Study Finds Big Increase in Black Men as Inmates Since 1980

August 28, 2002
By FOX BUTTERFIELD 

The number of black men in jail or prison has grown
fivefold 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.