If black men live longer in prison, it's time for change
OPINION - What does it say about our society when the health care that people supposedly receive behind bars is somehow more accessible than what people receive on the outside?
I’ve spent the last 10 years teaching some of America’s brightest students and equipping them with the appropriate intellectual tools to investigate diverse political phenomena. I encourage each student to approach his research with one question in mind: So now what? The question is deceptively simple yet of profound importance. It prompts them to consider both the implications and unintended consequences of the questions they address.
As scholars, we’re particularly conditioned to believe that the research we do will be viewed as obtuse and detached from the “real world” unless we’re discovering cures for devastating diseases or designing plans to solve the nation’s debt crisis. Yet research that focuses on mass incarceration and punishment has the potential to buttress grassroots efforts to overhaul a comprehensive system that paralyzes communities, disrupts families, stigmatizes children, and generates millions of dollars for private corporations who benefit from our public failures.
Likewise, it can also provide fodder for politicians who prefer to simply be tough on crime rather than smart on crime. Most academics see the topic of punishment as one of numbers and data. But for millions of Americans, it’s about their daily lives. Thus it becomes paramount that in examining punishment in the United States we fully address the individual and systemic factors that shape life chances and outcomes.
Mass incarceration in the United States, or what scholar Michelle Alexander has called “the New Jim Crow,” has enveloped some 7 million U.S. residents. Since the 1970s this country’s incarcerated population has increased nearly six fold earning us the astonishing distinction of being the world’s leading incarceration state. Although the U.S. comprises just 5 percent of the world’s total population, we account for over 25 percent of the world’s prison population. Simply stated, 1 in every 100 Americans is directly involved with the criminal justice system. For African-American men, the rate is even higher with 1 in 9 young black men between the ages of 20 and 34 behind bars.
These alarming trends have spawned a number of studies documenting both the motivations behind and consequences of this expansion. For example, Devah Pager’s sobering study found that African-American men without a criminal conviction faced fewer employment prospects than white men who were just released from prison. The findings prompt more nuanced approach to understanding how racialized notions of access and privilege shape the stigma of a conviction. In a country undergoing rapid demographic change we must better address the overlap of race, gender, class, and ethnicity in shaping the impact of these policy decisions. Indeed the recent public outcry over the not guilty verdict in Casey Anthony’s murder trial reminds us that for some, equal justice remains an elusive goal.
On Friday news outlets and social media buzzed about a study suggesting that some black men were safer behind bars because it reduced the likelihood of alcohol and drug-related deaths. As pundits debated the merits of the study and how it could shape prison policy, nearly 2,000 inmates in California’s Pelican Bay Prison were on a hunger strike to “draw attention to, and to peacefully protest, 25 years of torture via [California Department of Correction and Rehabilitation]’s arbitrary, illegal, and progressively more punitive policies and practices.”
The strikers’ willingness to risk their lives to make such a statement, the very lives that are supposedly better protected in prison, is a reminder that often the physical and mental toll of incarceration cannot be easily measured. Nor can it be accurately predicted how this treatment will manifest into later behaviors and interactions that affect not just the individual offender but indeed the broader community to which he, and increasingly she, belongs.
Each year, over 650,000 people are released from prison. Most return to communities that are already grappling with the effects of crime, poverty, violence, and inferior education. Community members struggle to secure access to housing, education, and employment. This struggle is intensified for those leaving prisons and attempting to return to their families. Restrictions on returning citizens’ ability to live, learn, and earn limit opportunities for them to support their families and make positive contributions to their communities. The stigma of being formerly incarcerated coupled with the collateral consequences of a conviction often leads to destructive behaviors that further undermine community stability. Thus on the surface it may seem that absent the constant reminders of one’s pariah status the life chance’s of some black men may seem better. But a closer examination reveals the rather porous nature of prison walls.
This brings us back to the original question that I pose to my students, “So now what?” The suggestion that some people are “safer behind bars” seemingly legitimizes the very real threats to safety and advancement that plague our communities. What does it say about our society when the health care that people supposedly receive behind bars is somehow more accessible than what people receive on the outside?
Given the alarming transmission rates within prisons for highly communicable diseases such as TB, HIV, and AIDS and the tremendous funding cuts to treatment programs, how do we address the public health crisis that is created once individuals return to their communities? Not just black and brown communities. Not just poor communities; but all communities grappling with the effects of decades of misguided priorities and bipartisan indifference. The physical, mental, spiritual, and economic well-being of our communities demands a comprehensive review of our approach to punishment and a more thorough understanding of just how mass incarceration imperils life chances.
Dr. Khalilah L. Brown-Dean is Associate Professor of Political Science at Quinnipiac University and author of a forthcoming book from Yale University Press, Once Convicted, Forever Doomed: Punishment, Citizenship, and Civil Death. Follow her on twitter @KBDPHD.
