An African American professor at Columbia has written an article, based on ACLU statistics, claiming that American states are incarcerating black men at higher rates, and expelling black students at higher rates, because they want to teach them that “their only future resides in prison or jail.”
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2217
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The facts for this http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2624 Outrage, but not the legal conclusions, come from an article in The Free Press, on 24 March, 2008.
Dr. Manning Marable, Professor of Public Affairs, History and African American Studies at http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3533 of blacks in prisons is largely due to discrimination in every phase of the criminal justice system.”
The statistics are sad, but Dr. Marable, apparently deliberately, hides the reasons behind the statistics. He cites the December 2007 ACLU study, “Race and Ethnicity in America, for a 500% increase in the number of Americans in prison in the last 30 years, and that this represents 25% of the world’s prison population.What he misses is that most criminals are repeat offenders in their specialties, and that larger prison populations means less crime on the streets. He also misses the point that some nations are dictatorships amounting to outdoor prisons, and that some other nations simply slaughter people they deem troublesome. Prison is a more humane choice than either of those.
He cites the fact that blacks are 11 percent of the Texas population, but 40 percent of its prisoners. If blacks commit crimes at the same rate as other population groups, this would be discriminatory. But if blacks commit more crimes than other groups, this is simply a result of behavioral choices by different groups. Had Dr. Marable looked at incarceration rates of Asian Americans in California, where they are a substantial part of the population, he would have found that they are shockingly underrepresented, suggesting that race is not a factor in incarceration.
The key to understanding Dr. Marable’s screed is in his choice of verbs. He refers to “one out of every hundred American adults … living behind bars.” It is as if being in prison was a lifestyle choice, some people choose to live in a house, others in an apartment.
He refers to the “mass incarceration of black Americans” as if they were rounded up in large numbers due to their race. The truth is that every person sent to prison was charged with specific crimes, and found guilty after all constitutional safeguards had been offered, including the right to free legal counsel and the right not to incriminate themselves.
He refers to the “national compulsion to incarcerate.” What he means is, a national insistence on enforcing the laws. If no one broke the criminal laws, no one would be incarcerated.
Dr. Marable cites ACLU statistics that black students are 17% of the national population, but have 36% of the http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2742 black people.” He again
misses the point that suspensions are due to the behavior of each student.
Again, a comparison with Asian American students, whose school behavior is at the top of the ethnic scale, would be instructive.
Then, at the end, Dr. Marable says that states are “reducing” their investments in education, while “expanding” those in correctional facilities. He says that between 1987 and 2007, increases for higher education were 21%, but for corrections they were 121%. A 21% increase for education is not a “reduction,” an obvious error that many politicians frequently make.
Dr. Marable makes the error of assuming that states choose to build more prisons than colleges as a matter of malice. He misses the point that people apply for both institutions. Both San Quentin Prison and San Jose State College, for example, have admissions qualifications. You cannot get into the latter unless your grades are good enough. You cannot get into the former unless your crimes are serious enough.
http://www.theacru.org/acru/columbia_professor_and_aclu_claim_blacks_are_jailed_for_no_reason/