Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional 2E & low-income -> prison pipeline

http://qz.com/317309/how-some-of-americas-most-gifted-kids-wind-up-in-prison/

Sad but not surprising.

And since the apple doesn't fall far from the tree - spare a thought for Manny's abusive single mom, and wonder why she was so angry.

Just as we have discussed re our kids' behavior issues, if she was also 2e/PG, it doesn't excuse the abuse. But if somebody had figured it out and helped her understand, it might have helped her and Manny. And us.

Yeah, the cycle continues.

It is very easy for me to see. Gifted people often see very clearly. In the right environment what one may see is how much candy there is to be made in various illicit opportunities that are going on all around them, and then naturally try to build an enterprise of their own. School is boring, but out there... I can help provide for my family and get a little for myself as well.

I am a therapist. A surprising number of people in my practice are adults who are 2e, who were very wounded by their school experience.

I don't trust this article. If about 2% of people are gifted, for 20% of prisoners to be gifted, the gifted would have to be 10 times over-represented among prisoners. In reality, the chance of being incarcerated is negatively correlated with IQ, as documented in The Bell Curve, for example.

Helping 2E people is fine, but don't pretend that doing so would substantially reduce the prison population.

But Bostonian, that might well still be true, if one parses out the fact that the incarcerated population is a low percentage of the whole population to begin with--

and that furthermore, the 2e population is a small percentage of gifted (and whether it mirrors the larger gifted distribution is not clear to the best of my knowledge-- it stands to reason that it should, I suppose, but that is speculative), and that even beyond that, gifted children of low SES are a subset of the larger gifted population as well--

It stands to reason that of course being gifted makes one less likely to wind up incarcerated.

But OF those already incarcerated, (and those people-- as a population, are disproportionately male, minority, and from low SES-- inarguably, I mean-- that is simply fact) they are precisely the demographic of gifted students that one would expect to be utterly failed by life circumstances in the first place, with very few of them escaping into elite educational opportunities which most would agree are appropriate for students of that sort of ability.

What happens to the subset of that population which has an additional strike against them in the form of a disability that may well be masked or unrecognized?

I can believe both things are true. That the population labeled "gifted" in The Bell Curve is far less likely than average to be incarcerated, on average, and that when one looks at the subset of gifted persons who are minority, low SES, and 2e, that the odds skyrocket well past the mean for the population as a whole.

Especially when there is either a lack or a perception of a lack of other opportunities.

Actually, that's when this issue first came to my attention almost 15 years ago - when I had to review/leverage psychological assessments for a high IQ, but low education and depressed client in a CINA (child in need of assistance) case.

Well, the wording only specify "as much as" 20% based on another author's research. In any case, it would be a positive impact on society were these high potential at-risk individuals able to contribute to society even if the overall prison population were not substantially reduced.