Sending Kids To Juvie = Not Helping Them, Says MIT Study

Locking up teenagers for juvenile offenses may be doing them significantly more harm than good in the long run, according to a Chicago-based study co-authored by an associate professor at MIT.

“We find that kids who go into juvenile detention are much less likely to graduate from high school and much more likely to end up in prison as adults,” said Joseph Doyle, an MIT Sloan School of Management economist, in a release from the institution.

To be specific, the study shows that youth offenders in Chicago who were sentenced to juvenile detention were 13 percent less likely to finish high school and almost 25 percent more likely to wind up in grown-up jail than those who were arrested for the same offenses.

The research was based off a database of tens of thousands of of adolescents.

Perhaps the prison industrial complex could take a cue from tobacco companies - hook ‘em while they’re young.

Way more information available in the original article here.

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