When most young students envision their future, a small crowded jail cell with one toilet is usually not in the picture. However, many area youth are making choices today that lead to just that.

The Choice Bus, a national program that exposes the harsh realities of prison to children, rolled in to the School of Discovery parking lot Wednesday. And with its arrival, the bus provided students with a real-life example of what a typical jail cell looks like.

Although the Choice Bus gave an extreme picture of the consequences of poor choices, we believe this demonstration was needed. Children are told constantly how drugs, violence, alcohol abuse and gang activity lead to grim lives — but sometimes it takes a splash of cold water to really drive the message home.

As children wandered the bus, they were given profound statistics of the consequences of dropping out of school and hanging out with “the wrong crowd.”

According to the Choice Bus, sponsored by the Mattie C. Stewart Foundation, 75 percent of American inmates are high school dropouts and more than 80 percent of inmates are functionally illiterate. These were statistics that the children needed to hear.

Our youth need to know where bad choices made at a young age can lead them. We encourage more schools to look into having a Choice Bus visit and we also urge teachers and school administrators to continue telling students how valuable a quality education is.

With everyone’s help, we can have more graduates and fewer inmates in Selma and Dallas County.