Yes I have been saying this

[Jawge]

long before the study was done. One can get an intuitive feel of it.

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/2...cleisure3.html

Not passing these exams set for 12 year old can be have huge consequences.

Good to see that the JCF is working with numbers.

[Mosiah]

So you laud them for working with numbers.

Jawge, the JCF need to just quit while it has an iota of respectability left. The study was idiotic and proved nothing, discovered nothing and informs even less.

[Don1]

So you laud them for working with numbers.

Jawge, the JCF need to just quit while it has an iota of respectability left. The study was idiotic and proved nothing, discovered nothing and informs even less.

Guhwhey... The JCF is incompetent at policing.... but brilliant at designing scientific surveys and statistical analysis

[Karl]

Would love to see the 'research paper' in its entirety!

[Mosiah]

Sillycon Valley educated, clearly!

[Don1]

Sillycon Valley educated, clearly!

lol

[Islandman]

So would I. On the surface though it appears to confirm what we already know, that the socio-economic conditions in communities correlate to crime rates. The schools for the most part are proxys for the home communities of their student body.

I am sympathetic to the idea that the schools are as good a place as any for early intervention.

[Mosiah]

I am sympathetic to the idea that the schools are as good a place as any for early intervention.

That is one thing, and I love the idea too, but to come out with a study that says, Norman Manley High School produced the most criminals, when the numbers we're actually looking at are a grand total of 20 out of 800 interviewed!!!

The study is flawed in ways that a non-social scientist like myself can see with troubling ease!

And what sorts of criminals are these? Ganja smokers? Ackee thieves? Gun runners and drug dealers who feed their victims to crocodiles? Dancehall bosses who mince up their victims?

The intervention could have happened just as effectively without the benefit of this study, which, despite the noble intentions, has done some harm.

[Islandman]

That's why i would want to see the paper myself. Did the study actually say "Norman Manley produced the most criminals" or did the people who referenced the study present it that way? We Jamaicans are known to have strong opinions on issues without actually checking into the original source of the facts.

Some people who read the report are saying that in no way were they blaming the schools for the problem, they were simply showing the correlation as a way to make the point that the school was the best place to intervene. Is that true? I don't know.

I totally agree that some harm has been done as a result of this. I don't know yet if we should blame the report or the report-ers for that.

[Mosiah]

I have not seen the report myself but I was briefed by someone I trust.

Wasn't the report in the newspaper?

Again though, would you have been surprised to discover that the schools that produced the most criminals are themselves situated in places that produce the most criminals and overflowing with crime?

I can bet that some of our more notorious criminals in recent past did not attend any of the schools that were high on the list.

Maybe that deserves a study?

[Islandman]

Nobody would be surprised by that and I don't think the intent was to break new ground on the causes of crime. How comprehensive was the report? Did it focus on causes or intervention strategies? All that matters I think.

But if the study is reported with the headine

Non-traditional high schools breeding criminals, police say

when in fact the report really did NOT say that, then......

[Don1]

I'man even a cursory look at this so called study reveals that its scientific basis is flawed. If it is flawed one need not even consider its results or worse...try to interpret them as being of much value

It was painful hearing the incoherent idiocy spouted by the police guy heading this "study" when he was confronted with basic questions regarding the methodology

Police have proved incompetent at their core duty of security... there is zero basis to trust their competence at social science.... then the media completed the hatchet job with ridiculous reporting...that's also par for the course

Jamaicans prefer sensation over science...journalists and Rum Barists included.

[Islandman]

It may very well be flawed, I don't know the credentials of those involved. My larger concern is that the reaction from those who should know better, is less about the scientific method and more about the news headlines. Jamaicans need to develop a habit of responding to issues AFTER some due diligence has been done , not before.

Check this out from the Irie FM website.

One of the schools identified in the study was Holy Trinity High, and the institution’s principal, Margaret Brissett-Bolt, told JIS News that while she was “a little bit thrown” when the report came out, she realised after reading it that “the media got it wrong”.

“I was able to look through the survey and I was able to discuss it with the teachers because all the teachers were upset….but when we got the document and we were able to sit and go through (it), it wasn’t anything hitting at the schools, not the schools of today,” she said.

Principal at Denham Town High, Audrey Williams, also expressed her satisfaction with the meeting, which she said “came out of something that was negatively presented”.

[Don1]

Ok...but a Minister of Education should not be elevating a flawed, unscientific survey by tabling the document in Parliament without any review as to its credibility... Thwaites is the idiot who kept the JCF garbage rolling...then the idiotic media completed the job

Idiocy abounds!!