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Thursday, January 9th, 2014

Study: Nearly 50 Percent Of Black Men Report Being Arrested By Age 23

Author:     ZOE SCHLANGER
Source:     Talking Points Memo
Publication Date:     January 8, 2014, 1:44 PM EST
 Link: Study: Nearly 50 Percent Of Black Men Report Being Arrested By Age 23
Stephan:   This story is absolutely appalling. It is bad on so many levels. Many of these arrests are for marijuana possession. There is an arrest for this every 48 seconds in America, grossly disproportionately Black young men. One of the consequences of ending Marijuana Prohibition is that this will end. It will be bitterly opposed, however. Private prisons corporations, prison guard associations and unions, court systems whose budget is tied to criminal trials, prison clothing providers, small towns near prisons where the prison is the big employer, and anybody else who lives on the incarceration and warehousing of human beings en mass will resist the end of racist prohibition.

A new analysis of survey data finds that nearly half of black men report an arrest by the time they turn 23, according to a study released Monday in the journal Crime & Delinquency.

The study (subscription required) drew its data from the federal government’s National Longitudinal Survey of Youth conducted between 1997 and 2008. The researchers found that by age 18, 30% of black males report having been arrested, compared with 26% of Hispanic males and 22% of white males.

By age 23, 49% of black males, 44% of Hispanic males and 38% of white males report having been arrested.

These stark racial differences were far more muted among women; by age 18, 12% of white women, 11.8% of Hispanic women and 11.9% of black women report one or more arrests. By age 23, reported arrest rates were 20% for white women, 18% for Hispanic women, and 16% for black women.

Robert Brame, a professor of criminology at the University of South Carolina and the lead author on the study, noted the disruptive impact of arrests can make the lives of young people.

“Criminal records that show up in searches can impede employment, reduce access to housing, thwart admission to and financing for higher […]

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