men have criminal records

85 points by aussieguy1234 5y ago

lazyeye 5y ago
"Researchers say the main lesson from the study is that unemployment services need to do more to help people cope with their criminal histories." Could another "main lesson" be for people to commit less crime?
PaulHoule 5y ago
One of the few 501(c)3's I will give money to is an organization that helps offenders go straight when they get out of jail and I see my name on a very short list of private donors. In the 1990s I was a victim of what I would call "Domestic Terrorism", the ringleader of the group didn't go to prison for his actions against me and other people at my college but I did hear that he went to prison for drug charges not long after. I still haven't forgiven the college administrator who chose not to take action against this person (would that person have said "there is nothing they can do" if his daughter was the victim?) but if I heard the ringleader of that gang had gotten out of prison and managed to find work and stay out of trouble I would want to shake his hand because that is something that is against the odds and so hard to do.
- jka 5y ago
  Forgiveness can be extremely difficult; well done for recognizing that your individual experiences aren't a reason to restrict the opportunities of others - that's more than many people are able to manage.
  - cryptonector 5y ago
    I helps to ask for forgiveness.
- simmanian 5y ago
  Which org do you donate to?
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
- gjs278 5y ago
- daniel-cussen 5y ago
  College administrators are like that sometimes. You wonder if they're really rooting for you or not.
- jevoten 5y ago
  Why does a college administrator have anything to do with whether the legal system would prosecute someone in a criminal matter where you were the victim?
slt2021 5y ago
They need to study deeper, why these young men engage in criminal activities in the first place, only to find themselves arrested and later ineligible for any job. Do they think that benefits from criminal activities outweigh the risks of being caught and not being able to pass any background check for entire life? First step if to stop young men from engaging in criminal behavior, to stop feeding jails with fresh blood so to speak. Next step is rehabilitation program for previously convicted felons, does the current program work or not, how it can be improved? You can’t just ask businesses to stop doing background checks and employ convicted felons and hope they will not embezzle funds from their new employer. The risk is too high.
- ilovetux 5y ago
  It is not so cut and dry. In my experience, most criminal activity in the is done by people who don't really feel like they belong in our society. This could be because of their race/ethnicity or because of addiction or because of some trauma which left them feeling like an outcast. If we look at the issue through this lens it becomes obvious that when one feels like they don't belong to a society then there is little perceived value in playing by the rules since nobody else seems to be doing so. This trap is especially easy to fall into when you are young.
- gwbas1c 5y ago
  > You can’t just ask businesses to stop doing background checks and employ convicted felons and hope they will not embezzle funds from their new employer. The risk is too high. No, you can't. The problem is that the criminal history prevents employment for life, not just for the few years while someone is getting back on their feet after jail. For example, when I was in college, my fraternity paid our cook cash. He (the cook) always seemed to have side-hustles or was picking up odd cooking jobs. After I got to know him for a few years, he told me that he was convicted approximately 20 years prior for cocaine distribution. He implied that he had a lot when he was caught. Then he told me he couldn't get a normal job because of his record. My point is that, after a certain period of time with no recidivism, (maybe 5 years,) the criminal record should not be a barrier to general employment.
tyingq 5y ago
At least in the US one thing that has made this worse is universal cheap access to criminal background checks. That didn't used to exist, so a criminal background blocked access to jobs with big companies that could do background checks. But, you could get a job at smaller companies. That's gone now...a criminal background gets a "no" from almost everyone. Other countries have a system where some government agency provides a "does this person have any past offenses relevant to this job?" service. Where they look at the type of job, any criminal history, and make sure the specific criminal history isn't an issue for the type of job being sought.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Yeah, I wouldn't want a former embezzler in a bookkeeping job at my company.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    That's the point - a former embezzler being hired as a plumber is different than hiring them as a bookkeeper. However, until the employees are more scarce than jobs, there's no reason to hire an ex-con and every reason to skip over them (bureaucratically speaking). To counter that you'd need to offer incentives TO hire them - tax write-offs or something, or liability protections. Or you have to expunge records at some point, which is another issue because that only affects government records, not other things background checks may find.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      There's another reason why companies don't want to hire felons - liability. I've seen many companies successfully sued over the years because one of their employees committed a crime against a customer. The lawsuit was because the company hired an ex-con. To get companies to hire ex-cons, liability laws need to be amended to protect companies from that sort of liability.
      - bombcar 5y ago
jl6 5y ago
In previous centuries, there were plenty of jobs with low trust requirements - chiefly, unskilled manual labor. A criminal record wasn’t such a barrier to that type of employment. Someone could spend time in prison, and then still find work on the outside. Not great work perhaps, but a living - a way forward for them, to re-integrate back into society. A way to slowly rebuild trust. The shift away from unskilled manual labor towards higher-skilled, higher-impact jobs, raises the trust bar, locking out those with criminal records, leaving them few opportunities to re-integrate with the mainstream economy, and an incentive to fall further into the criminal economy.
