Education and literacy prevent incarceration [L.A. PARKER COLUMN]

While reentry initiatives remain critical to getting lives back on track for success, society needs strategies and programs that prevent entry into prisons, jails, and institutions. No entry sounds significantly better than reentry.

Many persons face incarceration because education systems and parents continue to fail infants and children. If most evidence and statistics tell us that reading proficiently by third grade establishes a foundation for educational success, then amazement ramps when learning initiatives depart from that goal.

Pardon the repetition of facts. According to the New Jersey Department of Education, six percent of the 1,176 Trenton third-graders who took the state standardized test last spring read at grade level. Just 70 showed proficiency as 1100 fell behind and will struggle to catch up.

In fact, students with poor reading skills identify as more likely to drop out of school. High school dropouts register as higher risk for arrest and incarceration than students who remain in school. It’s this school to prison pipeline that establishes a life plot of broken dreams and problematic lives.

Read these statistics and insights regarding illiteracy and incarceration and weep.

Nearly 85 percent of juveniles in the court system are functionally illiterate, showing a strong link between early reading failure and future incarceration.

Nationally, between 70-85 percent of inmates struggle with reading above a fourth-grade level or identify as functionally illiterate.

Low literacy grounds education potential as reading-challenged students often opt for delinquency, drop out of school, then choose behaviors that connects to criminal activity. High school dropouts are 63-percent more likely to be incarcerated than their peers with college degrees.

A powerful link exists between low literacy and poverty. Missed opportunities for education fueled by lack of early reading success leads to poor job prospects and increased reliance on public assistance.

Hopes for a successful Trenton demands that city and education leaders focus on assuring that all students read proficiently by third grade.

L.A. Parker is a Trentonian columnist. Find him on Twitter @LAParker6 or email him at [email protected].