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Title: The Prison Boom &The Lack of Black Progress After Smith & Welch

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2013

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Abstract: More than two decades age, Smith and Welch (1959) used the 1940 through 1980 census files to document important relative black progress, but this progress did not continue, at least among men. Since 1980, prison populations have grown tremendously in the United States. Here, we show that, at least for the eight states that provide fairly reliable National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP) data, this growth was driven by a move toward more punitive treatment of those arrested in each major crime category. These changes have had a much larger impact on black communities than white because arrest rates have historically been much greater for blacks than whites. Further, the growth of incarceration rates among black men in recent decades combined with the sharp drop in black employment rates during the Great Recession have left most black men in a position relative to white men that is really no better than the position they occupied only a few years after

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Authors: Rick, Armin; Neal, Derek

Publisher: University of Chicago

Data Collections: IPUMS USA

Topics: Labor Force and Occupational Structure, Race and Ethnicity

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