Racial inequality in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Racial inequality in the United States refers to social advantages and disparities that affect different races within the United States. These inequities may be manifested in the distribution of wealth, power, and life opportunities afforded to people based on their race or ethnicity, both historic and modern. These can also be seen as a result of historic oppression, inequality of inheritance, or overall prejudice, especially against minority groups.

Definitions

In social science, racial inequality is typically analyzed as "imbalances in the distribution of power, economic resources, and opportunities." Racial inequalities have manifested in American society in ways ranging from racial disparities in wealth, poverty rates, housing patterns, educational opportunities, unemployment rates, and incarceration rates. Some claim that current racial inequalities in the U.S. have their roots in over 300 years of cultural, economic, physical, legal, and political discrimination based on race.

Manifestations of racial inequality

There are vast differences in wealth across racial groups in the United States. The wealth gap between white and African-American families nearly tripled from $85,000 in 1984 to $236,500 in 2009. There are many causes, including years of home ownership, household income, unemployment, and education, but inheritance might be the most important.

Health disparities

Racial wealth gap

A study by the Brandeis University Institute on Assets and Social Policy which followed the same sets of families for 25 years found that there are vast differences in wealth across racial groups in the United States. The wealth gap between Caucasian and African-American families studied nearly tripled, from $85,000 in 1984 to $236,500 in 2009. The study concluded that factors contributing to the inequality included years of home ownership (27%), household income (20%), education (5%), and familial financial support and/or inheritance (5%).

Median household income along ethnic lines in the United States.

 

Wealth can be defined as "the total value of things families own minus their debts." In contrast, income can be defined as, "earnings from work, interest and dividends, pensions, and transfer payments." Wealth is an important factor in determining the quality of both individual and family life chances because it can be used as a tool to secure a desired quality of life or class status and enables individuals who possess it to pass their class status to their children. Family inheritance, which is passed down from generation to generation, helps with wealth accumulation. Wealth can also serve as a safety net against fluctuations in income and poverty.

There is a large gap between the wealth of minority households and White households within the United States. The Pew Research Center's analysis of 2009 government data says the median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households. In 2009 the typical black household had $5,677 in wealth, the typical Hispanic had $6,325, and the typical White household had $113,149. Furthermore, 35% of African American and 31% of Hispanic households had zero or negative net worth in 2009 compared to 15% of White households. While in 2005 median Asian household wealth was greater than White households at $168,103, by 2009 that changed when their net worth fell 54% to $78,066, partially due to the arrival of new Asian immigrants since 2004; not including newly arrived immigrants, Asian net wealth only dropped 31%. As shown on "Eurweb - Electronic Urban Report" According to the Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, of the 14 million black households, only 5% have more than $350,000 in net worth while nearly 30% of white families have more than this amount. Less than 1% of black families have over a million in net assets. while nearly 10% of white households, totaling over 8 million families have more than 1.3 million in net worth.

Lusardi states that African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to face means-tested programs that discourage asset possession due to higher poverty rates. One-fourth of African Americans and Hispanics approach retirement with less than $1,000 net worth (without considering pensions and Social Security). Lower financial literacy is correlated with poor savings and adjustment behavior. Education is a strong predictor for wealth. One-fourth of African Americans and Hispanics that have less than a high school education have no wealth, but even with increased education, large differences in wealth remain.

Conley believes that the cause of Black-White wealth inequality may be related to economic circumstances and poverty because the economic disadvantages of African Americans can be effective in harming efforts to accumulate wealth. However, there is a five times greater chance of downward mobility from the top quartile to the bottom quartile for African Americans than there is for White Americans; correspondingly, African Americans rise to the top quartile from the bottom quartile at half the rate of White Americans. Bowles and Gintis conclude from this information that successful African Americans do not transfer the factors for their success as effectively as White Americans do. Other factors to consider in the recent widening of the minority wealth gap are the mortgage crisis and credit crunch that began in 2007-2008. The Pew Research Center found that plummeting house values were the main cause of the wealth change from 2005 to 2009. Hispanics were hit the hardest by the housing market meltdown possibly because a disproportionate share of Hispanics live in California, Florida, Nevada, and Arizona, which are among the states with the steepest declines in housing values. From 2005 to 2009 Hispanic homeowners' home equity declined by Half, from $99,983 to $49,145, with homeownership rate decreasing by 4% to 47%. A 2015 Measure of America study commissioned by the ACLU on the long-term consequences of discriminatory lending practices found that the financial crisis will likely widen the black-white wealth gap for the next generation.

