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Ron Jackson's Perspective
The Sunday Journal -
Think
Kankakee, Illinois
October 6, 2002
Actions reveal real
choices |
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I just love it when really
super smart people try to find an answer to the simplest situations.
People with Ph.D. after their names or Institute after their
organization's name intrigue me when they make public their search
for clues.
The latest social issue to stump the "pros" is why in
the past two decades more black males are in penal systems than
educational systems. To you and me it may be obvious, but to
the highly intellectual, it's a brain teaser.
Look at the numbers from a recent study provided by a
Washington, D.C., think tank, the Justice Policy Institute. In
1980 there were 143,000 black males in prison and 463,700 in higher
education. In 2000 the numbers had grown exponentially;
791,600 black males were in correctional systems, but only 603,032
black males were in colleges and universities.
The numbers are staggering. A five-fold
incarceration increase in just 20 years is no laughing matter.
The study also pointed out that funding for prisons and jails went
from 2.1 percent of our national budget to 6.3 percent. That
makes perfect sense. When you accumulate more trash, you have
to build more and bigger landfills.
One really smart guy, Professor Todd Clear of the John
Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, interpreted the study
to mean that "the life chances of a black male going to prison are
greater today than the chances of a black male going to college."
Chance? Did almost a million black males flip a coin with one
side being college and the other side being custody? And they
all were unlucky enough to have it land on custody?
Clearly Prof. Clear, the chances are not greater, but
the choices are. Getting hit by a car or hitting the lottery
are chances. Jail is not chance, it's choice. In 1980,
2000, or 2080 it's choice. Bad choice.
Certainly, if prisoners were asked what they thought
they wanted to be when they were growing up, we would get an array
of answers. Some would say teachers, policemen, firemen,
doctors, athletes, coaches, and maybe a few would even say lawyers.
None would probably say they wanted to be a gang banger, thug, or
prisoner. Choices are not made by mouth. Regardless of
what you say with your voice, your actions reveal your real choices.
The reasons many black males make the choice of jail
over college are many. They run the gamut from poverty, to
post-slavery syndrome, to the lack of a father figure, to rap music,
to violence on television and movies, to racism. But that is
another study and another column.
Let's see. Since 1980 the rate of black males
going to correctional systems has surpassed the rate of black males
going to college. Why?
Duh! It takes preparation, desire, effort, and
money to go to college. Jail requires no work, no tests, and
no money.
The real question should be how many of those 791,600
black males in jail really wanted to go to college?
If the objective of this study was to garner public
sympathy, it failed. There are too many males of all races in
this country who made good choices under dire conditions to feel
sorry for those who didn't. Males reared in Appalachia have it
no less challenging than males from the inner city ghettos.
I figured that out and I don't have a Ph.D. or belong
to an institute. |
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