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Notes -
Are you talking about committing the same crime, for the first time, at 15 versus 27?
Yes, like beginning to deal drugs or robbing.
It is observed approximately across the entire world that people (especially men) are worse at impulse control and thinking of consequences in their teens than in their late 20s and onwards. That them being more prone to violence (let alone a nonviolent crime like dealing drugs) is indicative of deep genetic unfixable problems is a claim I do not find even remotely substantiated, to put it mildly.
There are crimes that do indicate deep genetic unfixable problems, but that area is closer to "serial killing" than "drug dealing".
It is a confounding factor that most penitentiary systems I know of engender recidivism, either by leniency or by doing little other than locking first-time criminals in the same social circle as other criminals, while depriving them of opportunities to build a legal and dignifying career.
I agree that first-time criminals should not be housed together with recidivists, but what else could be done to support them? Having one full-time counsellor per four-five first-time offenders that serves as a positive male role and helps them turn their lives around?
It's my impression the positive male role models are best introduced before the teens break away from the social fabric and start working as dead droppers. Actually purging the drug dealer rings instead of the cops grazing off the pawns indefinitely would also help. Unfortunately, such things are against entrenched interests.
I'm far from a pedagogy expect, let alone a criminal pedagogy expert. The exact best way to realign the values of young men whose values are already misaligned is beyond my reach. The folk wisdom is that the conscripted army service shapes them up. Perhaps separate the reformative detachments from the regular college-dropout ones. (Not suggesting to send them to fight - fighting a war should be the privilege for the best men, not the punishment for the worst, at least if you want any respect for the purpose and goals of war in the first place).
It is my impression that "alternative service" in Russia is mostly in dead end low level jobs. Couldn't something be done to enroll youths in enforced, but compensated apprenticeship in trades and such? Some part of that already exists in the army, as I understand - you could get a driving license, for example.
That is not how armies worked between about 1600 and 1970. I would say that the British Empire was built by our worst men (led by some of our best - hence the officer-enlisted divide), and Wellington famously did say that at the time, but the counterargument was that it was actually built by the navy, which did enlist the best men it could find. (whether working-class boys as seamen, middle-class boys as warrant officers' mates and future warrant officers, or smart younger sons of the elite as midshipmen and future officers).
What about press-ganging? Wasn't that just wandering around stealing random people?
No - the point was to press-gang experienced sailors. Most press-gangs operated at sea and pressed sailors off arriving merchant ships (US-UK dual nationals being pressed in this way was the official American casus belli in the war of 1812). Land-based press-gangs targetted sailors' pubs in the port where a merchant ship had just paid off.
Huh, TIL - that makes a lot more sense anyway.
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