History

Africans were first brought to the United States as slaves. While free African-Americans owned around $50 million by 1860, farm tenancy and sharecropping replaced slavery after the American Civil War because newly freed African American farmers did not own land or supplies and had to depend on the White Americans who rented the land and supplies out to them. At the same time, southern Blacks were trapped in debt and denied banking services while White citizens were given low interest loans to set up farms in the Midwest and Western United States. White homesteaders were able to go West and obtain unclaimed land through government grants, while the land grants and rights of African Americans were rarely enforced.

After the Civil War the Freedman's Bank helped to foster wealth accumulation for African Americans. However, it failed in 1874, partially because of suspicious high-risk loans to White banks and the Panic of 1873. This lowered the support African Americans had to open businesses and acquire wealth. In addition, after the bank failed, taking the assets of many African Americans with it, many African Americans did not trust banks. There was also the threat of lynching to any African American who achieved success.

In addition, when Social Security was first created during the Great Depression, it exempted agricultural and domestic workers, which disproportionately affected African Americans and Hispanics. Consequently, the savings of retired or disabled African Americans was spent during old age instead of handed down and households had to support poor elderly family members. The Homeowner's Loan Corporation that helped homeowners during the Great Depression gave African American neighborhoods the lowest rating, ensuring that they defaulted at greater rates than White Americans. The Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and Veteran's Administration (VA) shut out African Americans by giving loans to suburbs instead of central cities after they were first founded.

Inheritance and parental financial assistance

Bowman states that "in the United States, the most significant aspect of multigenerational wealth distribution comes in the forms of gifts and inheritances." However, the multigenerational absence of wealth and asset attainment for African Americans makes it almost impossible for them to make significant contributions of wealth to the next generation. Data shows that financial inheritances could account for 10 to 20 percent of the difference between African American and White American household wealth.

Using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) of 1992 Avery and Rendall estimated that only around one-tenth of African Americans reported receiving inheritances or substantial inter vivo transfers ($5,000 or more) compared to one-third of White Americans. In addition, the 1989 Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) reported that the mean and median values of those money transfers were significantly higher for White American households: the mean was $148,578 households compared to $85,598 for African American households and the median was $58,839 to $42,478. The large differences in wealth in the parent-generations were a dominant factor in prediction the differences between African American and White American prospective inheritances. Avery and Rendall used 1989 SCF data to discover that the mean value in 2002 of White Americans' inheritances was 5.46 times that of African Americans', compared to 3.65 that of current wealth. White Americans received a mean of $28,177 that accounted for 20.7% of their mean wealth while African Americans received a mean of $5,165 that accounted for 13.9% of their mean current wealth. Non-inherited wealth was more equally distributed than inherited wealth.

Avery and Rendall found that family attributes favored White Americans when it came to factor influencing the amount of inheritances. African Americans were 7.3% less likely to have live parents, 24.5% more likely to have three or more siblings, and 30.6% less likely to be married or cohabiting (meaning there are two people who could gain inheritances to contribute to the household) Keister discovered that large family size has a negative effect on wealth accumulation. These negative effects are worse for the poor and African Americans and Hispanics are more likely to be poor and have large families. More children also decrease the amount of gifts parents can give and the inheritance they leave behind for the children.

Angel's research into inheritance showed that older Mexican American parents may give less financial assistance to their children than non-Hispanic White Americans because of their relatively high fertility rate so children have to compete for the available money. There are studies that indicate that elderly Hispanic parents of all backgrounds live with their adult children due to poverty and would choose to do otherwise, even if they had the resources to do so. African American and Latino families are less likely to financially aid adult children than non-Hispanic White families.

Income effects

The racial wealth gap is visible in terms of dollar for dollar wage and wealth comparisons. For example, middle-class Blacks earn seventy cents for every dollar earned by similar middle-class Whites. Race can be seen as the "strongest predictor" of one's wealth.

Even at similar education levels, minorities typically earn less than whites. Education may boost earnings less for minorities than for whites, although all groups typically see benefits from additional education.

