Report: More Dropouts Mean More Thugs

(Alameda County, CA) From a report by a coalition of law enforcement leaders and violence survivors based upon a study by Enrico Moretti of UC Berkeley.

Increasing the graduation rate by 10 percentage points statewide would lower the homicide tally by an estimated 500 a year and prevent more than 20,000 aggravated assaults, according to a report by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California, a coalition of law enforcement leaders and violence survivors.

"The main point is that California's dropout crisis is a public safety issue," said Brian Lee, author of the report and deputy director of the group. "We're paying for it in terms of violent crime."

About a third of students in California do not earn a high school diploma.

I think that the assertion is oversimplifying a more complicated problem. If thugs are taken off the street and put in school, it doesn't necessarily follow that they are no longer thugs.