logo

English
                 

June 3, 2020

Author Headshot

By David Leonhardt

Good morning. Protests continued late into the night, without the destruction of recent days. George W. Bush offered praise for the protesters. Let’s start by looking at how mass incarceration has shaped black Americans’ lives.

 

The exercise yard at California Medical Facility in Vacaville,

Calif.Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press

When jail becomes normal

For most white Americans, interactions with the police happen rarely, and they’re often respectful or even friendly. Many white people don’t know a single person who’s currently behind bars.

 

In many black communities — and especially for black men — the situation is entirely different. Some of the statistics can be hard to fathom:

  • Incarceration rates for black men are about twice as high as those of Hispanic men, five times higher than those of white men and at least 25 times higher than those of black women, Hispanic women or white women.
  • When the government last counted how many black men had ever spent time in state or federal prison — in 2001 — the share was 17 percent. Today, it’s likely closer to 20 percent (and this number doesn’t include people who’ve spent time in jail without being sentenced to prison). The comparable number for white men is about 3 percent.

The rise of mass incarceration over the last half-century has turned imprisonment into a dominant feature of modern life for black Americans. Large numbers of black men are missing from their communities — unable to marry, care for children or see their aging parents. Many others suffer from permanent economic or psychological damage, struggling to find work after they leave prison.

 

A recent study by the economists Patrick Bayer and Kerwin Kofi Charles found that 27 percent of black men in the prime working years of their lives — between the ages of 25 and 54 — didn’t report earning a single dollar of income in 2014. “That’s a massive number,” Charles, the dean of the Yale School of Management, told me. Incarceration, including the aftereffects, was a major reason.

The anger coursing through America’s streets over the past week has many causes, starting with a gruesome video showing the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. But that anger has also been building up for a long time. It is, in part, anger about incarceration having become normal.

An explainer podcast: How has mass incarceration happened? “Justice in America” — hosted by Josie Duffy Rice of The Appeal — tries to answer the question. The Times’s Caity Weaver recommends starting with the first episode, about bail.

“I learn so much from this freaking podcast,” Caity tweeted yesterday.

 

Copied from New York Times by SNUMA WM

No. Subject Date Author Last Update Views
Notice How to write your comments onto a webpage [2] 2016.07.06 운영자 2016.11.20 18194
Notice How to Upload Pictures in webpages 2016.07.06 운영자 2018.10.19 32348
Notice How to use Rich Text Editor [3] 2016.06.28 운영자 2018.10.19 5925
Notice How to Write a Webpage 2016.06.28 운영자 2020.12.23 43841
7043 How much is white in American Blacks? [3] 2020.06.07 온기철*71 2020.06.08 121
7042 서울 조지 프로이드 추모행진 [3] 2020.06.05 온기철*71 2020.06.07 59
7041 Who is black in America? One drop rule. [1] 2020.06.07 온기철*71 2020.06.07 94
» A sad story about Black Males in America [8] 2020.06.03 운영자 2020.06.07 8789
7039 Jan. 2017, He knew how Trump presidency would be 2020.06.06 온기철*71 2020.06.06 557
7038 세계에서 러브콜 한국 농업기술 [1] 2020.06.05 온기철*71 2020.06.05 96
7037 Nostalgia [13] 2020.06.02 이병붕*63 2020.06.05 237
7036 George Floyd: what happened in his final moments. [5] 2020.06.01 이한중*65 2020.06.04 97
7035 When looting starts, the shooting starts, Trump tweets [9] 2020.05.29 온기철*71 2020.06.01 188
7034 [Medical] Effective Short Course Rx with Remdesivir 2020.06.01 이한중*65 2020.06.01 286
7033 한국의 세계 무대에의 부상 [3] 2020.05.30 운영자 2020.05.31 94
7032 SpaceX [4] 2020.05.30 이한중*65 2020.05.31 9874
7031 The Second Coming/ WB Yeats [2] 2020.05.30 이한중*65 2020.05.30 544
7030 What should the world do about Trump and Xi? [1] 2020.05.29 온기철*71 2020.05.29 44
7029 우장춘 박사는 씨없는 수박을 처음으로 만든 사람이 아니다. [9] 2020.05.26 온기철*71 2020.05.29 157
7028 핵폭탄, 핵잠수함 - 놀랍게 가까운 한국의 기술-능력 [4] 2020.05.25 운영자 2020.05.26 618
7027 Tiger vs. Phil (and Tom vs. Peyton) Turn Rivalry Into Laughs [2] 2020.05.24 황규정*65 2020.05.24 66
7026 미국, 중국, 북한의 관계 [8] 2020.05.23 운영자 2020.05.24 85
7025 Episode 7. World on Fire 2020.05.24 온기철*71 2020.05.24 49
7024 AstraZenica and Sanofi Received US money for Vaccine [2] 2020.05.21 이한중*65 2020.05.23 182