Krivo and Kaufman found that information supporting the fact that increases in income does not affect wealth as much for minorities as it does for White Americans. For example, a $10,000 increase in income for White Americans increases their home equity $17,770 while the same increase only increase the home equities for Asians by $9,500, Hispanics by $15,150, and African Americans by $15,900.

Financial decisions

Investments

Conley states that differences between African American and White American wealth begin because people with higher asset levels can take advantage of riskier investment instruments with higher rates of returns. Unstable income flows may lead to "cashing in" of assets or accumulation of debt over time, even if the time-averaged streams of income and savings are the same. African Americans may be less likely to invest in the stock market because they have a smaller parental head-start and safety net.

Chong, Phillips and Phillips state that African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians invest less heavily in stocks than White Americans. Hispanics and in some ways African Americans accumulate wealth slower than White Americans because of preference for near-term saving, favoring liquidity and low investment risk at the expense of higher yielding assets. These preferences may be due to low financial literacy leading to a lack of demand for investment services. According to Lusardi, even though the stock market increased in value in the 1990s, only 6-7% of African Americans and Hispanics held stocks, so they did not benefit as much from the value increase.

Use of financial services

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in 2009 found that 7.7% of United States households are "unbanked". Minorities are more likely than White Americans to not have a banking account. 3.5% of Asians, 3.3% of White Americans, 21.7% of African Americans and 19.3% of Hispanics and 15.6% of remaining racial/ethnic categories do not have banking accounts.

Lusardi's research revealed that education increases one's chances of having a banking account. A full high school education increases the chance of having a checking account by 15% compared to only an elementary education; having a parent with a high school education rather than only an elementary education increases one's chances of having a checking account by 2.8%. This difference in education level may explain the large proportion of "unbanked" Hispanics. The 2002 National Longitudinal Survey found that while only 3% of White Americans and 4% of African Americans had only an elementary education, close to 20% of Hispanics did and 43% of Hispanics had less than a high school education Ibarra and Rodriguez believe that another factor that influences the Hispanic use of banking accounts is credit. Latinos are also more likely than White Americans or African Americans to have no or a thin credit history: 22% of Latinos have no credit score in comparison to 4% of White Americans and 3% of African Americans.

Not taking other variables into account, Chong, Phillips, and Phillips survey of zip codes found that minority neighborhoods don't have the same access to financial planning services as White neighborhoods. There is also client segregation by investable assets. More than 80% of financial advisors prefer that clients have at least $100,000 in investable assets and more than 50% have a minimum asset requirement of $500,000 or above. Because of this, financial planning is possibly beyond the reach of those with low income, which comprises a large portion of African-Americans and Hispanics. Fear of discrimination is another possible factor. Minorities may be distrustful of banks and lack of trust was commonly reported as why minorities, people with low education, and the poor chose not to have banking accounts.

Poverty

There are large differences in poverty rates across racial groups. In 2009, the poverty rate was 9.9% for non-Hispanic Whites, 12.1% for Asians, 26.6% for Hispanics, and 27.4% for Blacks. This data illustrates that Hispanics and Blacks experience disproportionately high percentages of poverty in comparison to non-Hispanics Whites and Asians. In discussing poverty, it is important to distinguish between episodic poverty and chronic poverty.

Episodic poverty

The U.S. Census Bureau defines episodic poverty as living in poverty for less than 36 consecutive months. From the period between 2004 and 2006 the episodic poverty rate was 22.6% for non-Hispanic Whites, 44.5% for Blacks, and 45.8% for Hispanics. Blacks and Hispanics experience rates of episodic poverty that are nearly double the rates of non-Hispanic Whites.

Chronic poverty

The U.S. Census Bureau defines chronic poverty as living in poverty for 36 or more consecutive months. From the period between 2004 and 2006 the chronic poverty rate was 1.4% for non-Hispanic Whites, 4.5% for Hispanics, and 8.4% for Blacks. Hispanics and Blacks experience much higher rates of chronic poverty when compared to non-Hispanic Whites.

Length of poverty spell

The U.S. Census Bureau defines length of poverty spell as the number of months spent in poverty. The median length of poverty spells was 4 months for non-Hispanic Whites, 5.9 months for Blacks, and 6.2 months for Hispanics. The length of time spent in poverty varies by race. Non-Hispanic Whites experience the shortest length of poverty spells when compared to Blacks and Hispanics.

