A new study from the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington, DC-based think-tank that advocates for alternatives to prison, has found that after two decades of harsh criminal justice policies, there are more black men in jail or prison than in college. At the end of 2000, 791,600 black men were behind bars and 603,032 were enrolled in colleges or universities. By contrast, in 1980 — before the prison boom — black men in college outnumbered black men behind bars by a ratio of more than 3 to 1, the study found. […]
Whoah. I know that many black men are in prison, but I had no idea that it was to this extent.
the current incarceration rate of poor, black and hispanic people in this country is explosive and self-perpetuating. We are going to experiece the release of hundreds of thousands of people from prison in the years to come, what are these people to do with their lives? the ardent grip of social revenge among the citizenry and employers dictates that a person being released from prison be relecated to a non-living wage job, with which, it is impossible to raise a family without economic suffering or return to crime. The current recidivism rate hovers around 40% in philadelphia, philadelphia spends about half of the city’s revenue on criminal justice, while the schools fail, the elderly suffer and the streets remain dirty. The alternative to social revenge, “make ’em pay” and “make ’em suffer”, is “what is best for us as a society”. This question goes unanswered, more importantly , it goes unasked.