USA has the highest incarceration rate. Why?

[HappySqurriel]

Dr.Grass said:

HappySqurriel said:
You have an education system that is set up to protect incompetent teachers an benefit unions at the expense of students ... If you don't have the basic literacy skills and/or numeracy skills to perform well in our economy the likelyhood that you will end up in jail (due to criminal activity) is drastically increased.

Wow; You're economy sounds evil...

 

Reality is evil?

 

http://www.begintoread.com/research/literacystatistics.html

Literacy statistics and juvenile court

• 85 percent of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate.

• More than 60 percent of all prison inmates are functionally illiterate.

• Penal institution records show that inmates have a 16% chance of returning to prison if they receive literacy help, as opposed to 70% who receive no help. This equates to taxpayer costs of $25,000 per year per inmate and nearly double that amount for juvenile offenders.

• Illiteracy and crime are closely related. The Department of Justice states, "The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure." Over 70% of inmates in America's prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level.

 

 

... and if you think this is simply an 'American' problem, a similar correlation can be found between literacy rates and criminal activity in most western countries.