Housing

About 25% of African-Americans own a house in America.

Home ownership

Home ownership is a crucial means by which families can accumulate wealth. Over a period of time, homeowners accumulate home equity in their homes. In turn, this equity can contribute substantially to the wealth of homeowners. In summary, home ownership allows for the accumulation of home equity, a source of wealth, and provides families with insurance against poverty. Ibarra and Rodriguez state that home equity is 61% of the net worth of Hispanic homeowners, 38.5% of the net worth of White homeowners, and 63% of the net worth of African-American homeowners. Conley remarks that differences in rates of home ownership and housing value accrual may lead to lower net worth in the parental generation, which disadvantages the next.

There are large disparities in homeownership rates by race. In 2017, the home ownership rate was 72.5% for non-Hispanic Whites, 46.1% for Hispanics, and 42.0% for Blacks. From this data, non-Hispanic Whites own homes at a much higher rate that all other races, while Hispanics and Blacks own homes at much lower rates. This means that a high percentage of Hispanic and Black populations do not receive the benefits, such as wealth accumulation and insurance against poverty, that owning a home provides.

Home equity

There is a discrepancy in relation to race in terms of housing value. On average, the economic value of Black-owned units is 35% less than similar White-owned units. Thus, on average, Black-owned units sell for 35% less than similar White-owned units. Krivo and Kaufman state that while median home value of White Americans is at least $20,000 more than that of African Americans and Hispanics, these differences are not a result of group differences in length of residences because Asians have the most equity on their homes but have lived in them for the shortest average period. African American and Hispanic mortgage holders are 1.5 to 2.5 times more likely to pay 9% or more on interest. Krivo and Kaufman calculate that the African-American/White gap in mortgage interest rates is 0.39%, which translates to a difference of $5,749 on the median home loan payment of a 30-year mortgage of a $53,882 home. The Hispanic/White gap (0.17%) translates to Hispanics paying $3,441 more on a 30-year mortgage on the median valued Hispanic home loan of $80,000. The authors conclude that the extra money could have been reinvested into wealth accumulation.

Krivo and Kaufman also postulate that the types of mortgage loans minorities obtain contributes to the differences in home equity. FHA and VA loans make up one-third or more of primary loans for African Americans and Hispanics, while only 18% for White Americans and 16% for Asians. These loans require lower down payments and cost more than conventional mortgages, which contributes to a slower accumulation of equity. Asians and Hispanics have lower net equity on houses partly because they are youngest on average, but age has only a small effect on the Black-White gap in home equity. Previously owning a home can allow the homeowner to use money from selling the previous home to invest and increase the equity of later housing. Only 30% of African Americans in comparison to 60% of White Americas had previously owned a home. African-Americans, Asians, and Hispanics gain lower home equity returns in comparison to White Americans with increases in income and education.

Residential segregation

Residential segregation can be defined as, "physical separation of the residential locations between two groups. There are large discrepancies between races involving geographic location of residence. In the United States, poverty and affluence have become very geographically concentrated. Much residential segregation has been a result of the discriminatory lending practice of Redlining, which delineated certain, primarily minority race neighborhoods, as risky for investment or lending. The result has been neighborhoods with concentrated investment, and others neighborhoods where banks are less inclined to invest. Most notably, this geographic concentration of affluence and poverty can be seen in the comparison between suburban and urban populations. The suburbs have traditionally been primarily White populations, while the majority of urban inner city populations have traditionally been composed of racial minorities. Results from the last few censuses suggest that more and more inner-ring suburbs around cities also are becoming home to racial minorities as their populations grow. As of 2017, most residents of the United States live in "radicalized and economically segregated neighborhoods".

Education

In the United States, funding for public education relies greatly on local property taxes. Local property tax revenues may vary between different neighborhoods and school districts. This variance of property tax revenues amongst neighborhoods and school districts leads to inequality in education. This inequality manifests in the form of available school financial resources which provide educational opportunities, facilities, and programs to students.

Returning to the concept of residential segregation, it is known that affluence and poverty have become both highly segregated and concentrated in relation to race and location. Residential segregation and poverty concentration is most markedly seen in the comparison between urban and suburban populations in which suburbs consist of majority White populations and inner-cities consist of majority minority populations. According to Barnhouse-Walters (2001), the concentration of poor minority populations in inner-cities and the concentration of affluent White populations in the suburbs, "is the main mechanism by which racial inequality in educational resources is reproduced."