- earspider 5y ago
  This misses the point. There's an obvious solution: disallow employers (except in outlier cases where there are safety concerns) from using criminal background checks in hiring decisions.
  - seandoe 5y ago
    No, I think you're missing their point. They weren't proposing a solution. They were simply offering an explanation as to why the situation exists. A good explanation at that, too.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jl6 5y ago
    That’s only a solution if you think there aren’t any genuine trust issues in hiring people with criminal records.
    - tenebrisalietum 5y ago
      That points to a major issue of the criminal justice system. You should be clear after your sentence and have repaid your debt to society. If society wants to send people to correctional facilities for life for things like theft or drug charges, then it should be honest and do that.
Animats 5y ago
"By age 35, 64% of unemployed men have been arrested and 46% have been convicted of a crime, with the rates varying only slightly by race and ethnicity." Well, executing criminals for minor offenses seems to be out of fashion.[1] Transportation to Australia or Siberia is no longer an option. There's no frontier to ship them off to. And the US military doesn't want criminals; each soldier today has too much firepower. There are ways back, but it's hard to scale them. Delancey Street Restaurant in SF is staffed by ex-cons. (I recommend the chicken.) [1] https://www.nationaljusticemuseum.org.uk/museum/news/what-was-the-bloody-code https://www.nationaljusticemuseum.org.uk/museum/news/what-wa...
- jimmygrapes 5y ago
  It's idealistic but hear me out. Think of all the minor things in your neighborhood or town/village/city/parish/etc. that need to be fixed. Potholes, poor road markings, overgrown or unmaintained greenery. Uneven sidewalks. Litter, grime. Think of the local government or contracted services that are understaffed. New construction and renovation. Forest management, wetlands management, park maintenance. Homeless shelters and soup kitchens and community centers. Crossing guards and bus drivers. Many of these are run by organizations that restrict felons, or perversely use convicts nearly exclusively via prison release programs and monitored community service. Why not open these up more?
  - mulmen 5y ago
    A lot of what you listed there are actually highly skilled careers. So, why not hire recently released felons at your business? If they really do have something to offer it should be an untapped market for talent. For the record I actually think this is a good idea.
  - tomjakubowski 5y ago
    Chrysalis and the Downtown LA BID run a local maintenance program just as you describe, serving all kinds of disadvantaged folks, including the formerly incarcerated, helping them transition into full time employment. https://downtownla.com/the-dcbid/safe-and-clean/clean-team https://downtownla.com/the-dcbid/safe-and-clean/clean-team https://www.changelives.org/ https://www.changelives.org/
enterthematrix 5y ago
Study finds correlation not causation
steelstraw 5y ago
What % are for non-violent drug related charges that we could expunge by making marijuana legal? It's crazy to me that this hasn't been done.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
GeoAtreides 5y ago
This is horrifying. You have a huge number of disfranchised people, who can't normally participate in society -- they can't get a job, they can't a mate. On this path lies radicalization and violence. I'm not sure you understand how truly chilling this is. These people, with nothing to lose, absolutely nothing to lose, have easy access to weapons and ammunition. You are sitting on a very very large powder keg and it will take just one spark, one charismatic leader, to unite them and blow the whole shebang up. Act now before it's too late.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  > These people, with nothing to lose, absolutely nothing to lose, have easy access to weapons and ammunition. Isn't it illegal to buy a gun if you have a felony? Putting aside the whole "they're criminals, they don't follow the law". Unless that was your point
  - GeoAtreides 5y ago
    Hardened criminals they aren't, most of them probably are convicted for having some marijuana on them. They study doesn't say all of them are felons. And really, does it matter if they personally can't buy guns? It's the US, guns grow on trees. They probably already have a gun, gifted to them by their parents. And it's a moot point once they start organizing.
    - sneak 5y ago
      You can't (generally) legally possess a gun as a felon (even if you legally possessed it before), and it is illegal to gift a gun to a felon.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
        Those laws probably explains why so few criminals in the US have access to guns then, since criminals tend to closely follow the law.
  - kingcharles 5y ago
betwixthewires 5y ago
Maybe I'm nuts, but I don't think a person's record should be available. Maybe in extreme circumstances, like they're still a danger to those around them, but beyond that, once the sentence has been completed it should be 100% back to normal.
- PedroBatista 5y ago
  As in anything, some middle-ground is where things generally sit. The no record available once the sentence is completed is fine until someone gets killed or their daughter raped by someone with extensive criminal record of things not related to murder or rape. The unfortunate reality is, a certain type of people will continue to commit crimes all their life and many of them aren't even premeditated, it's a "it just happened" thing. Having said that, a "no second chances for anyone" approach would have the same results as the secret records approach you described. IMO most of the crime problems are attached to the culture and their vicious cycles, but that's an ultra-radioactive topic and every discussion easily goes south, so, just another day I guess..
  - micromacrofoot 5y ago
    Blaming "culture" for crime is a racist dog-whistle, and it's very rightly radioactive to talk about because there's almost no evidence to support it. Your opinion is rooted in stereotypes and you should investigate this more before continuing to jump to the culture conclusion.
    - acrobatsunfish 5y ago
