
Teaching Youth to Think ‘Slow’ May Help Reduce Crime - ryan_j_naughton
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/teaching-youth-to-think-slow-may-help-reduce-crime/
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anigbrowl
So would vitamin D supplements. 70% of the population suffers from vitamin D
deficiency and the rate is higher among African-Americans due to skin
pigmentation, and possibly other factors. Vitamin D plays an essential role in
the manufacture of serotonin within the body, and serotonin has an essential
role in mood and executive function.

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kmfrk
I once got in touch with a counsellor to find out whether I had ADHD (because
shrinks are in low supply here), and while she wasn't a certified ADHD
specialst, she generally worked with troubled youth. While she didn't diagnose
me with ADHD, she recommended me a mindfulness book to use instead.

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nostromo
Anyone interested in meditation but unsure of where to start should try the
app / website Headspace.

I used to meditate once in a while, but I found it difficult to wrangle my
thoughts without a guide and I kept falling off the horse. This app has helped
me tremendously.

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fjk
This reminds me of Season 4 of The Wire where Colvin runs a special classroom
for the "corner kids" and sees promising results.

One of the big differences is that in The Wire they mentioned that high school
kids weren't going to be impacted as much as the middle school kids they ended
up doing the program with. This program seems to focus on high school, which
is interesting (and exciting).

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higherpurpose
Not criminalizing people over virtually anything would help reduce "crime" and
many useless arrests, too.

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PebblesHD
Not sure why this one got downvoted, its a good point. Enforcing stupid laws
and the endless 'war on drugs/technology/whatever hot button issue happens to
be popular' results in the astounding crime rates seen in modern America, and
to a lesser extent the UK and Australia.

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ilaksh
The real problem is poverty and more generally extreme inequality. Kids
stealing is a symptom. Treat the disease, not the symptoms.

Part of the problem is that structural inequality is supported by primitive
racist belief systems like Social Darwinism.

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hammeringtime
_The real problem is poverty and more generally extreme inequality._

I don't understand how people can make statements with this when it is so at
odds with the facts.

The homicide rate in Baltimore in 1911 was 5.8 per 100,000. Last year it was
37. Was Baltimore less unequal during the gilded age, long before the
progressive income tax and federal welfare? No way. Obviously poverty is also
way lower today.

The differences are even more stark when you compare modern Baltimore with a
place like Edwardian England. Again, England in the early 1900's was massively
unequal, had massive poverty problems. But it had homicide rates a tiny
fraction that of modern Baltimore.

Why do the U.S. inner cities have so many more homicides than any slum in
China or India?

Read the book _Ghettoside_ or _Don 't Shoot_. Crime happens when people can
get away with it. Crime happens when cultural and legal sanctions against
crime don't get enforced.

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Kalium
> I don't understand how people can make statements with this when it is so at
> odds with the facts.

I do understand. People have one explanation they like that fits with their
politics, and anything else is to be made to support this or discredited.
Think of this as a religious approach to policy.

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bayesianhorse
For me this sounds like a broader application of insight from neuro science
and especially from research into ADHD. While the latter is definitely a
pathological condition, with major negative effects for the patients, there
seems to be a continuum from extreme ADHD on one side (or even Finneas Gage)
to fully enlightened buddhist monks who have trained their attention and focus
for decades.

It may be well worth the effort to train attention, concentration and self-
control in a more targeted manner, like through "Becoming a Man", but also
martial arts, meditation, or certain other activities.

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joelthelion
That sounds interesting, but where can I read up on BAM? Even the paper they
linked to did not give too many details about the intervention itself.

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Kluny
Sounds like BAM is doing the job that dads are supposed to do. Glad someone's
doing it though.

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jerf
To a first approximation, "middle and high school boys from some of the
poorest neighborhoods on Chicago’s south and west sides" do not have fathers
anymore.

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Kluny
They have fathers. The fathers may be dead or in jail or just elsewhere, but
they exist and aren't doing their jobs.

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oniony
And we could teach them correct use of adverbs too.

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xom

      When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
      The line too labors, and the words move slow;