Unemployment rates

In 2016, the unemployment rate was 3.8% for Asians, 4.6% for non-Hispanic Whites, 6.1% for Hispanics, and 9.0% for Blacks, all over the age of 16. In terms of unemployment, it can be seen that there are two-tiers: relatively low unemployment for Asians and Whites, relatively high unemployment for Hispanics and Blacks.

Potential explanations

Several theories have been offered to explain the large racial gap in unemployment rates:

• Segregation and job decentralization

This theory argues that the effects of racial segregation pushed Blacks and Hispanics into the central city during a time period in which jobs and opportunities moved to the suburbs. This led to geographic separation between minorities and job opportunities which was compounded by struggles to commute to jobs in the suburbs due to lack of means of transportation. This ultimately led to high unemployment rates among minorities.

• White gains

This theory argues that the reason minority disadvantage exists is because the majority group is able to benefit from it. For example, in terms of the labor force, each job not taken by a Black person could be job that gets occupied by a White person. This theory is based on the view that the White population has the most to gain from the discrimination of minority groups. In areas where there are large minority groups, this view predicts high levels of discrimination to occur for the reason that White populations stand to gain the most in those situations.

• Job skill differentials

This theory argues that the unemployment disparity can be attributed to lower rates of academic success among minority groups (especially black Americans) leading to a lack of skills necessary for entering the modern work force.

Crime rates and incarceration

In 2008, the prison population under federal and state correctional jurisdiction was over 1,610,446 prisoners. Of these prisoners, 20% were Hispanic (compared to 16.3% of the U.S. population that is Hispanic), 34% were White (compared to 63.7% of the U.S. population that is White), and 38% were Black (compared to 12.6% of the U.S. population that is Black). Additionally, Black males were imprisoned at a rate 6.5 times higher than that of their White male counterparts. According to a 2012 study by the U.S. Census Bureau, "over half the inmates incarcerated in our nation's jails is either black or Hispanic." According to a report by the National Council of La Raza, research obstacles undermine the census of Latinos in prison, and "Latinos in the criminal justice system are seriously undercounted. The true extent of the overrepresentation of Latinos in the system probably is significantly greater than researchers have been able to document.

Consequences of a criminal record

After being released from prison, the consequences of having a criminal record are immense. Over 40 percent who are released will return to prison within the next few years. Those with criminal records who do not return to prison face significant struggles to find quality employment and income outcomes compared to those who do not have criminal records.

Potential causes

• Poverty

A potential cause of such disproportionately high incarceration rates for Black Americans is that Black Americans are disproportionately poor. Conviction is a crucial part of the process that leads to either guilt or innocence. There are two important factors that play a role in this part of the process: the ability to make bail and the ability to access high-quality legal counsel. Due to the fact that both of these important factors cost money, it is unlikely that poor Black Americans are able to afford them and benefit from them. Sentencing is another crucial part of the process that determines how long individuals will remain incarcerated. Several sociological studies have found that poor offenders receive longer sentences for violent crimes and crimes involving drug use, unemployed offenders are more likely to be incarcerated than their employed counterparts, and then even with similar crimes and criminal records minorities were imprisoned more often than Whites.

• Racial profiling

Racial profiling is defined as,"any police-initiated action that relies on the race, ethnicity, or national origin, rather than the behavior of an individual or information that leads the police to a particular individual who has been identified as being, or having been, engaged in criminal activity." Another potential cause for the disproportionately high incarceration rates of Blacks and Hispanics is that racial profiling occurs at higher rates for Blacks and Hispanics. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva states that racial profiling can perhaps explain the over representation of Blacks and Hispanics in U.S. prisons. According to Michael L. Birzer, professor of criminal justice at Wichita State University and director of its School of Community Affairs, "racial minorities, particularly African Americans, have had a long and troubled history of disparate treatment by United States Criminal Justice Authorities."

• Racial segregation

"Racial residential segregation is a fundamental cause of racial disparities in health". Racial segregation can result in decreased opportunities for minority groups in income, education, etc. While there are laws against racial segregation, study conducted by D. R. Williams and C. Collins focuses primarily on the impacts of racial segregation, which leads to differences between races.

