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Researchers have been analyzing statistics on the incarceration in the United States of African-American males as to age, location, causes, and the impact on children. Approximately 12–13% of the American population is African-American, but they make up 35% of jail inmates, and 37% of prison inmates of the 2.2 million male inmates as of 2014 (U.S. Department of Justice, 2014). Census data for 2000 of the number and race of all individuals incarcerated in the United States revealed a wide racial disproportion of the incarcerated population in each state: the proportion of blacks in prison populations exceeded the proportion among state residents in twenty states.
Contents
- Statistics by age group
- Prison vs college
- Black high school dropouts by year
- The leading causes of incarceration for African American males
- References
According to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), African Americans constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population, and have nearly six times the incarceration rate of whites. A 2013 study confirmed that black men were much more likely to be arrested and incarcerated than white men, but also found that this disparity disappeared after accounting for self-reported violence and IQ. An August 2013, Sentencing Project report on Racial Disparities in the United States Criminal Justice System, submitted to the United Nations, found that "one of every three black American males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime".
Statistics by age group
Prison vs. college
Several studies have concluded that overall, more black males are in prison than are enrolled in colleges and universities. In 2000 there were 791,600 black men in prison and 603,032 enrolled in college versus 1980, when there were 143,000 black men in prison and 463,700 enrolled in college. In 2003, according to Justice Department figures, 193,000 black college-age men were in prison, while 532,000 black college-age men were attending college. On an average day in 1996, more black male high school dropouts aged 20–35 were in custody than in paid employment; by 1999, over one-fifth of black non-college men in their early 30’s had prison records.
Other studies contradict this, see NPR Are There Really More Black Men In Prison Than College?.
According to Antonio Moore in his Huffington Post article, "there are more African American men incarcerated in the U.S. than the total prison populations in India, Argentina, Canada, Lebanon, Japan, Germany, Finland, Israel and England combined." There are only 19 million African American males in the United States, collectively these countries represent over 1.6 billion people.The Black Male Incarceration Problem is Real and Catastrophic - Huffington Post
Black high school dropouts by year
Percentage of Black high school dropouts 16 to 25
A new release as September 2012 from Schott Foundation finds only 52% of Black males graduate from high school. From 2001–2002 black males increased and by 10 percent, and 2010–11,was the first year that more than half the black males received a diploma according to Holzman, Michael (2012), Jackson, John H.; Beaudry, Ann, eds., The Urgency of Now: The Schott 50 state report on public education and black males, Schott Foundation for Public Education, retrieved 2014-03-02 .
The leading causes of incarceration for African American males
- The leading cause of incarceration of an African American male is a non-violent drug offense. (68,000 of the 501,300 African Americans incarcerated was a result of drug offences.) www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/64
- Between 1985 and 1995 the American prison population of drug offenders increased from 38,900 to 224,900 with African American males at the top (King 166).
- Person crimes
- Property crimes