      Your assumption is more racist in my opinion. It sounds more classist to me, but I think that's just reality. Desperate people make desperate decisions, and their pro con list is different then middle and upper class.
      - micromacrofoot 5y ago
        you might think it’s classist if you have no experience being subjected to it, it’s an incredibly pointed claim that has been used for decades… note that no one blames white “culture” when a white suprematist goes on a shooting rampage
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ThinkBeat 5y ago
Helping people with criminal records get jobs is good. Letting then vote is also a good first step. The focus should be on helping them -before- they end up with a criminal conviction of some sort on their permanent record. Sadly we are engineering society to be less and less compatible for young men and this will only get worse over time. And then these angry young men get older they beget their own angry young men. Everyone is not compatible with sitting still and shutting up for 4 - 8 hours a day for 12 years + uni. (And far more men than women are incompatible). That this has become the common requirement in society is a growing issue. We need a way to productively allow these men to partake in society at their own terms, or at least a lot closer to it than we are now. That means creating jobs and frameworks that are compatible. Crime is natural choice. It a great outlet for adrenaline and aggression and asserting ones freedom from the chains of society. It is dangerous, sometimes lethal. and looking good for the ladies. (or other men) You even make easy money, (a lot of t, if you happen to be among the 1% of criminals). It is a highly compatible venture. Instead of inventing new psychological diagnosis and inventing an ever bigger stream of pharmaceuticals meant to neuter them and force compliance we should do the opposite. Recognise it as a resource for society.
- lachstar-x 5y ago
  This is the best reply here. Such compassion, but intelligent too. Well done!
- darebak 5y ago
  >Letting then vote is also a good first step. I'm always amazed that some Western countries don't let former convicts vote. In Serbia even current convicts can vote, atleast in republic level elections, not sure about local elections.
  - RickJWagner 5y ago
    In America, unscrupulous politicians explicitly target voters by demographics and fill the airwaves with propaganda aimed at steering the vote. This leads to situations like celebrity endorsements, where huge swaths of under-informed voters are influenced simply by messaging. The saving grace is the 'representative' form of government, where at least some sanity can be injected into the process.
zephrx1111 5y ago
Do we need a study to find this?
Perenti 5y ago
OK, let's start by saying that this is specifically for US young men. And since the USA has a higher percentage of citizens either behind bars or having been inside this is not so surprising. Other developed countries support the unemployed, so they're much less likely to commit crime to survive.
grammarnazzzi 5y ago
> "Employers need to understand that one big reason they cannot find the workers they need is too often, they exclude those who have had involvement with the criminal justice system," Pretentious academics need to understand that one big reason employers exclude those who have involvment with the criminal justice system is because they have a history of criminal behavior.
kstenerud 5y ago
This is why I find the German system so civilized: Nobody but you, the police, and the courts have access to your criminal record. Nobody but the police has access to your arrest record. Nobody is allowed to publish your name in relation to reports of arrests or convictions, or collect such data. Employers can request from you a criminal record check (because you're the only one who can order one), but this is only done for the most sensitive of jobs and only for relevent offences. You can also have most offences expunged from your record after a time. Thus, you don't end up spending the rest of your life wearing a scarlet letter.
da39a3ee 5y ago
If “Black men” is capitalized, shouldn’t it be “White men” also, except where one is referring to a man that is the color white, for example due to having been painted?
frogperson 5y ago
A criminal record in a database forever is a punishment that isn't talked about. When someone files bankruptcy, they are only punished for 7 years then the record is dropped. Once you are labeled a criminal, you carry that mark for life. It's easy to see how that could cause resentment and anger and lashing out. I think there should be time limits on criminal records just like there are time limits on jail time.
RickJWagner 5y ago
Further, family dynamics dictate how many young males face these difficulties. Here's where the solution lies. Strong families make the bedrock of a strong society.
hogrider 5y ago
See, this is why in my ideal society the cronically criminal are put for life in gulags. This mind simply can't coexist with nirmal people in modern society.
Nevermark 5y ago
Jobs are either: 1. Rising in impact, so employers simply have to rank candidates mercilessly, ... Think: Creatives, White Color Workers, Executives, ... 2. ... Or becoming homogenized in order to be easily scalable and easily replaceable, so employers have no incentive not to weed mercilessly Think: Driver, Warehouse Worker, Restaurant/Retail Chain Employees of all Kinds, Low Level Managers, ... This is natural trend for LOCAL-OPTIMIZED action in an economic system continually optimizing for efficiency. Trust is a huge efficiency. But while I am a fan of ever rising standards, GLOBAL OPTIMIZATION of the economy requires rising standards to be coupled with on-ramps and advancement support. So people can also efficiently rise to those higher standards. Easily identifiable on-ramps, and self-advancement opportunities are important for those with lack of experience, and overlooked talents, but also victims of inequitable or self-inflicted history. Acceptance of dead ends for people creates immediate local problems (unemployment, family stress), but also metastasizes into global societal problems (political instability, tribalism, crime, less capable work force, less wealthy consumer class, retirement problems, social support oversubscription, etc).
rurban 5y ago
In the US, of course. > a stigma that poses a barrier to them participating in the nation's labor force. No, it poses a barrier to them participating in elections. That's the idea behind their racist politics-police-court system.

