[Ppnews] 2005's Ten Worst Places to be Black - Black Mass Imprisonment
Political Prisoner News
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Sat Jul 14 12:59:47 EDT 2012
2005's Ten Worst Places to be Black
Tue, 07/31/2007 - 17:00 --- Bruce A. Dixon
<http://endmassincarceration.org/user/126>
http://endmassincarceration.org/node/11
*by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon*
*This article was originally published in Black Commentator on July 14,
2005 *
/"It's high time to begin constructing useful indices with which to
measure the quality of life, not for just a fortunate few, but for the
broad masses of our people."/
The pervasive corporate media bubble, which grossly distorts the views
most Americans have of the world beyond their shores, and of life in
America's black one-eighth, operates to fool African Americans, too.
While a fortunate few of us are doing very well indeed, and many more
are hanging on as best we can, the conditions of life for a substantial
chunk of black America are not substantially improving, and appear to be
getting much worse.
*2005's Ten Worst Places to be Black*
**by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon**
This is a truth which can't be found anywhere in the corporate media,
but it is nevertheless one with which we must familiarize ourselves in
preparation for the upcoming national black dialogue. It is high time
to begin constructing useful indices with which to measure the quality
of life, not just for a fortunate few, but for the broad masses of our
people in America's black one-eighth.
*Measuring the quality of life in black America*
Painting an accurate picture is not difficult. Useful measures of
family income and cohesiveness, of home ownership, life expectancy,
education levels, of unemployment and underemployment abound. But among
all the relevant data on the state of black America today one factor
stands out: the growth of America's public policy of racially selective
policing, prosecution, and mass imprisonment of its black citizens over
the past 30 years.* * The operation of the crime control industry has
left a distinctive, multidimensional and devastating mark on the lives
of millions of black families and on the economic and social fabric of
the communities in which they live.
/"More than any other single public policy, America's crime control
industry magnifies and exacerbates racial inequality. deepens black
poverty, and wreaks widespread destabilization on black families and
communities."/
About half the nation's 2.2 million prisoners are black. With only 36
million of us, that's an astounding 3% of African Americans, counting
all ages and both sexes, languishing behind bars, with a roughly equal
number on probation, parole, house arrest or other court supervision.
Almost one in three 18-year-old black males across the board is likely
to catch a felony conviction, and in some communities nearly half the
black male workforce under 40 have criminal records. A felony
conviction in America is a stunningly accurate predictor of a life of
insecure employment at poverty-level wages and no health care, of
fragile family ties, of low educational attainment and limited or no
civic participation, and a strong likelihood of re-imprisonment. Each
month, tens of thousands of jobless, skill-less, stigmatized and often
anti-socialized ex-prisoners are released back into communities that
lack job and educational opportunities, where intact families are more
the exception than the rule, and where upward social mobility is a myth.
Clearly, more than any other single public policy, the day to day
operation of America's crime control industry magnifies and exacerbates
racial inequality, deepens black poverty, and wreaks widespread
destabilization on black families and communities. Among the many
scholars and researchers who have persuasively argued and extensively
documented these conditions is Dr. Paul Street of the Chicago Urban
League in "The Vicious Circle <http://www.cul-chicago.org/RP/rp1a.htm>:
Race, Prison, Jobs and Community in Chicago, Illinois and the Nation."
So if you want to know where black families fare the worst, where the
lowest wages and life expectancy are, where to find the highest
unemployment and the greatest number of single parent households among
African Americans, you don't need an online survey. You certainly don't
count the black businesses or the black elected officials. You count
the black prisoners, and the former prisoners, and the ruined
communities they come from and are discharged into. That's what
*BC* did, and here are the results.
*The Ten Worst States in the US to be Black*
/"Wisconsin, and in particular the Milwaukee area justly merit the
invidious distinction of the worst place in the nation to be black"/
Wisconsin leads the nation in the percentage of its black inhabitants
under lock and key. Just over four percent of black Wisconsin,
including the very old and the very young of both sexes, are behind
bars. Most of the state's African Americans reside in the Milwaukee
area, and most of its black prisoners are drawn from just a handful of
poor and economically deprived black communities where jobs, intact
families and educational opportunities are the most scarce, and paroled
back into those same neighborhoods. So Wisconsin, and in particular the
Milwaukee area justly merit the invidious distinction of the Worst Place
in the Nation to be Black.
Iowa, with only a small black population, is not far behind. The crime
control industries in Wisconsin and Iowa seem to have learned to make
the most efficient use of the preferred human material available to
them, locking up the few black inhabitants of those states at a rate
11.6 times higher than whites.
<http://blackagendareport.com/content/images/stories/2005_10worst_chart1.gif>
Texas, the nation's second largest state, is the third worst place to be
black in America, and is in a class by itself, first because its
extraordinary rate of black incarceration affects such a large
population. Only New York has more African Americans than Texas, and
only the two relatively small states previously mentioned lock up a
higher percentage of their black citizens. Though California has 50
percent more people, Texas has a slightly larger prison population and
only a 5 to 1 ratio between its black and white rates of imprisonment.
We may safely assume that since very few of its wealthy Texans are
behind bars, Texas is just a very bad place to be poor, whether you're
black or not.
A total of 900,000 African Americans live in Oklahoma, Arizona,
Delaware, Nevada, Oregon and Colorado, and another 2 million-plus in
California, where the proportion of prisoners among total African
Americans hovers just under 3 percent.
