Examining the Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration(theatlantic.com)
theatlantic.com
Examining the Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/10/the-black-family-in-the-age-of-mass-incarceration/403246/?single_page=true
82 comments
I looked through the transcript of that talk and could not find a reference to that statistic.
I was prompted to actually look into this claim because the incidence of white-on-black murder is extremely low and I imagine the incidence of white-on-black murder where the victim is a woman is even lower. I would be surprised if there were even 5 such cases in the past 50 years in Alabama.
Do you have any sources? Or can you post the relevant snippet from that talk?
I was prompted to actually look into this claim because the incidence of white-on-black murder is extremely low and I imagine the incidence of white-on-black murder where the victim is a woman is even lower. I would be surprised if there were even 5 such cases in the past 50 years in Alabama.
Do you have any sources? Or can you post the relevant snippet from that talk?
Black on white murder is also extremely low.
~84% of white victims are murdered by whites and ~90% of black victims are murdered by blacks.[1]
Crime is primarily a function of opportunity. When opportunity is taken into account, the main reason for the discrepancy is blacks are simply more likely to come into contact with whites day to day than the reverse.
So while I can't confirm the above statistic for you I can refute the assumption that there is a significant discrepancy between white-on-black crime vs. black-on-white crime.
1. http://www.politifact.com/florida/article/2015/may/21/update...
~84% of white victims are murdered by whites and ~90% of black victims are murdered by blacks.[1]
Crime is primarily a function of opportunity. When opportunity is taken into account, the main reason for the discrepancy is blacks are simply more likely to come into contact with whites day to day than the reverse.
So while I can't confirm the above statistic for you I can refute the assumption that there is a significant discrepancy between white-on-black crime vs. black-on-white crime.
1. http://www.politifact.com/florida/article/2015/may/21/update...
If blacks are more likely to come into contact with whites than the reverse then it would follow that blacks are more likely to be killed by whites than whites are by blacks.
Yes it does, but that skew is very small. Only a few percentage points...as cited above.
It would be a mischaracterization to imply one is extremely low, while the other is much higher. They are both, comparably, very low.
It would be a mischaracterization to imply one is extremely low, while the other is much higher. They are both, comparably, very low.
For exactly the reason you stated the rate of black-on-white murder is much higher than the reverse.
I do not think most would consider 5 or 6% is "much higher" or that if 90% is "extremely low" that 84% is not also "extremely low".
Particularly when you take variance and margin of error into account.
With such a tight range, I would wager one could only definitely claim they were probably approximately within a percent or two at best.
Particularly when you take variance and margin of error into account.
With such a tight range, I would wager one could only definitely claim they were probably approximately within a percent or two at best.
I don't know if percentages are the right metric to use here. You can certainly make up a scenario which is completely absurd, but still has your percentages. Assume 100,000,000 green people, and 100 blue people on a distant planet. Nine blue criminals kill 9 blue people. One green person kills one blue person. So that's 90% blue-on-blue murder, and an 10% of the blue population are murderers, and there is a 10% murder rate among the blue population. Now lets say there were there were 9 green people murdered by 9 green people, and one 1 green person murdered by 1 blue person. Again 90% green-on-green murder, and a 0.00000001% murder rate.
> Crime is primarily a function of opportunity. When opportunity is taken into account, the main reason for the discrepancy is blacks are simply more likely to come into contact with whites day to day than the reverse.
Crime is primarily a function of opportunity in environments prone to crime. In environments not prone to crime it is primarily a function of motivated offenders, and most opportunities are not taken advantage of.
Crime is primarily a function of opportunity in environments prone to crime. In environments not prone to crime it is primarily a function of motivated offenders, and most opportunities are not taken advantage of.
That's a pretty big difference. However, before ascribing it all or mostly to race, it would really be necessary to look at the individual cases.
In general, murders where it is a lower class person murdering an upper class person in furtherance of a robbery or some such draw more vigorous prosecution and are more likely to get a death penalty than murders where it is some lower class person killing some other lower class person.
Since blacks have disproportionately high representation in the lower classes, and whites disproportionately high representation in the upper classes, black murderer/white victim is disproportionately represented among the death penalty attracting lower class on upper class murders.
In general, murders where it is a lower class person murdering an upper class person in furtherance of a robbery or some such draw more vigorous prosecution and are more likely to get a death penalty than murders where it is some lower class person killing some other lower class person.