85 points by aussieguy1234 5y ago

"Researchers say the main lesson from the study is that unemployment services need to do more to help people cope with their criminal histories." Could another "main lesson" be for people to commit less crime?

PaulHoule 5y ago

One of the few 501(c)3's I will give money to is an organization that helps offenders go straight when they get out of jail and I see my name on a very short list of private donors. In the 1990s I was a victim of what I would call "Domestic Terrorism", the ringleader of the group didn't go to prison for his actions against me and other people at my college but I did hear that he went to prison for drug charges not long after. I still haven't forgiven the college administrator who chose not to take action against this person (would that person have said "there is nothing they can do" if his daughter was the victim?) but if I heard the ringleader of that gang had gotten out of prison and managed to find work and stay out of trouble I would want to shake his hand because that is something that is against the odds and so hard to do.

jka 5y ago
Forgiveness can be extremely difficult; well done for recognizing that your individual experiences aren't a reason to restrict the opportunities of others - that's more than many people are able to manage.
- cryptonector 5y ago
  I helps to ask for forgiveness.
simmanian 5y ago
Which org do you donate to?
Terry_Roll 5y ago
gjs278 5y ago
daniel-cussen 5y ago
College administrators are like that sometimes. You wonder if they're really rooting for you or not.
jevoten 5y ago
Why does a college administrator have anything to do with whether the legal system would prosecute someone in a criminal matter where you were the victim?

slt2021 5y ago

They need to study deeper, why these young men engage in criminal activities in the first place, only to find themselves arrested and later ineligible for any job. Do they think that benefits from criminal activities outweigh the risks of being caught and not being able to pass any background check for entire life? First step if to stop young men from engaging in criminal behavior, to stop feeding jails with fresh blood so to speak. Next step is rehabilitation program for previously convicted felons, does the current program work or not, how it can be improved? You can’t just ask businesses to stop doing background checks and employ convicted felons and hope they will not embezzle funds from their new employer. The risk is too high.

