respond to the following discussion post
Have you ever sat and spoke with someone who has ever done jail time for an offense? I have, multiple times while working as a Detention Services Officers with juveniles. Their answers/stories tend to link their offenders to the social-economic circumstances that they were living at that specific time. Factors such as single parents (broken home) who work multiple jobs at minimum wage due to lack of education (lack of supervision, educational opportunities and finances), living in low income neighborhoods (gang’s at higher risk in these areas) are all contributing recidivism factors that direct that person to fall into the positive school theory.
Positive school’s theory assumes that all humans are basically born “good” and that offending behavior is produced through a link between environmental conditions, which cause people to commit crimes. Think about it. A person’s behavior is a procession of experiences that are either learned, taught or observed by others. Our very basic “morals” are taught by the individuals or community that we are raised in. For example, if a child’s parents teach their children to steal for the basic need to survive (ie, stealing items to sell for food), will that child think twice to do it again? Why would they? If their home base is teaching that it is acceptable to steal in order to survive, why wouldn’t that child steal again later in life in order to “do what you have to do to survive”? This can then lead to a road of delinquency should that child feel they are in a constant state of survival. Thus, the correlation to recidivism.
”In many cases, (offenders return to) these low-income, crime-ridden locations (neighborhoods) with limited opportunities, limited positive influence, and often a lot of encouragement to engage in illegal activities. For many people, the pressure of being in such an environment leads to unwise decisions, which contribute to escalating recidivism rates.”