Since blacks have disproportionately high representation in the lower classes, and whites disproportionately high representation in the upper classes, black murderer/white victim is disproportionately represented among the death penalty attracting lower class on upper class murders.
I appreciate that you are being careful about the possibility of a latent variable here. I don't have any data about poor-on-rich/rich-on-poor accusations and conviction rates, so I can't speak directly to that.
However, the general conviction rate for "high class" black men is higher than the rate for "low class" white men: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/18/chart-of-the... I can't see any reason why I shouldn't assume the same applies to interracial murders as well.
I do appreciate your point, and perhaps it is time for a civil rights movement among the poor, or among the white poor. I would support that. We should at least be getting the data.
But since we have this data about black people specifically, it seems fine to try to solve that problem from a race-based perspective. As other data rolls in that shows there are similar problems for the white poor, then I think we should try to solve that problem too.
Saying we shouldn't try to fix this problem because new data might come along that shows it part of a bigger problem is, to me, "great is the enemy of good" thinking.
However, the general conviction rate for "high class" black men is higher than the rate for "low class" white men: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/18/chart-of-the... I can't see any reason why I shouldn't assume the same applies to interracial murders as well.
I do appreciate your point, and perhaps it is time for a civil rights movement among the poor, or among the white poor. I would support that. We should at least be getting the data.
But since we have this data about black people specifically, it seems fine to try to solve that problem from a race-based perspective. As other data rolls in that shows there are similar problems for the white poor, then I think we should try to solve that problem too.
Saying we shouldn't try to fix this problem because new data might come along that shows it part of a bigger problem is, to me, "great is the enemy of good" thinking.
You're not factoring in lawyers. They make a big difference. It has more to do with money and less to do with race.
And yet race predicts economic disparities quite well, so while access to lawyers may be a second-order effect of racism it is nonetheless a real one.
Now I certainly don't suggest that race is the only factor here. The USA is a very classist society, not least due to a residual Calvinism that equates earthly wealth with a sign of God's favor and thus some inherent moral superiority, a view which seems to have been implicitly incorporated into the platform of one major political party.
Now I certainly don't suggest that race is the only factor here. The USA is a very classist society, not least due to a residual Calvinism that equates earthly wealth with a sign of God's favor and thus some inherent moral superiority, a view which seems to have been implicitly incorporated into the platform of one major political party.
So much wrong with this statement it's hard to even know where to start.
Perhaps you could begin by identifying which of the various statements I made you found disagreeable. If you can't be bothered to make even a minimal effort, why should I care what you think?
There are too many poor whites for the impact of lawyers to be that bad.
But the number of death sentences in Alabama isn't large. ~250 since 1980. The percentage of murders that are white on black is about 3% of all murders. And white men murder women about 30% of time they commit murder. So we are talking about probably 1-2% of all murders are white male on black female.
So you'd only expect 2-5 white people on death row in Alabama for murdering a black woman. That is way way way too small of a sample size to make bold claims on.
Though, I'm pretty damn sure racism has an impact on sentencing.
But the number of death sentences in Alabama isn't large. ~250 since 1980. The percentage of murders that are white on black is about 3% of all murders. And white men murder women about 30% of time they commit murder. So we are talking about probably 1-2% of all murders are white male on black female.
So you'd only expect 2-5 white people on death row in Alabama for murdering a black woman. That is way way way too small of a sample size to make bold claims on.
Though, I'm pretty damn sure racism has an impact on sentencing.
> But the number of death sentences in Alabama isn't large. ~250 since 1980.
That's HUGE.
That's HUGE.
I'm fairly certain that even if you control for income and education, black people are still treated more harshly by the justice system.
I won't venture to guess whether there are regional differences as well...
I won't venture to guess whether there are regional differences as well...
Money and race are certainly not independent of one another in a lot of cases in the US
Yes they work together to help us ignore the serious problems we have with both. "Oh, the fact that cops beat up poor blacks is because they're poor, not black, so it's OK!" "The terrible public schools that the poor have to use don't seem so bad when you control for race!"
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Even if income could explain the whole difference it would still not be a very agreeable explanation.
Even though it's a naive idea, I still think that everyone should be entitled to the same level of legal support in a criminal case regardless of your socio-economic status.
Even though it's a naive idea, I still think that everyone should be entitled to the same level of legal support in a criminal case regardless of your socio-economic status.