ilovetux 5y ago
It is not so cut and dry. In my experience, most criminal activity in the is done by people who don't really feel like they belong in our society. This could be because of their race/ethnicity or because of addiction or because of some trauma which left them feeling like an outcast. If we look at the issue through this lens it becomes obvious that when one feels like they don't belong to a society then there is little perceived value in playing by the rules since nobody else seems to be doing so. This trap is especially easy to fall into when you are young.
gwbas1c 5y ago
> You can’t just ask businesses to stop doing background checks and employ convicted felons and hope they will not embezzle funds from their new employer. The risk is too high. No, you can't. The problem is that the criminal history prevents employment for life, not just for the few years while someone is getting back on their feet after jail. For example, when I was in college, my fraternity paid our cook cash. He (the cook) always seemed to have side-hustles or was picking up odd cooking jobs. After I got to know him for a few years, he told me that he was convicted approximately 20 years prior for cocaine distribution. He implied that he had a lot when he was caught. Then he told me he couldn't get a normal job because of his record. My point is that, after a certain period of time with no recidivism, (maybe 5 years,) the criminal record should not be a barrier to general employment.

tyingq 5y ago

At least in the US one thing that has made this worse is universal cheap access to criminal background checks. That didn't used to exist, so a criminal background blocked access to jobs with big companies that could do background checks. But, you could get a job at smaller companies. That's gone now...a criminal background gets a "no" from almost everyone. Other countries have a system where some government agency provides a "does this person have any past offenses relevant to this job?" service. Where they look at the type of job, any criminal history, and make sure the specific criminal history isn't an issue for the type of job being sought.

WalterBright 5y ago
Yeah, I wouldn't want a former embezzler in a bookkeeping job at my company.
- bombcar 5y ago
  That's the point - a former embezzler being hired as a plumber is different than hiring them as a bookkeeper. However, until the employees are more scarce than jobs, there's no reason to hire an ex-con and every reason to skip over them (bureaucratically speaking). To counter that you'd need to offer incentives TO hire them - tax write-offs or something, or liability protections. Or you have to expunge records at some point, which is another issue because that only affects government records, not other things background checks may find.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    There's another reason why companies don't want to hire felons - liability. I've seen many companies successfully sued over the years because one of their employees committed a crime against a customer. The lawsuit was because the company hired an ex-con. To get companies to hire ex-cons, liability laws need to be amended to protect companies from that sort of liability.
    - bombcar 5y ago

jl6 5y ago

In previous centuries, there were plenty of jobs with low trust requirements - chiefly, unskilled manual labor. A criminal record wasn’t such a barrier to that type of employment. Someone could spend time in prison, and then still find work on the outside. Not great work perhaps, but a living - a way forward for them, to re-integrate back into society. A way to slowly rebuild trust. The shift away from unskilled manual labor towards higher-skilled, higher-impact jobs, raises the trust bar, locking out those with criminal records, leaving them few opportunities to re-integrate with the mainstream economy, and an incentive to fall further into the criminal economy.

earspider 5y ago
This misses the point. There's an obvious solution: disallow employers (except in outlier cases where there are safety concerns) from using criminal background checks in hiring decisions.
- seandoe 5y ago
  No, I think you're missing their point. They weren't proposing a solution. They were simply offering an explanation as to why the situation exists. A good explanation at that, too.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jl6 5y ago
  That’s only a solution if you think there aren’t any genuine trust issues in hiring people with criminal records.
  - tenebrisalietum 5y ago
    That points to a major issue of the criminal justice system. You should be clear after your sentence and have repaid your debt to society. If society wants to send people to correctional facilities for life for things like theft or drug charges, then it should be honest and do that.

Animats 5y ago

"By age 35, 64% of unemployed men have been arrested and 46% have been convicted of a crime, with the rates varying only slightly by race and ethnicity." Well, executing criminals for minor offenses seems to be out of fashion.[1] Transportation to Australia or Siberia is no longer an option. There's no frontier to ship them off to. And the US military doesn't want criminals; each soldier today has too much firepower. There are ways back, but it's hard to scale them. Delancey Street Restaurant in SF is staffed by ex-cons. (I recommend the chicken.) [1] https://www.nationaljusticemuseum.org.uk/museum/news/what-was-the-bloody-code https://www.nationaljusticemuseum.org.uk/museum/news/what-wa...

