![Does going to jail teach you to be a better criminal?
Sociologists and psychologists have long puzzled over why the criminal justice system seemingly fails to reform inmates - a frustratingly large portion of the prisoners released end up right back in jail a short while later. One researcher from Ohio University decided to use a longitudinal study - one which tracks down the same participants year after year to ask them survey questions - to see if prison actually improves the quality of the criminal.
If prison reformed criminals, illegal earnings once people were released ought to have gone down. But if prison was a “finishing school” for criminals, illegal earnings after serving time should have increased.
“Spending time in prison leads to increased criminal earnings,” Hutcherson says. “On average, a person can make roughly $11,000 more [illegally] from spending time in prison versus a person who does not spend time in prison.”
As to the process by which this happens, he says, “You come in [to prison]. You’re 16, 17, 18 years old. You’re looking around and you’re thinking, ‘Listen, I can learn from these seasoned veterans.’ And that’s exactly what you do. … Basically, you are spending a lot of time around other criminals, seasoned veterans who know the lay of the land, and they can teach you the mechanisms — ways to get away with crime.”
You can listen to the whole story over at NPR.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/b79a9a0e707b4421c1020c0117365baa/tumblr_mhs3j2tOa41qgfmcuo1_500.jpg)
Does going to jail teach you to be a better criminal?
Sociologists and psychologists have long puzzled over why the criminal justice system seemingly fails to reform inmates - a frustratingly large portion of the prisoners released end up right back in jail a short while later. One researcher from Ohio University decided to use a longitudinal study - one which tracks down the same participants year after year to ask them survey questions - to see if prison actually improves the quality of the criminal.
If prison reformed criminals, illegal earnings once people were released ought to have gone down. But if prison was a “finishing school” for criminals, illegal earnings after serving time should have increased.
“Spending time in prison leads to increased criminal earnings,” Hutcherson says. “On average, a person can make roughly $11,000 more [illegally] from spending time in prison versus a person who does not spend time in prison.”
As to the process by which this happens, he says, “You come in [to prison]. You’re 16, 17, 18 years old. You’re looking around and you’re thinking, ‘Listen, I can learn from these seasoned veterans.’ And that’s exactly what you do. … Basically, you are spending a lot of time around other criminals, seasoned veterans who know the lay of the land, and they can teach you the mechanisms — ways to get away with crime.”
You can listen to the whole story over at NPR.
2:00 pm |
February 6 2013
| 191 notes
Okay, this doesn’t have much to do with science, but I was just telling someone about how stupid that “If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?” question is, and now Randall Munroe has completely validated my opinion.
That is all.
(Source: xkcd.com)
1:23 pm |
February 6 2013
| 371 notes
jtotheizzoe:
sciencecenter:
I think this would make an excellent single-serving tumblr.
(SMBC)
“The female human melodic vocalization delivery vehicle known as ‘Taylor Swift’ continues to make questionable choices in potential mates, although she has recently made it known that she has excluded, excluded, excluded a fellow member of her vocalization pack previously in the running for genetic reproduction via a widely-heard mourning/mating call. Like, ever.”
During a large gathering of carbon-based metazoan life forms for the purpose of the stimulation of aural sensory apparatuses, a high status vertebrate announced through his voice amplification system that one or more of his gametes had successfully fertilized the egg of a female chordate of the same species, who is notable for appearing on trashy reality tv.
1:15 pm |
February 6 2013
| 1,044 notes
I think this would make an excellent single-serving tumblr.
(SMBC)
12:01 pm |
February 6 2013
| 1,044 notes
Anonymous asked: Are those red and blue colours caused by red shift and blue shift? Or just different gasses/dust in the galaxy?
Great question! I answered it in a post not too long ago. In short, the appearance of an astronomy picture like the one I just posted is largely due to image processing. Doppler shifts are certainly important for astronomers, but that’s not what is causing the colors in the image.
11:18 pm |
February 5 2013
| 12 notes
This spiral galaxy is extra stunning
I know I’ve been gone a bit longer than expected, so to make up for it, I dug up something special. These photos of stars always tend to be awesome, but I was particularly impressed by this image of the galaxy Messier 106, practically our neighbor at only 20 million light years away. The bright spot at the middle of the galaxy? A supermassive black hole that puts the Milky Way’s black hole to shame. You can read all about Messier 106 here.
10:44 pm |
February 5 2013
| 201 notes
maxistentialist:
The distance between the Earth and Moon is 238,900 miles. Most people get this very, very wrong.
4:18 pm |
January 3 2013
| 524 notes