*How Much Better is Better? How Much Worse is Worst?*
The answer in both cases is, unfortunately: not much. Only one
hundredth of a percentage point separates Iowa's 3.30% rate of black
incarceration from that of Texas, with 3.29%. Twenty-seven more states
manage to lock up between 2 and 3% of their African American
inhabitants, and only Maine, Hawaii and North Dakota fail to incarcerate
more than 1.55% of blacks. For whites, the national average ratio of
prisoners to the general population is less than 4 tenths of one percent.
The damning truth laid bare once again by this fact, is that America's
policy of racially selective policing, prosecuting and imprisonment of
its black one-eighth is a truly consistent and national one, even though
it is implemented with arbitrary severity by countless state and local
authorities.
*Dishonorable Mentions*
This distinction goes to New Jersey, Connecticut, Minnesota,
Pennsylvania, and New York.
/"Minnesota had the fastest growing prison population in the country as
of mid-year 2004."/
*BC*'s Dishonorable Mention is reserved for those states not already
enumerated which have the highest disparity between black and white
incarceration rates. Wisconsin and Iowa belong here too, with disparity
rates between 11 and 12 to one, but they have already been mentioned.
This dismal category is especially significant because black populations
in three of the states with extraordinary disparity rates fall largely
within the New York City Metropolitan Statistical area, the largest
concentration of black people in North America. Suffice it to say that
for practical purposes, New York City and its environs are not that much
better a place to be black than Texas.
STATE...........BLACK-WHITE DISPARITY
New Jersey............13.15 to one
Connecticut...........12.77 to one
Minnesota.............12.63 to one
Pennsylvania..........10.53 to one
New York.............. 9.47 to one
The second largest concentration of African Americans in New Jersey lies
within the Philadelphia Metropolitan Statistical Area. Note
Pennsylvania's fourth place ranking on the Dishonorable list.
The "enlightened" state of Minnesota has two more peculiar
distinctions. First, it commits one of the nation's largest percentages
of offenders to community corrections, the generic name for "non-prison"
sentencing alternatives. With one of the nation's highest rates of
disparity between its black and white inhabitants, it appears that
Minnesota's white offenders are disproportionately funneled into
alternative sentencing situations, but we have no data to support such a
conclusion. Secondly, according to the Justice Department's Bureau of
Justice Statistics, which together with the US Census Department is the
source for all numerical data in this article, Minnesota had the fastest
growing prison population in the country as of mid-year 2004, the latest
date for which stats are publicly available.
*What About the South?*
/"The old South is just not a good place to be poor, whether one is
black or white."/
Alert readers may have noticed that except for Delaware and Texas, not a
single southern state made *BC*'s Ten Worst or its Dishonorable Mention,
even though Louisiana is well known to have the nation' highest per
capita rate of incarceration for its whole population. How is this
possible?
The answer is that our ranking is based solely on the percentage of a
state's black population behind state and local prison walls. The
following table sorts the top 13 states in order of their relative black
populations, from Mississippi with 36% to Illinois with 15%. This
statistical approach catches all the states of the old South except
Texas and Florida, and reveals an interesting pattern.
<http://blackagendareport.com/content/images/stories/2005_10worst_disparities.gif>
All eleven southern states in this table lock up noticeably higher per
capita numbers of their whole populations, black, white and otherwise,
than do New York and Illinois. But southern rates of disparity between
black and white imprisonment do not approach those of Illinois at 7.5 to
one or New York's 9.5 to one. Like Texas, nine of these eleven Southern
states achieve their overall high imprisonment rates by confining white
people to prison twice as often as New York and Illinois. Furthermore,
the five states with the highest black percentage of their total
populations have rates of black imprisonment closer to those of Illinois
and New York than to Texas. Like Texas, the Old South is just not a
good place to be poor, whether one is black or white.
*Federal Prisoners: Another Texas and then some*
Finally, discerning readers have probably noticed that near the
beginning of this article the proportion of all African Americans in the
nation's prisons and jails was given as about 3%, but the numbers quoted
for only three states reached or exceeded that figure. How did we get
three percent?
/"Problems created by bad public policies demand solutions that include
changing those destructive policies." /
The missing incarcerated, who did not figure in *BC*'s calculations for
the Dishonorable Mentions and Ten Worst list because *BC* was unable to
sort out their states of origin, race or region, are those in federal
prisons and jails. The federal gulag held about 170,000 people as of
mid-year 2004, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, slightly
more than the Texas prison system, and growing much faster. We have not
yet obtained racial breakdown data for federal prisons, but if and when
it becomes available it may show racial disparities as severe as those
in Illinois, which would suffice to make almost half of federal inmates
African American.
*Better Lives, Better Families, Better Communities*
The work of reclaiming lives, families and communities shredded by
America's incarceration binge must take place in hundreds of cities and
towns and in several arenas. Thousands of churches and local
organizations are trying with scant resources to provide re-entry
services to former prisoners. While their efforts deserve praise and
support, *BC* believes that problems created by bad public policies
demand solutions that include changing those destructive policies. In
fact, it is misleading and foolish to portray the problem of racially
selective mass imprisonment as one addressable by a million individual
solutions, by several hundred thousand family solutions, or by ten
thousand black church and small business solutions.
The problem is that public policy in America only moves in the direction
of addressing human needs when under the insistent pressure of mass
movements
<http://www.blackcommentator.com/144/144_cover_movement.html>. Where
will the mass movement come from to change America's racially selective
policy of mass incarceration? What will be its first tasks, and what
will it look like? These are among the key questions before black
activists for the immediate future.
/Bruce Dixon is the Managing Editor at Black Agenda Report. He can be
reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com
/
--
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415
863-9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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