Black men and imprisonment

Great Debates
41

yea, we know that ‘doing drugs is bad, mmmkay?’ but the question being raised is where the dollars are being spent wrt: drug enforcement.

I’ve worked w/offenders since the late 70’s in Michigan. My location is near an urban area plus a major university. Since I graduated from same university, let me assure you that drugs are widely available on campus. HOwever, where I’ve seen the narcotics squad focus activity is near the urban convenience stores, focusing on those who walk up (ie folks who walk there, live in the neighborhood etc.).

“drug free zone” laws are another way of targeting urban areas vs. suburban for the same crime. When a law in enacted declaring a ‘drug free zone’, it increases the punishment (ie increasing liklihood of a prison incarceration vs. a probationary sentence) for essentially the same crime. Drug free zone legislation increase penalties for drug crimes around schools, public housing etc. However the net effect is to increase the liklihood that any such crime would have the enhanced sentence in an urban environment (w/its density of population) vs. a suburban environment (IOW, in an urban environment, the chances of being w/in the specific distance of a public housing/school is much greater in a dense urban environment than in the suburban scrawl).

another factor that I’ve personally noticed is a funding issue. In Michigan, a jail/probation sentenced population comes out of the county budget, whereas a person sentenced to prison goes into the state budgetary concerns. what this meant on a practical basis was that some one from an urban poor county would be more likely to sentence the individual to a prison sentence (where housing and supervisory costs come out of the states coffers) than a jail/probation sentence.

From my perspective, there is no one single reason for the demographic, nor is there one single potential solution. Economic factors enter into it, as do educational issues, as well as legislative issues etc.

It is, IMHO, not particularly accurate to attempt to extrapolate criminal behavior/racial background characteristics from incarceration data. the group of “incarcerated individuals” = those who have been found guilty of ‘solved crimes’. The relative percentage of “solved crimes” is pretty small and comes from the greater set of “reported crimes”. Reported crimes are, I believe, a very small subgroup of “all crime”.

For example - shoplifting is a reported crime when there’s a witness/likly suspect. Otherwise, it’s ‘shortage’. another easy example - “drug possession/drug sales”. that’s literally only reported when they’ve arrested some one. (unless you believe that folks are calling the cops “hey, I wanna report a crime- I’ve got a dime bag”).

42

The higher percentage of incarceration for drug offenses among blacks probably has a lot to do with how drugs are distributed in black neighborhoods.

Every white dealer I have done business with was pretty careful about their clientele. They won’t sell you drugs if they don’t know you. You have to be introduced to them by one of their existing customers, and then they have to decide you are ‘cool’ and tell you that you can buy from them. Most white dealers I know are very careful about appearing suspicious - if you go over to buy a bag, they’ll ask you to hang around for a while even though the transaction takes only a minute, so it isn’t as suspicious to the neighbors - it looks like you are visiting (many will smoke a joint from their personal stash with you to keep you around). Also, most white dealers I’ve known have legit jobs to provide a cover. Most hispanic dealers are the same.

There are some black dealers who pay by those rules, but the majority do things very differently. Often they are out on the street selling to strangers. They will approach people they don’t know to see if they want to make a buy. If you go to their house, they’ll often meet you at the door and shoo you off as soon as they have your money. I’ve only known ONE white drug dealer who made sales out on the street, and he was a little slow and ended up in jail.

It’s a totally different drug culture, and they play by different rules, rules that allow them to move product a lot faster but also get them busted more often.

43

I have to say that from my experience, this is accurate. Living in Berkeley, well, needless to say, it ain’t hard to find product. The difference is, the random people who hit you up as a stranger on Telegraph are generally the city dwelling blacks. The students are an ENTIRELY different culture. There are complicated networks of growers and who knows who and who will deal with who. Each dorm or fraternity or sorority or co-op or whatever has their own contacts.

Then you go outside and get hit up on the street by some poor guy who is desperate and will probably end up in jail pretty soon (not that the Berkeley PD is really strict about enforcing the drug laws). I swear, you can’t stand on Tele for more than 5 minutes without someone trying to make a sell.

Ah… college…

Anyway, for some people, not only are they not targetted as much by police, they do riskier business. And their product sucks. But you have a much better chance of dealing and buying without hassle in the 'burbs where everything is indoor and you have better relations, than it is on the streets where police are concentrating their search.

44

Doesn’t match my experience (from both living on campus during the 70’s and being part of the CJ system ever since). the tactic most favored by the local drug enforcement folks is to trip one person up then use them to do the buys, obtaining several convictions from them, allowing them to boast of ‘taking 35 drug dealers off the streets’ (most often low level users who see an opportunity to gain favor w/their own dealer by being the intermediary).