Police brutality

Significant racial discrepancies have been reported in the United States involving police brutality. Police brutality in the United States is defined as "the unwarranted or excessive and often illegal use of force against civilians by U.S. police officers." It can come in the form of murder, assault, mayhem, or torture, as well as less physical means of violence including general harassment, verbal abuse, and intimidation. The origins of racial inequality by way of police brutality in America date all the way back to colonial times. During this time when Africans were enslaved by whites, enslavement became so widespread that slaves began to outnumber whites in some colonies. Due to fear of rebellions, insurrections, and slave riots, whites began to organize groups of vigilantes who would use force to keep slaves from rebelling against their owners. Men ages six to sixty were required to patrol slave residences, searching for any slaves that needed to be kept under control. When the first American police department was established in 1838, African Americans soon became the target of police brutality as they fled the south. In 1929, the Illinois crime survey reported that although African-Americans only made up five percent of Illinois's population, they consisted of 30 percent of victims of police killings. 

During the civil rights era, the existence of the racial disparities surrounding police brutality only became more evident. As protests against police brutality became more prevalent, police would use tactics such as police dogs or fire hoses to control the protesters, even if they were peacefully protesting. In 1991, video footage was released of cab driver Rodney King being hit over 50 times by multiple police with their batons. The police were later acquitted for their actions. Allegations of police brutality continue to plague American police. An alleged example includes Philando Castile, a 32 year old black male who was pulled over for a broken taillight. After being told by the police man, officer Yanez, to take out his license and insurance, Castile let the officer know he had a firearm and that he was reaching into his pocket to get his wallet. In a matter of seconds the officer pulled out his gun and shot Castile 5 times, killing him in front of his girlfriend and 4-year-old daughter. He claimed he feared for his life because he believed Castile was pulling his own gun from his pocket. He was acquitted at trial, with one juror explaining that the decision hinged on the specific wording of the law under which he was charged.

A study done by Joshua Correll at the University of Chicago shows what is called “The police officers dilemma,” by setting up a video game in which police are given scenarios involving both black and white men holding either a gun or non-threatening objects such as cellphones. Their task is to only shoot the men that are carrying guns. It was found in this experiment that armed black men were shot more frequently than armed white men and were also shot more quickly. The police would also often mistakenly shoot the unarmed black targets, while neglecting to shoot the armed white targets. Cody T. Ross, a doctoral student studying anthropology concluded that there is "evidence of a significant bias in the killing of unarmed black Americans relative to unarmed white Americans, in that the probability of being {black, unarmed, and shot by police} is about 3.49 times the probability of being {white, unarmed, and shot by police} on average." 

Color blind racism

It is hypothesized by some scholars, such as Michelle Alexander, that in the post-Civil Rights era, the United States has now switched to a new form of racism known as color blind racism. Color-blind racism refers to "contemporary racial inequality as the outcome of nonracial dynamics."

The types of practices that take place under color blind racism are "subtle, institutional, and apparently nonracial." These practices are not racially overt in nature such as racism under slavery, segregation, and Jim Crow laws. Instead, color blind racism flourishes on the idea that race is no longer an issue in this country and that there are non-racial explanations for the state of inequality in the U.S. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva writes that there are 4 frames of color-blind racism that support this view:

1. Abstract liberalism – Abstract liberalism uses ideas associated with political liberalism. This frame is based in liberal ideas such as equal opportunity, individualism, and choice. It uses these ideas as a basis to explain inequality.
2. Naturalization – Naturalization explains racial inequality as a cause of natural occurrences. It claims that segregation is not the result of racial dynamics. Instead it is the result of the naturally occurring phenomena of individuals choosing likeness as their preference.
3. Cultural racism – Cultural racism explains racial inequality through culture. Under this frame, racial inequalities are described as the result of stereotypical behavior of minorities. Stereotypical behavior includes qualities such as laziness and teenage pregnancy.
4. Minimization of racism – Minimization of racism attempts to minimize the factor of race as a major influence in affecting the life chances of minorities. It writes off instances and situations that could be perceived as discrimination to be hypersensitivity to the topic of race.