As helpful as that sounds, it still wouldn't help earlier in the pipeline effects such as policing (a fighting kid in a white school is just a fighting kid who gets de-escalated and a note sent home, a fighting kid in a black school is arrested automatically). Or another difficult early pipeline area is prosecution and plea bargains being racially different (the white kid gets a plea offer for municipal loitering, the black kid gets prosecuted for misdemeanor possession of burglary tools).
Explosive growth in income inequality makes the debate meaningless. There won't be grades of legal support, they'll just be billionaires who above the system and dirt poor peasants who get no support at all. Now (or recently) is probably not a good cultural era to go into the defense attorney field, for example. Being a defense attorney in an era where no one needs or can afford a defense attorney is like being a really great star trek warp field engineer in 2015, thats nice but how do you pay your bills?
Explosive growth in income inequality makes the debate meaningless. There won't be grades of legal support, they'll just be billionaires who above the system and dirt poor peasants who get no support at all. Now (or recently) is probably not a good cultural era to go into the defense attorney field, for example. Being a defense attorney in an era where no one needs or can afford a defense attorney is like being a really great star trek warp field engineer in 2015, thats nice but how do you pay your bills?
That's why I dropped out of law school. I went to a large-ish legal conference and realized how utterly hopeless the odds were, and decided to cut my losses. I'm not proud of it but my mental health is too fragile for me to function effectively under those conditions, which makes me worse than useless as an advocate for anyone else.
That's simply not possible. And I don't mean it's impractical, I mean that the laws of mathematics won't allow it.
Legal support is a finite resource. There are only so many lawyers (thank god!) and of those that exist, some lawyers are better than others. It's simply not possible to give everyone the exact same quality of representation, short of ensuring that everyone has zero.
This is just one example of what the price system does in the market. The whole point is that resources are scarce, and the means of indicating how important a resource is for some purpose, is by voting with your money. And it's turtles all the way down: what gives you that money to indicate the importance of the scarce resource, is that you're providing some scarce resource to other people, who are paying you, and they are doing the same, and so on...
Legal support is a finite resource. There are only so many lawyers (thank god!) and of those that exist, some lawyers are better than others. It's simply not possible to give everyone the exact same quality of representation, short of ensuring that everyone has zero.
This is just one example of what the price system does in the market. The whole point is that resources are scarce, and the means of indicating how important a resource is for some purpose, is by voting with your money. And it's turtles all the way down: what gives you that money to indicate the importance of the scarce resource, is that you're providing some scarce resource to other people, who are paying you, and they are doing the same, and so on...
Agreeable or not, understanding reality is needed to know what, if any, problems need solving.
If you assume the problem is racism, while in reality it's income, your earnest efforts to combat racism will be do nothing (at best) to solve it.
If you assume the problem is racism, while in reality it's income, your earnest efforts to combat racism will be do nothing (at best) to solve it.
One could write an algorithm to accurately predict application of the death penalty here in Florida just by factoring skin darkness, wealth, IQ, sex, and age. The particulars of the case beyond that don't matter.
> Perhaps there are some things that could be improved within the penal system in the United States?
So many. But most of all, the attitude about what the hell prison is for needs to change. Many people embrace the death penalty in spite of increased costs, and support high sentences despite a low rate of successful rehabilitation. We need to care about our prisoners and vote for them for change to happen.
It's not that people aren't aware of it, it's a matter of priorities. There's a reason Trump is emphasizing immigration changes.
So many. But most of all, the attitude about what the hell prison is for needs to change. Many people embrace the death penalty in spite of increased costs, and support high sentences despite a low rate of successful rehabilitation. We need to care about our prisoners and vote for them for change to happen.
It's not that people aren't aware of it, it's a matter of priorities. There's a reason Trump is emphasizing immigration changes.
The article is framed in terms of the 1965 Moynihan report, so I feel I should quote the recommendations Moynihan had at the time:
"Moynihan had lots of ideas about what government could do—provide a guaranteed minimum income, establish a government jobs program, bring more black men into the military, enable better access to birth control, integrate the suburbs—but none of these ideas made it into the report."
Unfortunately, racists and demagogues eventually decided it was easier to just throw people in prison and be done with it.
"Moynihan had lots of ideas about what government could do—provide a guaranteed minimum income, establish a government jobs program, bring more black men into the military, enable better access to birth control, integrate the suburbs—but none of these ideas made it into the report."
Unfortunately, racists and demagogues eventually decided it was easier to just throw people in prison and be done with it.