They head to inner city neighborhoods, case the streets and convenience stores, vs going a few miles down the road to the student housing, and bars that cater to the student traffic. They’re more likely to head to the local Riverfest in the urban park vs. the art show on campus. ALlocation of resources seems to hit the ‘hood’ vs. the dorms.

45

It’s not cool to drink? Drinking is a staple of adult life in this country; if alcohol were absent at a social venue, it would be a BIG deal. And black Americans are the LAST people anyone could accuse of excessive drunkedness of (go on. Scour all of Google for any statistic that doesn’t place blacks in the lowest percentage of alcohol usage). Sounds like you just ran of a list of “bad things” and naturally attributed them to the “bad race”. And you’ve must have just reached this planet if you haven’t witnessed nationally reported accounts of convicts proven innocent after the invention of DNA testing.

46

(just ignore the grammatical errors in the previous post. thanks)

47

Sounds good. But it ain’t going to happen because of:

Now Xtisme has been making some good points…

…but the reality is that people who escape conditions like are being described, generally do so because they adopt and meld into the majority society that they want to be part of, which as you say, can get them branded as “selling out”.

Young people need accessible examples to look up to, regardless of what race they are. I’ve read and seen stories of some sports stars going into schools to talk to and try to inspire young people (similarly for some people in prison but this time to inspire them NOT to wind up there) but I’m not sure that sports people are the best examples to look up to. Most are genetically gifted and were in the right place at the right time, something that would not apply to the vast majority of students.

Instead, I’d like to see successful local business people who escaped a poor environment make regular speaking (inspiration) stops in schools. I’m sure some of this happens now, but clearly, more is needed and on a very regular basis (reinforcement). Hopefully, they would be able to talk to how hard work and effort got them where they are and try and install the value of such work into these lost kids.

Along with this, I also think that kids need a dose of real life on a regular basis. I think kids should regularly be taken on field trips to see where people work. learn what they do, talk honestly with workers about their work and how happy they are, how much they earn, if they have any thoughts on things they would have done differently back in school, etc. Take the kids to Wal-Mart, the 7-11, supermarket, non-unionized truck dock, etc. It would be nice if they could talk directly to the workers there, but this might not always be possible, as say in the instance of a company like Wal-Mart. Show them where their future might lie, what earning and living on $8/hr is like, if they don’t buckle down and master their studies. Call it tough love or whatever. I would call it Introduction to Reality 101.

And yes, before this point is brought up again, studying and doing well will not GUARANTEE that you will find a good paying job in today’s world. BUT at least you’ll have the EDUCATION & POTENTIAL to adopt to changing circumstances. Go the other direction and the potential to adopt declines very fast.

I’m not 100% confident that these ideas would work wholesale, but they might help some. Also, no one here has proposed much of anything else in terms of possible realistic solutions that could be implemented in today’s world and political realities.

48

They arn’t homeless like on-the-street homeless, but mostly sleeping on couches, “visiting” parents and friends for a months at a time with nowhere else to go, going on long rentless road trips, and otherwise not having permanent places to call home. And I’m talking about my own friends here, YMMV. Maybe it’s because five of my co-workers all seperately lost their housing this month, that I just realized I’m going to be living out of a suitcase for another season or two, but I know stunningly few people who have a “room” or an “apartment” and not a “place I’m staying” and “storage unit”.

49

Ha! Newark, NJ… I grew up there myself up in the North Ward. Went to various schools there from 4th-12th grade. I also worked in Newark for a few years after high school. Lived there during the race riots of 1967. I remember a saying that was common back then, to wit: kids in Newark grew up to be priests, cops, laborers or prisoners. Although no one in my family had gone to college before, I managed to get admitted to Arts High and from there, a few years after I graduated, went onto college. Had I instead gone to Barringer, my neighborhood school, I’m not sure what might have happened. I passing through Newark about 5 years ago on a visit back to the east coast and, at least in the North Ward, it looked about the same as when I grew up years ago.

So small, special admittance public schools like Arts High in Newark can make a big different and perhaps this is one of the solutions.

50

[QUOTE=monstro]

[QUOTE=Uncommon Sense]
Agree. You have to start with community leaders enforcing the idea that these principles must start at home. From the parents on down and repeating in each generation thereafter. Eventually you`ll have more sound families and the cycle of education-jobs-stable family life-etc. will continue. Right now as it stands we have the so called black leaders in the communities pointing fingers at everyone else instead of at themselves and at those who are directly responsible for their own actions.

Not sure if these 3 people qualify as leaders but they were on Joe Scarborough show last Thursday discussing the Bill Cosby brouhaha. One of them, a Malik Zula Shabazz of Black Lawyers for Justice was getting down and dirty on Bill Cosby, “honkey’s” and “white racism” like this:

This would certainly be a clear case at pointing the finger at everyone else.

Transcript link - CTRL-F to “Dr. Bill Cosby raised some eyebrows”