Illiteracy and crime are connected. The Department of Justice states, “The link between academic failure and delinquency, violence, and crime is welded to reading failure. Over 70% of inmates in America’s prisons cannot read above a fourth grade level.”
Additional Statistics on Low Early Literacy Skills and Incarceration:
- According to the National Assessment of Adult Literacy, 2/3 of students who cannot read proficiently by the end of the fourth grade will end up in jail or on welfare.
- 85% of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally low literate.
- Juvenile incarceration reduces the probability of high school completion and increases the probability of incarceration later in life.
- Students who dropout of high school are 5 times more likely than high school graduates to be arrested in their lifetime.
- Students who dropout of high school are 63% more likely to be incarcerated than their peers with four-year college degrees.
Links to Sources:
http://www.edjj.org/focus/prevention/phcsc.html
http://www.begintoread.com/research/literacystatistics.html
https://www.proedtn.org/news/313839/Literacy-is-Critical.htm
