Once truants, these children drift into petty crime, which later evolves into major crime. .
Reinforcing this opinion is a study by probation officer Wally Morgan of fifty convicted criminals, raging form rapists to thieves who were diagnosed and treated for the first time as dyslexic. The re-offending rate dropped from the average 40 to 60% to a remarkable 2.5%. .
The quality of education, as stated by the National Center on Education, Disability and Juvenile Justice, seems to be central to both the problem and solution. Higher levels of education and literacy are associated with lower rates of juvenile criminal activity. The first, most enduring responsibility of any society is to ensure the health and well-being of its children. By providing adequate educational services for students with learning disabilities and making them a higher priority within our communities as well as within the juvenile justice system there would be a significant decrease in crimes committed by minors. .
In a perfect world these programs could be created by merely the blink of an eye. Unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world. Due to under funding and lack of attention badly needed special education programs are being placed on the back burner, forgotten. Just last December the Supreme Court of New Hampshire declared that the state's use of local property tax to finance public education was unconstitutional. New Hampshire is the 27th state in 20 years to have its top court junk this traditional method of school finance, only ten months after neighboring Vermont became the 19th. The state of Virginia alone is under funded by nearly $1.5 billion dollars. North Carolina's public school accountability system as a model for the rest of the nation has blamed the estimated current shortfall of $800 million dollars on the legislature's decision to cut taxes by roughly $1.5 billion dollars over the past decade.
Thankfully this problem is slowly being brought to the attention of those in charge.