Moynihan's ideas didn't and don't fit neatly into an existing political coalition on either side of the aisle. Supporters of enlarging social welfare programs and supporters of the traditional, gendered nuclear family as a normative institution are not quite disjoint sets, but the overlap has been shrinking for decades.
I kept reading and reading, waiting for him to get to the point. He never actually tries to refute Moynihan's central thesis, that destruction of the black family and black men (by slavery, Jim Crow, and other things) is the central problem facing black Americans, and the ideal issue to target for a solution. Instead, it's mostly a bunch of meandering and frequently confusing anecdotes [1], emotional descriptions of (awful and disturbing, let me not dispute) white racism over the years, and pointing and sputtering at Moynihan's conclusions [2]. Ultimately, he throws up his hands and says, "Forget it! We just need reparations! Read this other article I wrote!" Well, we happen to be in agreement. How does affirmative action not constitute reparations? Because it's also provided to modern-day Somalian immigrants? There's a pretty simple solution to that.
[1] Odell Newton...shot and killed the driver...Odell had the very bulwark that Moynihan treasured-a stable family-and it did not save him from incarceration. One guy with a stable family committed murder. Forget about it, and just keep subsidizing single-parent households through TANF and WIC.
[2] Discussing what he’d do about the problem among blacks in cities, Moynihan said, “When these Negro G.I.s come back from Viet Nam, I would meet them with a real estate agent, a girl who looks like Diahann Carroll, and a list of jobs. I’d try to get half of them into the grade schools, teaching kids who’ve never had anyone but women telling them what to do.” Everything about this quote is wrong. It's just wrong? That's it? You don't think kids should have positive male role models, or you don't think veterans should have help with housing and employment?
[1] Odell Newton...shot and killed the driver...Odell had the very bulwark that Moynihan treasured-a stable family-and it did not save him from incarceration. One guy with a stable family committed murder. Forget about it, and just keep subsidizing single-parent households through TANF and WIC.
[2] Discussing what he’d do about the problem among blacks in cities, Moynihan said, “When these Negro G.I.s come back from Viet Nam, I would meet them with a real estate agent, a girl who looks like Diahann Carroll, and a list of jobs. I’d try to get half of them into the grade schools, teaching kids who’ve never had anyone but women telling them what to do.” Everything about this quote is wrong. It's just wrong? That's it? You don't think kids should have positive male role models, or you don't think veterans should have help with housing and employment?
> It's just wrong? That's it?
I would presume the author is rejecting a handful of stereotypes in the quoted statement. I think the author was rejecting the sexist undertones of men being preferable to "women telling [kids] what to do". And the sexist undertones of introducing young men to "a girl who looks like Diahann Carroll." And the tone-deafness of "meet them with a real estate agent." Maybe the author thought showing Vietnam Veterans "a list of jobs" was also tone-deaf.
1) In the earlier article about reparations, there was a large section about real estate red-lining. Importantly, minorities were not allowed to buy houses outside of designated areas. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case...
2) There are any number of reasons that a military veteran may have difficulty finding a job (PTSD?). Suggesting that they simply haven't looked is a little bit insulting. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/11/re...
3) While there are numerous claims of the importance of male role models, these arguments are dubious. http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Boys-Without-Men-Exceptional/d...
4) I presume the bit about Diahann Carroll is suggesting that black men would get married and stay married if they met a sufficiently sexy woman. I think most people would consider that to be insulting.
I would presume the author is rejecting a handful of stereotypes in the quoted statement. I think the author was rejecting the sexist undertones of men being preferable to "women telling [kids] what to do". And the sexist undertones of introducing young men to "a girl who looks like Diahann Carroll." And the tone-deafness of "meet them with a real estate agent." Maybe the author thought showing Vietnam Veterans "a list of jobs" was also tone-deaf.
1) In the earlier article about reparations, there was a large section about real estate red-lining. Importantly, minorities were not allowed to buy houses outside of designated areas. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case...
2) There are any number of reasons that a military veteran may have difficulty finding a job (PTSD?). Suggesting that they simply haven't looked is a little bit insulting. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/11/re...
3) While there are numerous claims of the importance of male role models, these arguments are dubious. http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Boys-Without-Men-Exceptional/d...
4) I presume the bit about Diahann Carroll is suggesting that black men would get married and stay married if they met a sufficiently sexy woman. I think most people would consider that to be insulting.
