Headline October 03, 2016/ ''' *JOBS* & *JINNI* '''

''' *JOBS* & *JINNI* '''

*SARA HELLER, A CRIMINOLOGIST AT the University of Pennsylvania, showed that Summer Jobs program for at risk students/youth-

Not only gives valuable work experience but it also reduces their chance of of committing crimes*. For them, the criminal history box will not matter.

The bitter fact is, that employers wanted to avoid hiring workers with criminal histories. Preventing them from finding out about those histories at the outset of the application process did not change their underlying desire.

*They simply expressed it in another way; by using race as a proxy for criminal history and increasing discrimination all low skilled African-Americans*.

*This pernicious result is the economists law of unintended consequences*. Policy makers can constrain only a few of the large spectrum of choices people make. If motives remain unchanged, there remains many unregulated ways of expressing them.

For example, when landlords find that their properties have risen in value, they may want to raise the rent. If the government imposes rent control, landlords find other ways to increase revenue. .

This is also a challenge in fighting discrimination: When we try to curb certain behaviours, the underlying discriminatory impulse manifests itself elsewhere. If we prevent lenders from screening out African-Americans, they might avoid lending to whole neighbourhoods.

This is not  meant to be an argument for doing nothing. Instead, it is an argument for picking our battles wisely.

First, we should actually try to change beliefs and preferences. Economists usually takes them as given, yet over the course of decades, civil rights advocates have done astounding work in changing hearts and minds.

For example, in 1958, a Gallup poll showed that only 4 percent of Americans favoured interracial marriage. By 2013, that number was 87 percent.

Second, we should directly tackle the grim realities that give rise to discriminatory impulses. Some employers associate African-Americans with crime reflexively out of pure racism. Yet clearly others are responding to the all too real correlation between crime and race.

This is particularly disturbing when we realize that public policy helped to create this correlation. 

*Generations of poverty, neglect of young people who are at risk and an inequitable criminal justice system all contribute to the mass incarceration of low-income African Americans.  Rather than focus on the symptom, why not target the disease?  

I do not mean to imply that this would be easy, writes the learned professor, Sendhil Mullainathan/ Harvard.  Both political will and experimentation will be needed to find solutions. But they are there to be found.

This is the appeal of addressing root causes: The problem is not mitigated, it is erased.  Perhaps we should devote more of our efforts towards reaching the day-

When there will be no box to ban simply because employers will see little reason to have one.

With respectful dedication to the Leaders of the free World, Students, Professors and Teachers of the World. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society and Twitter-!E-WOW!  -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' World Audience '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless