Racial Stigma, Mass Incarceration and American Values

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Racial Stigma, Mass Incarceration and American
Values

• Glenn C. Loury
• Merton P. Stoltz Professor
• Brown University
• February 2007

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State Prisons Grow Faster than Higher Ed

• According to a 2002 report of the Justice Policy
  Institute (Washington, DC)
• During the 1980s and 1990s, state spending on
  corrections grew at 6 times the rate of state
  spending on higher education, and by the close of
  the 1990s, there were nearly a third more
  African American men in prison and jail than in
  universities or colleges.

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Yet Crime Fell Sharply in 90s
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Crime/Prison Trends since 1970
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Imprisonment in the United States, 1925-2004
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There is A Large and Growing Racial Disparity in
Imprisonment
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Proportion Ever in Prisonby Age, Race and Birth
Cohort
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Least Educated Are Hardest Hit
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Race Difference in Drug Use
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Race Difference in Drug Arrests
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Winning the War? Drug Prices, Emergency Treatment
and Incarceration Rates 1980-2000
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New AIDS Cases (Males 1982-2001)
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What if no racial disparity in incarceration?
(Men)
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Two Paths to Civic Incorporation

• Europe (Welfare State Remedies for Social
  Marginality)
• Unemployment/welfare are seen as problems of
  social exclusion
• Social-democratic activism incorporate marginal
  into mainstream
• versus
• United States (A Quasi-Paternalism Governs the
  Poor)
• Social dysfunction, behavioral pathology, and
  personal disorganization as the sources of
  marginality
• Telling the Poor What to Do (Help and Hassle)
• Directive, supervisory, and punitive policies
• Supports to enable preferred behavior
  (faith-based)

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The American Path Chosen Change in Numbers
Incarcerated and Receiving Cash Aid1990-2000
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Mid-1960s welfare policy becomes raced in
media coverage and the American public mind
Correlation r .03 (1950-65) r .68
(1966-96)