Black men in prison, black men in college

[ThomWV]

In 1980 in the United States,there were 143,000 black men in prison and 464,000 enrolled in college, roughly three black men in college for every black man in prison. Twenty years later, in 2000, there were 792,000 black men in prison and 603,000 in college; more black men in prison than in college.

Perhaps someone can explain the rapid increase in numbers of black men in prison and relative decrease in college enrollment among black men. As far as I can see this is a national disgrace, which I do not mean to be a reason or an excuse, just a fact..

[RainDog]

1. thirty years of Reaganism followed by neoliberalism n/t

[iscooterliberally]

2. This is your country, high on the war on drugs.

I think it has something to do with all those zero tolerance laws passed in the 80s.

[Radical Activist]

7. Just what I was thinking. n/t

[EFerrari]

3. When I was student teaching at Berkeley, we had an unspoken agreement

to look out for our black male undergrads because they were as rare as unicorns.

:(

[slackmaster]

4. The War On (some) Drugs

:nuke:

[stray cat]

5. crappy access to education? a 60% high school drop out rate?

poverty and a lack of role models other than gang bangers, drug dealers and absent fathers?

[ecstatic]

6. That's actually a myth, but the numbers are still too high:

According to 2005 Census Bureau statistics, the male African-American population of the United States aged between 18 and 24 numbered 1,896,000. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 106,000 African-Americans in this age group were in federal or state prisons at the end of 2005. See table 10 of this report. If you add the numbers in local jail (measured in mid-2006), you arrive at a grand total of 193,000 incarcerated young Black males, or slightly over 10 percent.

According to the same census data, 530,000 of these African-American males, or twenty eight percent, were enrolled in colleges or universities (including two-year-colleges) in 2005. That is five times the number of young black men in federal and state prisons and two and a half times the total number incarcerated. If you expanded the age group to include African-American males up to thirty or thirty five, the college attendees would still outnumber the prisoners.

Everybody acknowledges that incarceration rates among young black males are much higher than among whites or Hispanics. An August 2003 Bureau of Justice Statistics analysis shows that 32 percent of black males born in 2001 can expect to spend time in prison over the course of their lifetime. That is up from 13.4 percent in 1974 and 29.4 percent in 1991. By contrast, 17.2 percent of Hispanics and 5.9 percent of whites born in 2001 are likely to end up in prison.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/10/young_black_males_headed_for_e_1.html