Civil Rights: The Prison Problem

Prison is big business in America. So establishes the abstract for the Urban League's essay on Prisons in their 2006 'The State of Black America Report.' Written by reputed journalist (and former head of 'Emerge' magazine) George Curry, "Racial Disparities Drive the Prison Boom," offers an in depth analysis of several studies, culminating in the point that not only is prison big business, but blacks in this country help to fuel it.

Prison populations have seen a spectacular boom, growing explosively in the 1990s, mostly due to the 'War on Drugs' policy instituted by President Ronald Reagan. By the time the turn of the century rolled around, the prison and jail population reached 2.1 million people. The total of 581,000 arrests in 1980 nearly tripled to a record high of almost 1.6 million by 1997. The United States has 100,000 more persons behind bars for drug offenses alone than the entire European Union has incarcerated -- and the EU is larger than the U.S. by 100 million people.

Moreover, Black men especially do not bode favorably in this social justice analysis. Black men are arrested at higher rates and they are sentenced to do longer time. For instance, it was found that of the sentences issued in 12 crime categories in the State Courts, sentences for black males were longer than white males in all of them. The proportions of Black men arrested and incarcerated for drug offenses is in gross disproportion to their actual numbers in this country.

If one were to read between the lines, then, one knows that more than simply losing a very large and viable segment of the black community, the bi-products of prison include public health crises such as tuberculosis and HIV infection; joblessness; poverty; loss of political power, and a vicious cycle of these problems being perpetuated through generations.

See More Details in an Abstract of the Urban League's Report

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