One wonders whether the relative fragility of black families made them the unintentional first targets of efforts to dismantle patriarchal social structures, putting them at a relative disadvantage to a more conservative (qua slow-moving) aggregate.
Moynihan [...] began pushing for a minimum income for all American families. Nixon promoted Moynihan’s proposal — called the Family Assistance Plan — before the American public in a television address in August of 1969, and officially presented it to Congress in October.
For all his faults, Nixon was a much more radical president than is often remembered today, though of course he also helped to launch the war on drugs, the burden of which has historically fallen disproportionately on black Americans. I wonder how things might have turned out differently if he had not had to deal with the mess of the Viet Nam war when elected - though I suppose you could argue that without that particular running sore, he would have had much less incentive to undertake radical domestic reforms than he did. Would love to get the perspective of older HNers on this issue, as I was born in 1970 and outside the US so my impressions of this period mainly come from books.
Moynihan [...] began pushing for a minimum income for all American families. Nixon promoted Moynihan’s proposal — called the Family Assistance Plan — before the American public in a television address in August of 1969, and officially presented it to Congress in October.
For all his faults, Nixon was a much more radical president than is often remembered today, though of course he also helped to launch the war on drugs, the burden of which has historically fallen disproportionately on black Americans. I wonder how things might have turned out differently if he had not had to deal with the mess of the Viet Nam war when elected - though I suppose you could argue that without that particular running sore, he would have had much less incentive to undertake radical domestic reforms than he did. Would love to get the perspective of older HNers on this issue, as I was born in 1970 and outside the US so my impressions of this period mainly come from books.
Given that Nixon sabotaged Vietnam peace talks in order to get elected, it hardly seems reasonable to talk about that war as something he got unfortunately stuck with.
It's hard to sabotage peace talks if there isn't a war on already. I'm not trying to rehabilitate his machinations and policies about Vietnam, but speculating on what sort of President he might have been if the US hadn't been at war to begin with. Mainly I'm interested in the contrast between the general radicalism of the late 60s and the institutional conservatism of today, rather than wanting to argue that Nixon was a great guy.
My point is just that there was a chance (probably not a good one, but a chance) to have the war end so that Nixon could be a peacetime President like you're speculating about, and Nixon himself made sure that didn't happen.
I see what you're getting at, I just object to the presentation as the war as something Nixon got saddled with, rather than something he actively worked to have around for his own Presidency.
I see what you're getting at, I just object to the presentation as the war as something Nixon got saddled with, rather than something he actively worked to have around for his own Presidency.
Nixon led the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and was instrumental in the normalization of relations with China
Was "anonymous justice" ever attempted? What if judges, juries and lawyers worked on cases where the accused and the victim are anonymous. Neither their sex, nor race, nor anything is disclose. Would they help fix these bias where blacks get harsher sentences than whites and women lighter sentences than men for example?
I don't know if it's realistic.
I don't know if it's realistic.
> Was "anonymous justice" ever attempted?
No, and it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
> What if judges, juries and lawyers worked on cases where the accused and the victim are anonymous.
How is the jury going to evaluate guilt or innocent based on evidence (whether physical evidence or witness testimony) -- including, particularly, evidence relating to the perpetrator, victim, and the details of their interactions that are essential to the question of guilt or innocence of the crime, if the identities, sex, race, etc., of the accused and the victim(s) are obscured from the jury?
What you might plausibly do is remove sentencing from the trial court, and anonymize the bare findings of fact before forwarding them to a separate body that handles sentencing. That might have some utility, though it would still be subject to bias in the trial courts actually in completing the findings of fact used for determining sentence.
No, and it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
> What if judges, juries and lawyers worked on cases where the accused and the victim are anonymous.
How is the jury going to evaluate guilt or innocent based on evidence (whether physical evidence or witness testimony) -- including, particularly, evidence relating to the perpetrator, victim, and the details of their interactions that are essential to the question of guilt or innocence of the crime, if the identities, sex, race, etc., of the accused and the victim(s) are obscured from the jury?
What you might plausibly do is remove sentencing from the trial court, and anonymize the bare findings of fact before forwarding them to a separate body that handles sentencing. That might have some utility, though it would still be subject to bias in the trial courts actually in completing the findings of fact used for determining sentence.
How is sex, race etc required to evaluate guilt or innocent?
