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America’s incarceration rate is in decline

(www.theatlantic.com)
246 points paulpauper | 8 comments | 25 Jun 25 17:14 UTC | HN request time: 1.154s | source | bottom
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strict9 ◴[25 Jun 25 17:54 UTC] No.44380047[source]▶
>Rapidly declining numbers of youth are committing crimes, getting arrested, and being incarcerated. This matters because young offenders are the raw material that feeds the prison system: As one generation ages out, another takes its place on the same horrid journey.

Another factor which will soon impact this, if it isn't already, is the rapidly changing nature of youth. Fertility rates have been dropping since 2009 or so. Average age of parents is increasing. Teen pregnancy on a long and rapid decline.

All of these working together means that each year the act of having a child is much more deliberate and the parents likely having more resources. Which in turn should mean fewer youth delinquency, which as the article notes is how most in prison started out.

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bluGill ◴[25 Jun 25 18:32 UTC] No.44380473[source]▶
> the act of having a child is much more deliberate and the parents likely having more resources

This is both good and bad. Having a child is very difficult, but it gets harder as you get older. You lack a lot of monitory resources as a teen or the early 20s, but you have a lot more energy, as you get older your body starts decaying you will lack energy. A kid had at 40 will still be depending on your when you are 55 (kids is only 15), and if the kids goes to college may have some dependency on you when your peers are retiring. Plus if your kids have kids young as well as you, you be around and have some energy for grandkids.

Don't read the above as advocating having kids too young, it is not. However don't wait until you think it is the perfect time. If you are 25 you should be seriously thinking in the next 2 years, and by 30 have them (if of course kids are right for you - that is a complex consideration I'm not going to get into). Do not let fear of how much it will cost or desire for more resources first stop you from having kids when you are still young enough to do well.

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pamelafox ◴[25 Jun 25 22:05 UTC] No.44382227[source]▶
I had my children at 36 and 38, and I'm the mother, and energy-wise, I've had no issues. Yes, they considered me to be of "advanced maternal age" in the OB department and gave me special treatment due to it, but my doctors told me that the "advanced maternal age" threshold (35) was based off outdated research anyway. In the bay area, most of the mothers I've met were around that age, and my friends are having their kids at the same age.

It was really nice that I had time to establish my career and figure things out before having kids.

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1. Swizec ◴[25 Jun 25 22:57 UTC] No.44382573[source]▶
> In the bay area, most of the mothers I've met were around that age, and my friends are having their kids at the same age

San Francisco has the highest rate of geriatric pregnancies in USA. We are in a statistical bubble where having kids late is normal (because careers and hcol).

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/mother-birth-age...

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2. ◴[26 Jun 25 00:09 UTC] No.44383015[source]▶
3. ◴[26 Jun 25 00:23 UTC] No.44383081[source]▶
4. amanaplanacanal ◴[26 Jun 25 00:52 UTC] No.44383222[source]▶
Bubble implies that it's going to burst. I don't see it. Women aren't going to stop wanting careers, and HCOL is coming for everybody. I expect the whole country to join SF in this "bubble".
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5. TeaBrain ◴[26 Jun 25 01:14 UTC] No.44383346[source]▶
Bubble in this context means a unique environment that is unlike places on the outside of said bubble. It's not referring to a bubble like in the sense of a inflating market bubble.
6. Spooky23 ◴[26 Jun 25 11:39 UTC] No.44386397[source]▶
The desire to work and have children is going nowhere. Like Hollywood, the careers are going to go away. The money that lubricates the Bay Area is all from the Middle East now, and the return on in-region labor dollars is declining.
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7. kgwxd ◴[26 Jun 25 11:46 UTC] No.44386446[source]▶
The US is already a bubble. Government is currently trying to make it burst as fast as possible. Getting back to the point where what women want doesn't matter again. HCOL will be a luxury term, life in debtors prisons will be the new norm.
8. froohmb ◴[26 Jun 25 14:37 UTC] No.44387881{3}[source]▶
I’m sure the return on in region labor dollars decline that you note is real but is it regional? Where in the US is the return on labor dollars not declining? Housing costs, including taxes, seems to be the big problem in the Bay Area. Workers are still productive, but they require higher pay to offset the demand for housing caused by all the foreign “lubrication” and tech-49ers.