Death Penalty: Prisons And Inequality
Contexts http://ctx.sagepub.com/ Beyond Crime and Punishment: Prisons and Inequality
Bruce Western and Becky Pettit
Contexts 2002 1: 37
DOI: 10.1525/ctx.2002.1.3.37
The online version of this article can be found at: http://ctx.sagepub.com/content/1/3/37 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of:
American Sociological Association
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>> Version of Record - Aug 1, 2002
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incarceration conceals inequality
Regardless of its precise causes, the effects of high incarceration rates on inequality are now substantial. Although the
1990s was a period of economic prosperity, improved job opportunities for many young black men were strongly outweighed by this factor. The stalled economic progress of black youth is invisible in conventional labor force statistics because prison and jail inmates are excluded from standard counts of joblessness.
Employment rates that count the penal population among the jobless paint a bleak picture of trends for unskilled black men in the 1990s. Standard labor force data show that nearly two-thirds of young black male high school dropouts had jobs in 1980 compared to just half in 1999 (figure 3). When inmates are counted in the population, however, the decline in employment is even more dramatic. In 1980 55 percent of all young black dropouts had jobs. By the end of the 1990s fewer than 30 percent had jobs, despite historically low unemployment in the labor market as a whole. Incarceration now accounts for most of the joblessness among young black dropouts, and its rapid growth drove down employment rates during the 1990s economic …show more content…
In When Work Disappears, William
Julius Wilson reports on interviews with Chicago employers which show how the stigma of criminality can attach to entire minority communities. Considering job candidates from the
West Side, one employer observed, “Our black management people [would] say ‘No, stay away from that area. That’s a bad area ... ‘ And then it came out, too, that sooner or later we did terminate everybody from that area for stealing... [or] drinking.” National statistics also show how imprisonment widens the inequality between groups. Estimates for 1998 show that the reduced earnings of ex-convicts contribute about 10 percent to the wage gap between black and white men. About 10 percent of the pay gap between all male college graduates and all high school dropouts is due to the reduced wages that inmates earn after they are released.
But can enduring public safety be achieved by policies that deepen social inequality? A great deal of research indicates that effective crime control depends on reducing economic divisions, not increasing them. There is a strong link between criminal behavior and economic disadvantage. To the extent that prison undermines economic opportunities, the
Bruce Western and Becky Pettit
Contexts 2002 1: 37
DOI: 10.1525/ctx.2002.1.3.37
The online version of this article can be found at: http://ctx.sagepub.com/content/1/3/37 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of:
American Sociological Association
Additional services and information for Contexts can be found at:
Email Alerts: http://ctx.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Subscriptions: http://ctx.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
Citations: http://ctx.sagepub.com/content/1/3/37.refs.html
>> Version of Record - Aug 1, 2002
What is This?
Downloaded …show more content…
incarceration conceals inequality
Regardless of its precise causes, the effects of high incarceration rates on inequality are now substantial. Although the
1990s was a period of economic prosperity, improved job opportunities for many young black men were strongly outweighed by this factor. The stalled economic progress of black youth is invisible in conventional labor force statistics because prison and jail inmates are excluded from standard counts of joblessness.
Employment rates that count the penal population among the jobless paint a bleak picture of trends for unskilled black men in the 1990s. Standard labor force data show that nearly two-thirds of young black male high school dropouts had jobs in 1980 compared to just half in 1999 (figure 3). When inmates are counted in the population, however, the decline in employment is even more dramatic. In 1980 55 percent of all young black dropouts had jobs. By the end of the 1990s fewer than 30 percent had jobs, despite historically low unemployment in the labor market as a whole. Incarceration now accounts for most of the joblessness among young black dropouts, and its rapid growth drove down employment rates during the 1990s economic …show more content…
In When Work Disappears, William
Julius Wilson reports on interviews with Chicago employers which show how the stigma of criminality can attach to entire minority communities. Considering job candidates from the
West Side, one employer observed, “Our black management people [would] say ‘No, stay away from that area. That’s a bad area ... ‘ And then it came out, too, that sooner or later we did terminate everybody from that area for stealing... [or] drinking.” National statistics also show how imprisonment widens the inequality between groups. Estimates for 1998 show that the reduced earnings of ex-convicts contribute about 10 percent to the wage gap between black and white men. About 10 percent of the pay gap between all male college graduates and all high school dropouts is due to the reduced wages that inmates earn after they are released.
But can enduring public safety be achieved by policies that deepen social inequality? A great deal of research indicates that effective crime control depends on reducing economic divisions, not increasing them. There is a strong link between criminal behavior and economic disadvantage. To the extent that prison undermines economic opportunities, the