A new study exploring causality between factors associated with growing up and the chances of going to prison for a crime in the future indicate that men from the poorest families are much more likely to spend time behind bars. In fact, boys associated with the poorest families in the country were 20 times more likely to end up in prison when compared with boys from the richest families.
The study looked at the likelihood for men to end up in prison in their 30s, depending on the childhood they experience. Millions of individual tax records were used to identify these results and the Brookings Institution and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors worked together to generate the research. The federal government began collecting data in 2012, requiring state governments and the Federal Bureau of Prisons to report prisoner data to the IRS.
The primary goal was to make it easier to audit prisoners to ensure that they were not claiming fraudulent tax refunds. However, the first national administrative database of all federal and state prison inmates created at this time, making the research process possible. After people are released from prison, they tend to have similar earnings and approximately as many people are employed as before they went in, according to the research study. However, being born to affluent parents made a young man much less likely to spend time in prison himself in the future.
No matter what your background is, you deserve to be able to fight back after a serious crime allegation has been levied against you. If you wait too long to get help, you’re only allowing the police more time to build the case against you. You still have rights and these should be protected by a lawyer who knows what to do to get you the best help available immediately.