Rethink prison study assertions

This article is contributed by the Caribbean Leadership Re-Imagination Initiative at the University of the West Indies.

The recently released data from the prison study has evoked a wide array of public responses and triggered a conversation on an important issue.

The research involved 894 inmates, and among the findings was the 'hair-raising' disclosure that of the inmates interviewed, percentages ranging from between approximately one per cent and two per cent are past students of mostly non-traditional high schools, or in one case, a traditional high school.

It is to be readily conceded that if one student turns out to be a criminal, it is an undesirable outcome. Thus, if one per cent of a school population turns to criminality, it is very unfortunate. But the fact is that there are social ills and various types of misconduct that afflict the society, and yes, some students will become bad drivers, gunmen, dons, thieves, etc.

If this unfortunate reality is an inevitable by-product of social processes, the analysis of the data from this study should not focus on the fact that inmates attended one school or another, nor should the relatively small percentages blind us to the need to act. The big question is whether the study has really told us anything new on which hitherto untried policy action may be grounded.

A CLOSER LOOK AT THE STATS

Let's assume a rounded number of the sample of 900. That would mean the 20 students from Kingston Technical represent just over two per cent and the eight students from JC represent less than one per cent. Here is another way in which the results could be read: "In a study of prison inmates, it was found that X per cent of the inmates attended high school, with the highest amount represented by any one school being 2.2 per cent, and the lowest, approximately 0.89 per cent."

It is arguable that outcomes of 0.89 to 2.2 per cent are statistically insignificant, though this level outcome does not remove the need to confront the social factors that lead high school students into criminality. In the meantime, such a low percentage should signal that a crisis any greater than what we knew has arisen. The Gleaner ought also to be chided for the way in which the headlines sensationalised the issue by referring to the schools as 'Prison schools'. The report asserted: "Some of Jamaica's lowest-ranked high schools have been churning out the bulk of misfits who have ended up in the country's prisons." Bulk? Is this description supported by the data?

To be sure, even schools that may not have featured in the study and those with 'contributions' to the inmate population of less than 0.89 per cent will, as the minister of education conceded, require intervention. The way the findings and analyses of the study were articulated at the outset certainly led to the unintended suggestion that the schools were largely at fault. This was unfortunate given the inevitable impact of such an unintended suggestion on the morale levels of staff.

But there is another angle from which these stats could be read. What was the average age of the inmates? Assuming that they were mostly in their 20s, we may conclude that they would have been in prison for upwards of five years. The study found that the typical inmate would be under 34 years old. Thus we may assume that some might have been in prison for up to 15 years. Let us use 10 years as the average period of incarceration.

Probable scenario

The upshot of a probable scenario that the average time of incarceration is 10 years is that the finding of 0.89 per cent to 2.2 per cent is even less a startling finding. Let us assume that over the last 10 years, each of the schools named in the study graduated 200 students per year for a total of 2,000. If this is so, we could analyse the stats with respect to the eight students from JC and argue thus: "In the last 10 years, out of a graduate population in excess of 2,000, the school had the misfortune of having 0.4 per cent of its graduates ending up in prison." In the case of Kingston High, we would say one per cent.

Looked at from this perspective we could then ask whether the numbers produced by the study really tell us anything significant. But does this mean that we can sing and dance over the 99.6 per cent or the 99 per cent?

We think not.

By the way, what percentage of university graduates have gone into acts of criminality such as lotto scamming? Does that tell us something about the university or the society?