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Anticipated early death and youth crime

From the blog Changing Lives, Changing Minds I found this sad, research-driven commentary by an associate criminology professor from Georgia State on how expectations among youth affect their behavior, particularly their willingness to commit violence, reporting results from surveys and interviews of inner city youth in Atlanta: For these young men, a sense of ?futurelessness? breeds a lack of concern for the consequences of their actions. Deferring immediate gratification makes little sense without a stable future to look forward to. ?Might be dead by 25, so who cares?,? explained one young offender. In fact, our interviewees expressed a pressing need to ?get it fast? and to ?get it now,? by whatever means necessary. At worst, the prospect of an early death fosters a basic disregard for human life: ?So, [why] am I gonna care for anybody? I?m not...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on August 12, 2009 (boomark / email).