A recently released repo
rt compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau and based on 2006 data has revealed that 67 percent of America’s two million prisoners are nonwhite. The report specifically noted that African Americans comprise 41 percent of the nation’s inmates. Whites and Hispanics made up 37 and 19 percent accordingly.
Although this is based on self-reporting racial identification and as a result the numbers may be incorrect, several other interesting findings were also reported. For example, more than three times as many black people live in prison cells as in college dorms. This finding supports what was reported by the Justice Policy Institute more than eight years ago. At the end of 2000, 791,600 black men were behind bars and 603,032 were enrolled in colleges or universities. Before 1980, prior to the mandatory minimums and three strike laws and disparity in sentencing for crack and powder cocaine possession, African American men in college outnumbered their counterparts in prison by a ratio of more than 3 to 1.
This was very noticeable with respect to tax dollars allocated to higher education versus corrections. Between 1985 and 2000, the increase in state spending on corrections was nearly double that of the increase for higher education ($20 billion versus $10.7 billion), and the total increase in spending on higher education by states was 24 percent, compared with 166 percent for corrections. A recent study by the Pew Charitable Trust documented that after adjusting to 2007 dollars, the increase was 127 percent for corrections compared to 21 percent in spending on higher education.
In addition, African Americans are arrested more than any other race for murder based on 2008 data, making up 36 percent of all arrests, although comprising just 12 percent of the general population, making them significantly overrepresented in the total arrests.
The fact of the matter remains that race plays a major role in the problems we see in terms of the disparity in incarceration rates among African American men. However, no one ever dares to mention the word racism when discussing this matter. It is more than obvious that this is both a public health and education problem and that the situation is getting worse. –torrance stephens, ph.d.