What you suggest in your last paragraph is pretty much what I had in mind. Facts would be gathered and then anonymized before being used for sentencing. Instead of "this black guy raped this white woman" they would make their decision based on "this person raped this other".
What you suggest in your last paragraph is pretty much what I had in mind. Facts would be gathered and then anonymized before being used for sentencing. Instead of "this black guy raped this white woman" they would make their decision based on "this person raped this other".
> How is sex, race etc required to evaluate guilt or innocent?
It's pretty relevant to evaluating whether a particular piece of evidence (whether a video or photograph, a witness description, etc.) implicates the guilt or innocence of the particular person charged with the crime. Which is, after all, the whole job of the jury.
> What you suggest in your last paragraph is pretty much what I had in mind. Facts would be gathered and then anonymized before being used for sentencing.
What I discuss in the last paragraph is something that can only happen after the jury has found the facts in a process in which the jury, judge, and lawyers knew who the victims and accused were.
It's pretty relevant to evaluating whether a particular piece of evidence (whether a video or photograph, a witness description, etc.) implicates the guilt or innocence of the particular person charged with the crime. Which is, after all, the whole job of the jury.
> What you suggest in your last paragraph is pretty much what I had in mind. Facts would be gathered and then anonymized before being used for sentencing.
What I discuss in the last paragraph is something that can only happen after the jury has found the facts in a process in which the jury, judge, and lawyers knew who the victims and accused were.
Well, you're going to have to sanitize all the testimony to obscure the specifics of race, gender, location, and other social context. In many cases all you'll end up with are an allegation and a denial, as you'll have no way to evaluate the demeanor of the various parties to the case. The fact that we are subject to bias doesn't mean that jettisoning our entire social technology (about how to read people and so on) is automatically going to lead to improved results.
But what is a "fact"? A whole lot of stuff comes down to he said/she said, or people interpreting complex interplay of factors differently. I'm not sure how often it occurs that "facts" in a criminal trial are uncontested.
Especially when we're talking about witness testimony, the jury needs to see the witness to determine whether they believe them.
Especially when we're talking about witness testimony, the jury needs to see the witness to determine whether they believe them.
> How is sex, race etc required to evaluate guilt or innocent?
Because it's part of the facts of the case (imagine for instance if you couldn't mention the color and make of a car that hit you)?
Not to mention how would you hide the race and sex of a defendant from the jury? Not let the defendant into the courtroom? Move everything to written testimony?
Because it's part of the facts of the case (imagine for instance if you couldn't mention the color and make of a car that hit you)?
Not to mention how would you hide the race and sex of a defendant from the jury? Not let the defendant into the courtroom? Move everything to written testimony?
I see the value of this idea but I also see a very dark side.
> Neither their sex, nor race, nor anything is disclose.
Who decides what is contained by 'anything'? That process will become corrupt and only serve power. I don't think justice will be served by withholding information.
> Neither their sex, nor race, nor anything is disclose.
Who decides what is contained by 'anything'? That process will become corrupt and only serve power. I don't think justice will be served by withholding information.
Beyond that, there’s the expense of having to make long drives to prisons that are commonly built in rural white regions, far from the incarcerated’s family.
It suits some politicians to have a large prison in their district, since the inmate population is included in calculations of representation (in accordance with the Constitutional design for representative government), but as the inmates can't vote, the number of people the congressperson has to actually answer to is that much smaller.
http://www.demos.org/publication/census-count-and-prisoners-...
It suits some politicians to have a large prison in their district, since the inmate population is included in calculations of representation (in accordance with the Constitutional design for representative government), but as the inmates can't vote, the number of people the congressperson has to actually answer to is that much smaller.
http://www.demos.org/publication/census-count-and-prisoners-...
We could really use someone like Moynihan these days but sadly none compare. How is Obama so silent on these issues?
Have you not noticed how bitterly his comments are rejected when he does comment on them? I'd imagine that this will be his signature post-presidency issue, as he established a foundation called 'My Brother's Keeper' that aims to address the specific problems of black male youth. But you have people on the left demanding that he tear down the entire structure of white patriarchy, and people on eh right insisting that this is all he has done since taking office.
Obama likely knows that a black person talking about racism gets deemed "the real racist" or "whining" by a significant portion of Americans.
hnpc123(10)
I sometimes think about what the reaction would be if statistics showed that the German courts disproportionately often decided to sentence Jews to death?
Perhaps there are some things that could be improved within the penal system in the United States?