ural transformations have also created a persistent, deeply entrenched, possibly permanent, high rate of unemployment. Perhaps even more significant, structural unemployment is creating a more-or-less permanent group of under- and unemployables who have little chance to ever escape poverty (409).
From their Canadian point of view, Baron and Hartnagel report that this has led to an alarmingly high unemployment rate of 20.3 percent for Canadian males aged 15-24 (410). Unable to obtain "minimal state assistance . . . these youths are left to fend for themselves" (410).
On the American side of the border, the situation is no less desperate. Unemployment over the past decade has averaged about 6.1 percent for all ages, races, and genders. However, the rate among blacks (11.9 percent) is more than double that among whites (5.3 percent), and for persons between 16 and 19 years of age, the figure jumps to more than 17 percent. On average, nearly half of all unemployeds are out of work involuntarily, and remain unemployed for an average of 16.6 weeks (Economic Indicators, 12).
Most authorities agree that the overwhelming majority of violent and property crimes are committed by young males under the age of about 25. Evidence for this is corroborated by the number of persons incarcerated in American jails and prisons. According to Freeman, 2.9 percent of males aged 25-34 occupied jail and prison beds in 1993, with approximately 10 percent of the same age group "under supervision" of the criminal justice system (26). In roughly the past twenty-five years, jail and prison populations have at least tripled in most jurisdictions (Freeman, 25). Freeman cites a 1995 report from the Central Statistical Office (U.K.) which reveals that the 1992 incarceration rate in the United States is between five and ten times that of western European countries (27).
The state of Texas saw admissions "double between 1972 and 1981, from ...