After reading the article online about the states current affairs, i think that so many people are in jail because they are not educated. They dont understand that if you committ this crime your more than likely going to get caught and punished for what you did. I think that more whites are not in jail just for the fact that they get more/better education than blacks and hispanics. I could be totally wrong but thats just what is seems to look like to me

Whites do in most cases have more education than most whites do. i do not think that we can only look at education as what determines a crime though. I think another factor is socio-economic status. People of lower encome have a tendency to participate more so in crime as a way to make easy money fast. A lack of money of course can be dirrectly linked to the amount and type of education one has.

In my opinion, I think a lot of people commit crimes just to see if they can get away with it. For an example, tonight I went to Wal-Mart with my roommate and saw a well-dressed white woman steal a shirt. She was in front of us in line and left the shirt still on the hanger sitting in the cart under one of those big bank bags. She paid for everything else which totalled about $50. At first, I thought that maybe she just didn't see it, but then i saw her look at the shirt in the cart and she covered it up with the bank bag. After she paid, she threw her wal-mart bags on top of the shirt. I couldn't believe that I saw right in front of me someone, obviously of a middle-class standing steal a shirt that probably cost around $10. After this incident, my roommate and I had a discussion about the types of people that steal. We both agreed that most people would autimatically assume that a black or hispanic would do it. That's why you go into a department store and you see the associates following them around. That's where we get back into people judging other people based on appearance. People need to realize that people of every race steal, not just minority groups.

I agree that we can't only look at education as what determines a crime. I disagree that whites are better educated than blacks and hispanics. I don't think that wealth has anything to do with education. Everybody in America has an opportunity to finish high school and go on to college. There are plenty of scholorships and student loans available. If someone doesn't want to go to college, it is because they are not interested. Anyway, I think that most everybody understands that they COULD get caught for committing a crime, but the way I look at it is, either they don't care if they get caught or they want to see if they can do it without getting caught. Its not such a crazy idea to think that people commit crimes so they can be put in jail....afterall, don't they get everything they need there for FREE? They get food, a bed, recreation time, visitors.... Its free for them, but not for the taxpayers, which probably doesn't bother them becuase they don't have to pay taxes while they're sitting in jail. Basically, I don't think we should look at education as a determining factor on what types of people commit crimes.

I just remembered a comment made in class that I thought might be relavent to this discussion topic. We were talking about drug searches and how the AP and Honors "class"es never get searched, but we all agreed that those were the classes that you could find the most drugs in. I do not think that education is the biggest or the most important factor when it comes to students committing crimes. What is an important factor is money. Money to afford a good lawyer, Money to pay somebody off, Money that scares people into not prosecuting or accusing somebody's child of a crime because they know the parents or fear the consequences of accusing an important family's child. Of course the group of people with less money are going to be accused, made note of, and prosecuted. They don't have the money to get out of it. I think that everybody knows the difference between right and wrong, reguardless of their background or education.

I just remembered a comment made in class that I thought might be relavent to this discussion topic. We were talking about drug searches and how the AP and Honors "class"es never get searched, but we all agreed that those were the classes that you could find the most drugs in. I do not think that education is the biggest or the most important factor when it comes to students committing crimes. What is an important factor is money. Money to afford a good lawyer, Money to pay somebody off, Money that scares people into not prosecuting or accusing somebody's child of a crime because they know the parents or fear the consequences of accusing an important family's child. Of course the group of people with less money are going to be accused, made note of, and prosecuted. They don't have the money to get out of it. I think that everybody knows the difference between right and wrong, reguardless off their background or education.

On the news, I think last week sometime, they were talking about the three strikes law that is in Winston-Salem. This law says something like once you commit three crimes are jailed and out, on the fourth crime, no matter what, you are going to jail. A woman, who was black, was outside the courthouse with a sign saying that the law was made to put black people in jail, and it was racist. An attorney got on there saying that a majority of the people didn't learn after their first three crimes, and so on the fourth they went to jail; it didn't matter their skin color, but that most of them were black. He said that that was just the way it was. The law wasn't racist or discriminatory. What do you think?

Those statistics are certainly appalling, but I'm not sure I liked the comment about justice being "Just Us". I'm not sure that's fair to say. I certainly hope things can be done to change what's going on as far as black and latino incarceration goes. However, I don't think it's constructive to blame any person or group of people for those statistics. I feel like far too often, people are looking to get others riled up rather than really make something better.

Excuse me, but I think the three/four strikes is pretty lame. To me , I can sympathize with a persons circumstances that may lead themto commit a crime maybe once. But get real, three or four times, those people will just keep breaking the law.

If citizens break the law they should pay regardless of their skin color.

even though a person may commit a crime, and we can easily assume that they may do so again, there is no just reason for us to label that person as a criminal from the get go. while I do not fully see the point of the three/four strikes, it makes sense that a person have the chance to reorm. we often limit them to the life they are stuck in by labeling them and punishing the immediately. I do not thin that it is fair to say that if a person performs a crime more than once that they will continuously commit crimes for the rest of his or her life.

i agree with mark. i think it has more do with socio-economic status. besides, there are many white,black, etc... that were/are very wealthy and educated who were/are in jail or have been in jail