jimmygrapes 5y ago
It's idealistic but hear me out. Think of all the minor things in your neighborhood or town/village/city/parish/etc. that need to be fixed. Potholes, poor road markings, overgrown or unmaintained greenery. Uneven sidewalks. Litter, grime. Think of the local government or contracted services that are understaffed. New construction and renovation. Forest management, wetlands management, park maintenance. Homeless shelters and soup kitchens and community centers. Crossing guards and bus drivers. Many of these are run by organizations that restrict felons, or perversely use convicts nearly exclusively via prison release programs and monitored community service. Why not open these up more?
- mulmen 5y ago
  A lot of what you listed there are actually highly skilled careers. So, why not hire recently released felons at your business? If they really do have something to offer it should be an untapped market for talent. For the record I actually think this is a good idea.
- tomjakubowski 5y ago
  Chrysalis and the Downtown LA BID run a local maintenance program just as you describe, serving all kinds of disadvantaged folks, including the formerly incarcerated, helping them transition into full time employment. https://downtownla.com/the-dcbid/safe-and-clean/clean-team https://downtownla.com/the-dcbid/safe-and-clean/clean-team https://www.changelives.org/ https://www.changelives.org/

enterthematrix 5y ago

Study finds correlation not causation

steelstraw 5y ago

What % are for non-violent drug related charges that we could expunge by making marijuana legal? It's crazy to me that this hasn't been done.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

GeoAtreides 5y ago

This is horrifying. You have a huge number of disfranchised people, who can't normally participate in society -- they can't get a job, they can't a mate. On this path lies radicalization and violence. I'm not sure you understand how truly chilling this is. These people, with nothing to lose, absolutely nothing to lose, have easy access to weapons and ammunition. You are sitting on a very very large powder keg and it will take just one spark, one charismatic leader, to unite them and blow the whole shebang up. Act now before it's too late.

dahfizz 5y ago
> These people, with nothing to lose, absolutely nothing to lose, have easy access to weapons and ammunition. Isn't it illegal to buy a gun if you have a felony? Putting aside the whole "they're criminals, they don't follow the law". Unless that was your point
- GeoAtreides 5y ago
  Hardened criminals they aren't, most of them probably are convicted for having some marijuana on them. They study doesn't say all of them are felons. And really, does it matter if they personally can't buy guns? It's the US, guns grow on trees. They probably already have a gun, gifted to them by their parents. And it's a moot point once they start organizing.
  - sneak 5y ago
    You can't (generally) legally possess a gun as a felon (even if you legally possessed it before), and it is illegal to gift a gun to a felon.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      Those laws probably explains why so few criminals in the US have access to guns then, since criminals tend to closely follow the law.
- kingcharles 5y ago

betwixthewires 5y ago

Maybe I'm nuts, but I don't think a person's record should be available. Maybe in extreme circumstances, like they're still a danger to those around them, but beyond that, once the sentence has been completed it should be 100% back to normal.

PedroBatista 5y ago
As in anything, some middle-ground is where things generally sit. The no record available once the sentence is completed is fine until someone gets killed or their daughter raped by someone with extensive criminal record of things not related to murder or rape. The unfortunate reality is, a certain type of people will continue to commit crimes all their life and many of them aren't even premeditated, it's a "it just happened" thing. Having said that, a "no second chances for anyone" approach would have the same results as the secret records approach you described. IMO most of the crime problems are attached to the culture and their vicious cycles, but that's an ultra-radioactive topic and every discussion easily goes south, so, just another day I guess..
- micromacrofoot 5y ago
  Blaming "culture" for crime is a racist dog-whistle, and it's very rightly radioactive to talk about because there's almost no evidence to support it. Your opinion is rooted in stereotypes and you should investigate this more before continuing to jump to the culture conclusion.
  - acrobatsunfish 5y ago
    Your assumption is more racist in my opinion. It sounds more classist to me, but I think that's just reality. Desperate people make desperate decisions, and their pro con list is different then middle and upper class.
    - micromacrofoot 5y ago
      you might think it’s classist if you have no experience being subjected to it, it’s an incredibly pointed claim that has been used for decades… note that no one blames white “culture” when a white suprematist goes on a shooting rampage

