Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
Stephan: When a third of our youth have been arrested by 23 there is something wrong with the law, not the people. This, of course, is just another negative consequence of our cynical and semi-psychotic war on drugs. Another consequence not mentioned in this report is that when nearly a third of young people have been arrested the social level of contempt for the government goes up significantly. The trend that really matters is that increasingly the American government and the American people seem to be on two different courses.
Nearly one in three Americans will already have been arrested by the age of 23, recent research suggests.
A study analyzing data from the federal government’s National Longitudinal Survey of Youth found that 30.2 percent of 23-year-olds reported being arrested for something more serious that a traffic violation.
It’s the first time since the 1960s that researchers have tried to determine how often young people are arrested. A similar study in 1965 found that only 22 percent reported being arrested by age 23.
‘I was astonished 44 years ago,
