Reading Comprehension

PT108 · S4 · P2 · Q13 Juvenile Delinquency

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Much of mainstream thinking concerning juvenile delinquency in Canada and the United States is based on the assumption that if uncorrected it automatically leads to adult crime and should thus be severely punished, usually by some form of incarceration, before it becomes an ingrained behavior pattern.

Topic

How to handle juvenile delinquency — incarceration as the conventional response, vs. an approach that rehabilitates without incarcerating.

Framework

Present Debate / Problem-Solution. The author summarizes the conventional view (incarcerate), then engages criminologists' research, then proposes a third path: rehabilitate without incarcerating and without letting offenders off entirely.

Main Point

Juvenile delinquency should be addressed by rehabilitating young offenders without incarcerating them — a middle path that imposes a real penalty but lets them mature within the community.

P1: The conventional view and the criminologists' challenge

Conventional thinking: untreated juvenile delinquency leads to adult crime, so incarcerate offenders early. But criminologists' research suggests that incarceration may itself cause continued delinquency — a finding that's hard to translate into policy because, taken to its extreme, it implies the best intervention might be none at all.

P2: Rethinking who counts as a "criminal"

Criminologists also fail to distinguish between behavior young adults regard as criminal vs. as "fun." Most subjects called their delinquent behavior "fun"; they don't see themselves as criminals. Once law enforcement labels them so, they may change how they see themselves. Most undetected youthful offenders stop on their own by 18 — and only 8% credit fear of getting caught. So a policy that encourages maturation may be the most effective rehabilitation.

P3: A third path — rehabilitate without incarcerating

The problem of juvenile delinquency does need addressing — but through approach rather than removal. The author proposes rehabilitating offenders within the community (e.g., having a young shoplifter return the merchandise and apologize rather than be incarcerated as a thief). The goal is for offenders to learn society's values by maturity, achievable without incarceration or letting them off scot-free.

13.

Which one of the following is most closely analogous to the purported relationship in the passage between incarceration and criminologists' research findings?

Since medical research shows that
Bad Research Match
With melanoma, medical interventions are a good idea! The problem gets worse without interventions. With juvenile delinquency, incarceration is a bad idea. The problem gets worse with intervention.
2% picked this
It was once a common
Weak Match
This is pretty good, because we have research showing that a well-intentioned intervention is actually not that effective and can even lead to harmful effects. That matches reasonably well with research showing that incarceration is a well-intentioned intervention that seems to make the problem worse. There is a gap between "not effective / can lead to harm" vs. "ensures that the problem we were trying to avoid actually ends up happening", but I would keep this answer around in case that's the best we get. It is also a mismatch to say "it was once a common policy to remove tonsils, but research has talked us out of doing that", because in the passage, the research has not yet talked us out of incarcerating juvenile delinquents.
11% picked this
It is a common policy
Weak Match
This is somewhat good, because, like the intervention of incarcerating juvenile delinquents, the intervention of antibiotic therapy is shown to have bad effects. Where this answer and (B) are lacking is that it sounds more like there are harmful side effects. They don't mimic the relationship in the passage in which incarceration doesn't just have some harmful side effects, it literally makes the problem we were trying to solve worse. To match that, this answer would need to be saying that "antibiotic therapy virtually ensures that you'll have a sore throat for even longer".
4% picked this
Correct
It is a common policy
Why this is right
This beats (B) on two counts: - it is a common policy vs. it was once a common policy after all, jailing juvenile delinquents is still a common policy - the intervention causes the problem it's meant to prevent vs. the intervention is usually ineffective and can by harmful just as incarcerating juveniles seems to actually make it more likely that they will go on to do criminal things as adults, this antacid intervention actually makes it more likely that people will have too much acidity in their guts, causing more heartburn. This answer is assisted by the outside knowledge that heartburn it caused by acidity in the gut, but they weren't relying on our knowledge of that. They used the phrase "causing the very condition that it treats" to signal to us that this has the similar relationship of "ensuring the very problem it was meant to prevent".
Skill tested: Analogy · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
80% picked this
Since medical research shows that
Bad Match
This gets it wrong on two levels: - it acts like research has put a stop to this counterproductive intervention (whereas in the passage it is still common policy to incarcerate juveniles). - it only says that the intervention had some side effects (whereas we want to know that the intervention actually made the problem worse).
3% picked this

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