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ThinkBeat 5y ago

Helping people with criminal records get jobs is good. Letting then vote is also a good first step. The focus should be on helping them -before- they end up with a criminal conviction of some sort on their permanent record. Sadly we are engineering society to be less and less compatible for young men and this will only get worse over time. And then these angry young men get older they beget their own angry young men. Everyone is not compatible with sitting still and shutting up for 4 - 8 hours a day for 12 years + uni. (And far more men than women are incompatible). That this has become the common requirement in society is a growing issue. We need a way to productively allow these men to partake in society at their own terms, or at least a lot closer to it than we are now. That means creating jobs and frameworks that are compatible. Crime is natural choice. It a great outlet for adrenaline and aggression and asserting ones freedom from the chains of society. It is dangerous, sometimes lethal. and looking good for the ladies. (or other men) You even make easy money, (a lot of t, if you happen to be among the 1% of criminals). It is a highly compatible venture. Instead of inventing new psychological diagnosis and inventing an ever bigger stream of pharmaceuticals meant to neuter them and force compliance we should do the opposite. Recognise it as a resource for society.

lachstar-x 5y ago
This is the best reply here. Such compassion, but intelligent too. Well done!
darebak 5y ago
>Letting then vote is also a good first step. I'm always amazed that some Western countries don't let former convicts vote. In Serbia even current convicts can vote, atleast in republic level elections, not sure about local elections.
- RickJWagner 5y ago
  In America, unscrupulous politicians explicitly target voters by demographics and fill the airwaves with propaganda aimed at steering the vote. This leads to situations like celebrity endorsements, where huge swaths of under-informed voters are influenced simply by messaging. The saving grace is the 'representative' form of government, where at least some sanity can be injected into the process.

zephrx1111 5y ago

Do we need a study to find this?

Perenti 5y ago

OK, let's start by saying that this is specifically for US young men. And since the USA has a higher percentage of citizens either behind bars or having been inside this is not so surprising. Other developed countries support the unemployed, so they're much less likely to commit crime to survive.

grammarnazzzi 5y ago

> "Employers need to understand that one big reason they cannot find the workers they need is too often, they exclude those who have had involvement with the criminal justice system," Pretentious academics need to understand that one big reason employers exclude those who have involvment with the criminal justice system is because they have a history of criminal behavior.

kstenerud 5y ago

This is why I find the German system so civilized: Nobody but you, the police, and the courts have access to your criminal record. Nobody but the police has access to your arrest record. Nobody is allowed to publish your name in relation to reports of arrests or convictions, or collect such data. Employers can request from you a criminal record check (because you're the only one who can order one), but this is only done for the most sensitive of jobs and only for relevent offences. You can also have most offences expunged from your record after a time. Thus, you don't end up spending the rest of your life wearing a scarlet letter.

da39a3ee 5y ago

If “Black men” is capitalized, shouldn’t it be “White men” also, except where one is referring to a man that is the color white, for example due to having been painted?

frogperson 5y ago

A criminal record in a database forever is a punishment that isn't talked about. When someone files bankruptcy, they are only punished for 7 years then the record is dropped. Once you are labeled a criminal, you carry that mark for life. It's easy to see how that could cause resentment and anger and lashing out. I think there should be time limits on criminal records just like there are time limits on jail time.

RickJWagner 5y ago

Further, family dynamics dictate how many young males face these difficulties. Here's where the solution lies. Strong families make the bedrock of a strong society.

hogrider 5y ago

See, this is why in my ideal society the cronically criminal are put for life in gulags. This mind simply can't coexist with nirmal people in modern society.

Nevermark 5y ago

Jobs are either: 1. Rising in impact, so employers simply have to rank candidates mercilessly, ... Think: Creatives, White Color Workers, Executives, ... 2. ... Or becoming homogenized in order to be easily scalable and easily replaceable, so employers have no incentive not to weed mercilessly Think: Driver, Warehouse Worker, Restaurant/Retail Chain Employees of all Kinds, Low Level Managers, ... This is natural trend for LOCAL-OPTIMIZED action in an economic system continually optimizing for efficiency. Trust is a huge efficiency. But while I am a fan of ever rising standards, GLOBAL OPTIMIZATION of the economy requires rising standards to be coupled with on-ramps and advancement support. So people can also efficiently rise to those higher standards. Easily identifiable on-ramps, and self-advancement opportunities are important for those with lack of experience, and overlooked talents, but also victims of inequitable or self-inflicted history. Acceptance of dead ends for people creates immediate local problems (unemployment, family stress), but also metastasizes into global societal problems (political instability, tribalism, crime, less capable work force, less wealthy consumer class, retirement problems, social support oversubscription, etc).

rurban 5y ago

In the US, of course. > a stigma that poses a barrier to them participating in the nation's labor force. No, it poses a barrier to them participating in elections. That's the idea behind their racist politics-police-court system.