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Online Learning Becomes Court-Ordered Community Service
An anonymous reader writes "Yahoo Finance reports that convicted criminal offenders can serve their court-ordered community service hours online by taking educational courses through Community Service Help. According to the article, there is a high correlation between criminal activity and lack of education. Who knew? 'About 40 percent of all U.S. prison inmates never finished high school, and nearly 44 percent of jail inmates did not complete high school. More current data shows that hasn't changed. In Washington, D.C., for instance, 44 percent of Department of Corrections inmates are not high school graduates. Less than 2 percent had 16 years or more of schooling.'"
and get your degree on Uncle Sam...
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
fromm muy jail sell! fukkin bullshiet storee i teel youh.
More criminals online. Exactly what we needed.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Interesting the breakdown of inmate by education. I wonder what the racial breakdowns of this as well.
Not to sound racist, but I do notice many inmates are negroes.
Correlation != cause. Educating them will just mean smarter criminals. Not everyone can work in banking.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Does that mean educated people are less criminal or just better in hiding their crimes ?
And in the latter case, doe we really want to educate criminals ?
Of course there are many reasons that people don't finish school. Sometimes it's because they're not smart enough. Other times it's because they're bored out of their skulls, or family issues are pulling them away, or a million other reasons. Maybe this should be interpreted as yet another reason that we need to revamp schools so that they do more than just deliver a "one-size-fits-all" education to the middle of the bell curve. Education is expensive, but prison is far more expensive.
Check out the girl on the main page... Sign me up!
So it makes sense to do this. The jails are overcrowded already and it forces people to get educated, which should help them gets jobs. I would image many of people are doing this because a) they are bored, b) need money so they steal or c stupid or d) a combination of a, b, and c.
I don't think they became criminals because they didn't finish high school. Perhaps they didn't finish high school because they were already inclined to become criminals. My logic is as sound as theirs.
33% of statistics are simply repeated. Of cited statistics 67% are not repeated. More recently 33% of statistics were repeated.
"...give me all yo' money, or I'll bust yo' ass like Atahualpa at Cajamarca!"
It could be that there's another underlying cause that tends to make one act criminally and avoid education...
The sort of people sufficiently compliant to complete high school are the sort of people sufficiently compliant to think that we must do what we're told.
I have excellent school and university grades (mathematics, not some wishy social science). It was a waste of fucking time. I've stopped respecting the law. I shouldn't have bothered in the first place. Maybe one day I'll end up in jail. Who cares? Most people were quicker than me and learnt this lesson earlier.
And before you wonder, no, most people aren't locked up forever. You do your time, you make a life for yourself in jail, you come out again, do something outside jail, perhaps you get caught again.
Did graduate? We should stop educating people because it leads to a life of crime. 3 out of 5 people in jail did graduate compared to 2 out of 5.. Clearly graduation is correlated with a life of crime. Plus who wants smart criminals?
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
The obvious solution is to lower the requirements for gradution. Give everyone a sticker star, everyone's special. After all, if you have the right to a public education, why not have the right to a diploma too? Then once everyone has a piece of paper they didn't do any work to get, none of the criminals will have graduated from high school. Problem solved.
There is a correlation between a lack of education and a conviction.
If you're educated enough you can easily avoid jail time.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
the online learning comprises embedded youtube khanacademy.org videos.. i wonder if they are breaking any copyright laws by using these
99% of people are just stupid as shit. getting into fights is at least kind of exciting, as bad as that sounds. listening to uneducated fuckfaces talking about dumb shit all day is the real torture of jail.
Isn't high school mandatory in the USA?
We already spend too much on public schools.
The purpose of public schools it to keep the public ignorant.
It's all about spin. "I sentence you to 30 days of reeducation." How does that sound?
Or is it simply that the vast majority of those in prison lack the education required to be successful criminals? They aren't educated enough to not get caught, and when caught, to work the systems to avoid prison? If you educate an amoral convict, why do you assume you are making anything other than an educated and far more effective criminal?
I'm not against education, I just don't believe it is the magical solution to crime. Correlation and causation, AGAIN!
My only question is where the funding for this kind of stuff is coming from? Is it all gonna be taxpayer dollars, or is there going to be a "Serial Murderer" discount at your nearest University of Phoenix?
How about allowing all those of us who simply don't want to live with criminals, to FREELY ASSOCIATE with only non-criminals?
What a crazy idea! We can't have that! How would all the poor, hard done by criminals survive, without the law abiding to leech off of?
Who makes their food, makes their clothes, builds the houses they live in, provide the hospitals for their bastard offspring, etc.?
