Thursday, March 19, 2020

Juvenile Incarceration Linked to More Crime

Juvenile Incarceration Linked to More Crime Juvenile offenders who are incarcerated for their crimes are more likely to have significantly worse outcomes in their life than youngsters who commit the same crimes, but receive some other form of punishment and are not incarcerated. A study of 35,000 Chicago juvenile offenders over a 10-year period by economists at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management found substantial differences in outcomes between kids who were incarcerated and those who were not sent to detention. Those who were incarcerated were much less likely to graduate from high school and much more likely to wind up in prison as adults. A Deterrent to Crime? One might think that it would be a logical conclusion that teens who commit crimes bad enough to be incarcerated for will naturally be more likely to drop out of school and wind up in adult prison, but the MIT study compared those juveniles with others who committed the same crimes but happened to draw a judge who was less likely to send them to detention. Approximately 130,000 juveniles are incarcerated in the United States each year with an estimated 70,000 of them in detention on any given day. The MIT researchers wanted to determine if jailing juvenile offenders actually deterred future crime or it disrupted the childs life in such a way that it increases the likelihood of future crime. In the juvenile justice system, there are judges who tend to hand out sentences that include incarceration and there are judges who tend to mete out punishment that doesnt include actual incarceration. In Chicago, juvenile cases are randomly assigned to judge with different sentencing tendencies. The researchers, using a database created by the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago looked at cases in which judges had wide latitude in determining sentencing. More Likely to End Up in Prison The system of randomly assigning cases to judges with different approaches to sentencing set up a natural experiment for the researchers. They found that juveniles who were incarcerated were less likely to return to high school and graduate. The graduation rate was 13% lower for those who were jailed than offenders who were not incarcerated. They also found that those who were incarcerated were 23% more likely to end up in prison as adults and more likely to have committed a violent crime. Teen offenders, especially those around age 16, were not only less likely to graduate from high school if they had been incarcerated, but they were also less likely to return to school at all. Less Likely to Return to School The researchers found that incarceration proved to be so disruptive in the juveniles lives, many dont return to school afterward and those who do go back to school are much more likely to be classified as having an emotional or behavior disorder, compared with those who committed the very same crimes, but werent jailed. The kids who go to juvenile detention are very unlikely to go back to school at all, said MIT economist Joseph Doyle in a news release. Getting to know other kids in trouble may create social networks that might not be desirable. There could be a stigma attached to it, maybe you think youre particularly problematic, so that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The authors want to see their research duplicated in other jurisdictions to see if the results hold up, but the conclusions of this one study seem to indicate that incarcerating juveniles does not act as a deterrent to crime, but actually has the opposite effect. Source: Aizer, A, et al. Juvenile Incarceration, Human Capital, and Future Crime: Evidence from Randomly Assigned Judges. Quarterly Journal of Economics February 2015.

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Mitchell Surname Meaning and Family History

Mitchell Surname Meaning and Family History The Mitchell surname is a common form or corruption of the given name Michael, meaning big or one who is like God. Mitchell is the 44th most popular surname in the United States and the 15th most common surname in Scotland. Mitchell is also popular in England, coming in as the 51st most common surname. Surname Origin:  Scottish, English, Irish Alternate Surname Spellings:  MICHELL, MICHILL, MACMICHAEL, MACMICHELL, MECHEL, MEITCHEL, MICHISON, MICHIE, MITCHAL, MITCHEL, MICHELSON, MITCHELLSON, MITCHISON, MITCHOL, MITSCHAEL, MITSSCHAL, MITTCHEL, MYCHELL, MYTCHELL, MCMICHAEL, MICHEL Famous People with the MITCHELL  Surname Margaret Mitchell  -  American author, best known for her novel Gone With the WindArthur Mitchell  - first African American Democrat elected to Congress  Maria Mitchell  - first professional female astronomer in the United States; the comet she discovered in 1847 became known as Miss Mitchells CometWilliam Billy Mitchell  - American military aviation pioneer Where Is the MITCHELL Surname Most Common? Mitchell  is the 808th most common surname in the world, according to surname distribution data from  Forebears. It is most prevalent in the United States, where it ranks as the 46th most common last name, and is also common in countries such as England (51st), Australia (37th), Canada (49th), Scotland (23rd) and New Zealand (27th). WorldNames PublicProfiler  indicates the Mitchell surname is especially common in Scotland, as well as Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and the United States. Within Scotland, Mitchell is found in the greatest numbers in northern Scotland, including Moray, Aberdeenshire, Angus, Perth and Kinross, and Fife. There is also a greater percentage of Mitchells in East Ayrshire.   Genealogy Resources for the Surname MITCHELL Mitchell  Family Crest - Its Not What You ThinkContrary to what you may hear, there is no such thing as a Mitchell family crest or coat of arms for the Mitchell surname.  Coats of arms are granted to individuals, not families, and may rightfully be used only by the uninterrupted male line descendants of the person to whom the coat of arms was originally granted.100 Most Common U.S. Surnames Their MeaningsSmith, Johnson, Williams, Jones, Brown... Are you one of the millions of Americans sporting one of these top 100 common last names from the 2000 census? MITCHELL  DNA ProjectMore than  250 members with Mitchell roots in Great Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, France, Germany, Poland, Canada, and the United States,  have joined this project for the Mitchell surname to  work together to find their common heritage through DNA testing and sharing of information. MITCHELL Family Genealogy ForumThis free message board is focused on descendants of Mitchell  ancestors around the world. Search the forum for posts about your Mitchell ancestors, or join the forum and post your own queries.   FamilySearch - MITCHELL GenealogyExplore over 7.2 million  results from digitized  historical records and lineage-linked family trees related to the Mitchell surname on this free website hosted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. MITCHELL Surname Mailing ListFree mailing list for researchers of the Mitchell surname and its variations includes subscription details and a searchable archives of past messages. GeneaNet - Mitchell RecordsGeneaNet includes archival records, family trees, and other resources for individuals with the Mitchell surname, with a concentration on records and families from France and other European countries. The Mitchell  Genealogy and Family Tree PageBrowse genealogy records and links to genealogical and historical records for individuals with the Mitchell surname from the website of Genealogy Today. Ancestry.com: Mitchell SurnameExplore over 15  million digitized records and database entries, including census records, passenger lists, military records, land deeds, probates, wills and other records for the Mitchell surname on the subscription-based website, Ancestry.com. Source Cottle, Basil.  Penguin Dictionary of Surnames. Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1967. Dorward, David.  Scottish Surnames. Collins Celtic (Pocket edition), 1998. Fucilla, Joseph.  Our Italian Surnames. Genealogical Publishing Company, 2003. Hanks, Patrick and Flavia Hodges.  A Dictionary of Surnames. Oxford University Press, 1989. Hanks, Patrick.  Dictionary of American Family Names. Oxford University Press, 2003. Reaney, P.H.  A Dictionary of English Surnames. Oxford University Press, 1997. Smith, Elsdon C.  American Surnames. Genealogical Publishing Company, 1997.