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 18166
Notice How to Upload Pictures in webpages 2016.07.06 운영자 2018.10.19 32306
Notice How to use Rich Text Editor [3] 2016.06.28 운영자 2018.10.19 5890
Notice How to Write a Webpage 2016.06.28 운영자 2020.12.23 43810
313 Republican Strategist Steve Schmidt on Trump 2020.05.11 온기철*71 2020.05.12 159
312 Trunp의 Tax Return 1985-1994의 내용 [3] 2020.05.11 운영자 2020.05.13 117
311 A Smell of A War in Korean Peninsula? [5] 2020.05.12 운영자 2020.05.14 82
310 대북정책? 2020.05.13 온기철*71 2020.05.16 51
309 Trump's anti-China theory implodes 2020.05.16 운영자 2020.05.17 134
308 Moderna Vaccine; Is it a Trump’s Circus? [1] 2020.05.18 온기철*71 2020.05.19 82
307 김정은 허수아비? 2020.05.21 온기철*71 2020.05.23 61
306 이춘근 박사 특강 - The U.s. vs. China and North Korea [2] 2020.05.22 운영자 2020.05.23 77
305 미국, 중국, 북한의 관계 [8] 2020.05.23 운영자 2020.05.24 85
304 What should the world do about Trump and Xi? [1] 2020.05.29 온기철*71 2020.05.29 44
303 When looting starts, the shooting starts, Trump tweets [9] 2020.05.29 온기철*71 2020.06.01 188
302 Jan. 2017, He knew how Trump presidency would be 2020.06.06 온기철*71 2020.06.06 557
» A sad story about Black Males in America [8] 2020.06.03 운영자 2020.06.07 8788
300 미-중 경제전쟁의 배후, 드리고 한국 - 이렇게 끝난다 [5] 2020.06.07 운영자 2020.06.09 82
299 남한은 어떻게 대응 해야 할까? [3] 2020.06.17 온기철*71 2020.06.18 48
298 What Bolten says in his book about Trump and White House [6] 2020.06.17 운영자 2020.06.19 143
297 현재의 북한 상황, 가여운 우리의 미래 [1] 2020.06.19 운영자 2020.06.20 331
296 코로나 이후의 미국과 세계 질서 2020.06.21 온기철*71 2020.06.21 338
295 William Barr sued John Bolton; The Room Where It Happened [5] 2020.06.17 온기철*71 2020.06.21 1142
294 대북전단 살포의 배후는? [5] 2020.06.23 온기철*71 2020.06.23 72