US! The hard working, law abiding sheep, who have to pay taxes to support the very scum who are ruining our lives!
How many people would actually CHOOSE to live in a society with criminals in it? Obviously only a small percentage. (I believe they are called 'liberals'...)
The educated criminals go into politics.
Epitaph: At last! Root access!
...at criminal activity and lack of education.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I knew that
B|
Apparently...almost everyone knew most criminals did not finish high school because of
Alrighty since we are discussing schooling here and just recently been exchanging emails with a friend who grew up in France, came to US many years ago and recently retired. Below are some of her thoughts:
Computer sciences was my major. It was not taught when I grew up in France, and my minor a French teaching degree so that I could teach French after retirement. My education was completed in France where I obtained a master's degree in Math/English. I completed college here to show that I also had an American Degree. Most firms feel re-assured as they do not know how to recognize foreign degrees, the schooling being very different. For example we start high school at the age of 12!... unheard here. Overall... foreign schooling is FAR! superior to lower level American school. In America education only get very serious at the master/doctorate level... (Of course this is my personal belief).
At 11 years of age children are tested BY THE GOVERNMENT, that is under the supervision of government appointed testers in all fields of primary learning, that includes foreign language too which we start at about 8 years of age. The exam that we take is therefore all comprehensive and it takes 2 days: language arts etc., 1 day, then mathematics and sciences the second day. The results are posted outside on the third day. Children who DO NOT pass this serious exam continue school till the age of 15 then go to trade school. Children who pass this exam are considered for advance studies, "the college" till 15 years old, then the university. This sorting out takes place at the age of 11... I went to a private catholic school. Before the the government test, my teacher gave us exams each week and if we did not make at least 90 points on a 100 WE WERE NOT presented to the state appointed test. That is what system I followed... I am not certain it is entirely the same today, but children DO TAKE their studies seriously knowing they are going to be chosen or "discarded".
Trade schools are much much better than what is done here. For example, there are trade schools for hostelry, therapy, cooking, jewelry cutting, wood working for furniture making, art, fashion design, accounting, etc. One can find a carrier even going to a trade school.
I started school at 3-1/2 (ahah) and started serious school at 5 year of age and foreign languages at 8 (English and Latin). One learns a lot in 6 years (6 to 11)... especially when parents are as pushy as mine. I am so glad though to have had "my" chance at education. In my family "family" and "education" was the focus. The rest was secondary. I played with children in school only... I believe I was allowed to bring one friend for "gouter (afternoon tea) once. I played with my cousins a lot. "outward" direction was only for studies.
A study was done by Harvard Med School recently showing that babies ages 6 months understood a great deal of the meaning of words. Somehow, by showing them objects such as pets, bottles, balls etc.. and following their line of sight (special lighting) it was apparent that the child under study always looked immediately at the object mentioned. My son could understand French and English when I spoke to him as a baby. It made no difference... I would say, for example: Vient ici, and come here please, he followed the order. Fun study!
mfwright@batnet.com
Gee wow. A disproportionate amount of the jail community has not graduated high school. Could it be, I don't know... because the ones that do finish high school are smart enough to be less likely to be caught?
Clearly the conclusion to draw is to throw high school dropouts in jail right away, preventing crime!
...gotta be good to society johny.
Khan Academy
"About 40 percent of all U.S. prison inmates never finished high school, and nearly 44 percent of jail inmates did not complete high school"
I am very confused when I read this sentence from the article (and summary) above. What does the difference between "U.S. prison inmates" and "jail inmates"? If "jail inmates" are in the U.S., aren't "prison" and "jail" the same? If so, then what the different between "never finished" and "did not complete"???
Do these offenders have computer access to be able to complete this mandatory requirement? I suppose it is more likely that one might have a computer as opposed to a vehicle. Still, it is not universal.
Someone who was close to me got screwed by her well-paid lawyer, and spent most of 2004 in jail in FL. Among the things she told me:
1. *most* of the other women had never finished high school... as in, they came to her to help write letters, they were
that illiterate
2. Many had literally no idea how to get a job, rent an apartment, or open a checking account
3. The jail allegedly had a GED program, but would only run it "if they had a full class"; in spite of the illiteracy, somehow
they never had a full class in the previous year. My friend offered to teach, and both taught and read to the others.
The upshot is that many people go into crime because they have no idea how to handle the real world. Giving them a self-paced means of education, with a legal push, might actually help.
Now, if we could just seal records - if you've *EVER* spent time in jail, for anything, anywhere in the country, employers will search and find, and oh, no, having a conviction doesn't mean we won't hire you (like *hell* it doesn't!!!).
mark
Did anyone else read that?