Study Finds Big Increase in Black Men as Inmates Since 1980 

FOX BUTTERFIELD / NY Times 28aug02

The number of black men in jail or prison has grown five-fold in the past 20 years, to the point where more black men are behind bars than are enrolled in colleges or universities, according to a study released yesterday.

The increase in the black male prison population coincides with the prison construction boom that began 1980. At that time, three times more black men were enrolled in institutions of higher learning than behind bars, the study said.

The report was prepared by the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington-based research and advocacy group that supports alternatives to incarceration.

The study found that in 2000 there were 791,600 black men in jail or prison and 603,032 enrolled in colleges or universities. By contrast, the study said that in 1980 there were 143,000 black men in jail or prison but 463,700 enrolled in colleges or universities.

Some criminal justice experts said it was misleading to compare the two categories because the number in jail and prison includes all adult black men 17 years or older, while the number in institutions of higher learning is confined to a narrower student-age population in their late teens and early twenties.

But Todd Clear, a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, said the study's findings were still significant and "tell us there has been a public policy far overemphasizing investment in criminal justice instead of in education for this population."

"It tells you that the life chances of a black male going to prison is greater today than the chances of a black male going to college, and it wasn't always this way," Professor Clear said.

The study did not directly address why the number of black men in jail and prison climbed so quickly. Some experts suggested as one explanation a rise in the number of black men serving time for drug offenses. But Justice Department figures show that from 1990 to 2000, 50 percent of the growth in inmate populations at state prisons was for violent crimes, and that only 20 percent was for drug crimes.

During the prison-building boom of the last two decades, the number of Americans of all races in jail or prison quadrupled, to 2.1 million in 2000 from 502,000 in 1980, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. In that same period, the number of Americans of all races attending colleges and universities rose to 14.8 million from 12.1 million, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, an increase of 22 percent.

Hilary O. Shelton, the director of the Washington chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said, "It is indeed a sad statement about our nation that it appears to be easier for governments to invest precious public dollars into the incarceration of African-American men than it is for them to invest in higher education."

Vincent Schiraldi, the president of the Justice Policy Institute, noted the report found that the number of black men in jail or prison grew three times as fast from 1980 to 2000 as the rise in the number of black men in colleges and universities. 

National Summary -- Fact Sheet

Cellblocks or Classrooms?: 
The Funding of Higher Education and Corrections and Its Impact on African American Men

Background

During a time in which 41 states face budget shortfalls, many state legislatures are cutting spending on colleges and universities and raising tuition. The way state spending has evolved throughout much of the country, the costs of maintaining prisons and universities have collided in the same part of a states’ discretionary funding envelope. Throughout the1980s and 1990s, states have chosen to pay for an ever increasing and costly corrections system. At the same time, the progress made in improving African American access to college has been eclipsed by the growth of the African American male incarcerated population.

In Cellbocks or Classrooms? the Justice Policy Institute provides both a fiscal analysis of state spending on colleges and corrections from 1985 to 2000, and illustrates the impact of state and federal spending decisions on African American male representation in education systems versus prisons and jails.

Key Findings

1. The Share of Total State and Local Government Spending on Higher Education has Declined as Spending on Prisons has Increased.

Between the1950s and 1980, the share of state and local spending on colleges and universities doubled (from 3.5% in 1952 to 8.0% in 1980), while the share of spending on corrections remained essentially the same (from 1.5% in 1952 to 2.1% in 1980). During that time, the prison population changed very little.

Between 1980 and 2000, the American prison and jail population quadrupled from 500,000 to 2 million prisoners, and the cost of the expanding corrections system came to occupy a much larger share of state and local spending. During the last two decades of the millennium, corrections’ share of all state and local spending grew by 104%, while higher education’s share of all state and local spending dropped by 21%.

2. Between 1985 and 2000, State Corrections Spending Grew at 6 Times the Rate of Higher Education.

In constant dollars, the increase in state spending on corrections was nearly double that of the increase to higher education ($20 billion on corrections, $10.7 billion on higher education). The total change in spending on higher education by states was 24%, compared with a 166% increase for corrections.

In most states, corrections spending doubled (25 states) or tripled (10 states) in size. By contrast, only 1 state doubled its overall higher education spending in real dollars.

Forty-five states increased spending on corrections by more than 100%, and 18 increased their spending by more than 200%. During the same period, a third of the states either spent less or experienced less than a 16% increase in higher education spending.

3. As Corrections Consumed a Larger Share of State Spending, College Costs have Also Risen, and the Burden for Paying for College has Shifted to Students.

From 1980 to 1998, student tuition and fees support for higher education has risen at 8 times the rate of state support. For a low-income family (the lowest income quintile) the cost of paying the tuition at a four-year public institution increased from 13% of their income in 1980 to 25% in 2000.

Federal support for students through Pell Grants has not kept pace with tuition increases. Where the average Pell Grant per recipient covered 98% of tuition in 1986, by 1998 it covered only 57%.

Over the 1990s, federal financial aid shifted support from grants to loans, increasing the debt load students must carry to attend colleges and universities.

4. More African American Men are in Prison and Jail than in Higher Education.

In 1999/2000, there were more African American men in prison and jail (791,600) than were in higher education (603,000).

Between 1980 and 2000, JPI estimates that 3 times as many African American men were added to the prison systems than were added to the nation’s colleges and universities.

JPI estimates that in 2000 there were 13 states where there were more African American men incarcerated than in college: Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. (For states other than Alaska, Connecticut and Delaware, state estimates do not include the vast majority of incarcerated African American men in jails).

Over the past two decades, 38 states (and the federal prison system) were estimated to have added more African American men to their prison systems than were added to the enrollment of their respective higher education systems.

Choosing to Cut Correctly?

If fiscal year 2003 is, as predicted, as difficult on the states as the previous year, recent history suggests that states will make up some of their shortfalls by constricting spending on education and social services, including higher education. If spending on higher education is limited or cut, these decisions would compound declining state investment in higher education over the fifteen-year period, as the growing corrections system crowds out colleges and universities

In February 2002, the Justice Policy Institute reported in Cutting Correctly that some states began to choose new corrections policies to reduce the expensive emphasis on incarceration that was the hallmark of the 1980s and 1990s. State legislators have an historic opportunity to choose new correctional policies that might unlock the resources they need to stave off cuts to higher education.

About the Data and Methodology

Cellblocks or Classrooms? analyzes the changes in state spending from the general fund on higher education and corrections from 1985 to 2000, and the change in African American male participation in higher education and their representation in the nation’s prisons and jails.

The report analyzes fiscal and corrections data from a variety of different sources, including the National Association of State Budget Officers’ State Expenditure Reports, the National Center for Education Statistics, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, Post-Secondary Opportunity and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. State spending totals are nationally reported figures and were adjusted for inflation. Some estimates were used to calculate the African American male state prison populations. Please see the methodology and notes in the full report for a more detailed explanation of data sources.

This fiscal analysis included the time period described as the longest post-war economic expansion in American history. This analysis does not include fiscal year 2001 or 2002, when the national economy soured. The funding of higher education is more susceptible to economic downturns than other budgetary items.

Summaries of the key findings for the 10 states with the largest prison populations in the country are available at www.justicepolicy.org.

source: http://www.justicepolicy.org/coc1/main.htm