Natural disasters

When a disaster strikes--be it a hurricane, tornado, or fire--some people are inherently more prepared than others. "While all members of populations are affected by disasters, research findings show that racial and ethnic minorities are less likely to evacuate and more affected by disasters" than their Caucasian counterparts. "During Hurricane Katrina, the large number of people seeking safety in designated shelters were disproportionately black. In addition, the mortality rate for blacks was 1.7 to 4 times higher than that of whites for all people ≥ 18." After Hurricane Katrina, many African Americans felt abandoned by the United States Government. 66% of African Americans "said that 'the government's response to [Katrina] would have been faster if most of the victims had been white.'" For a disproportionate share of the impoverished in New Orleans, many had, and continue to have, a difficult time preparing for storms. Factors such as "cultural ignorance, ethnic insensitivity, racial isolation and racial bias in housing, information dissemination, and relief assistance" all greatly contribute to the disparities in disaster preparedness.

Prison–industrial complex

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

US incarceration timeline

 

Correctional populations in the US 1980–2013

 

The term "prison–industrial complex" (PIC), derived from the "military–industrial complex" of the 1950s, describes the attribution of the rapid expansion of the US inmate population to the political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies for profit. The most common agents of PIC are corporations that contract cheap prison labor, construction companies, surveillance technology vendors, companies that operate prison food services and medical facilities, prison guard unions, private probation companies, lawyers, and lobby groups that represent them. 

The portrayal of prison-building/expansion as a means of creating employment opportunities and the utilization of inmate labor are particularly harmful elements of the prison-industrial complex as they boast clear economic benefits at the expense of the incarcerated populace. The term also refers to the network of participants who prioritize personal financial gain over rehabilitating criminals. Proponents of this view, including civil rights organizations such as the Rutherford Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), believe that the desire for monetary gain through prison privatization has led to the growth of the prison industry and contributed to the increase of incarcerated individuals. These advocacy groups assert that incentivizing the construction of more prisons for monetary gain will encourage incarceration, which would affect people of color at disproportionately high rates.

History

Following the War on Drugs and the passing of harsher sentencing legislation, private sector prisons began to emerge to keep up with the rapidly expanding prison population.

Late 1970s

The Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) is a federal program that was initiated along with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Prison-Industries Act in 1979. This program legalized the transportation of prison-made goods across state lines and allows prison inmates to earn market wages in private sector jobs that can go towards tax deductions, victim compensation, family support, and room and board. The PIECP, ALEC, and Prison-Industries Act were created with the goal of motivating state and local governments to create employment opportunities that mimic private sector work, generate services that allow offenders to contribute to society, offset the cost of their incarceration, reduce inmate idleness, cultivate job skills, and improve the success rates of transition back into the community after release. Before these programs, prison labor for the private sector had been outlawed for decades to avoid competition. The introduction of prison labor in the private sector, the implementation of PIECP, ALEC, and Prison-Industries Act in state prisons all contributed a substantial role in cultivating the prison-industrial complex. Between the years 1980 through 1994, prison industry profits jumped substantially from $392 million to $1.31 billion.

1980s

In January 1983, the Corrections Corporations of America (CCA) was founded by Nashville businessmen and would grow to become one of the oldest and largest for-profit private prison companies in America, laying the groundwork for a transformation in layout of corrections facilities across the country. The 58 was established with the goal of creating public-private partnerships in corrections by substituting government shortcomings with more efficient solutions. The first facility managed by CCA opened in April 1984 in Houston, Texas. As of 2012, the multibillion-dollar corporation, now known as CoreCivic, manages over 65 correctional facilities and boasts of a revenue exceeding over 1.7 billion dollars.

To run the most efficient prisons possible, CCA cut costs by reducing personnel and designing its prisons to include more video cameras for surveillance and clustered cell blocks for easier monitoring. For private prisons, labor is the biggest expense at 70 percent of overall costs, and as a result, CCA and other private prisons have become motivated to cut labor costs by understaffing its prisons.

In 1988, the second largest for-profit private prison corporation, Wackenhut Corrections Corporation (WCC) was established as a subsidiary of The Wackenhut Corporation. The WCC would later develop into Geo Group and as of 2017, their U.S. Corrections and Detention division manages 70 correctional and detention facilities. Their mission statement is as follows:

To develop innovative public-private partnerships with government agencies around the globe that deliver high quality, cost-efficient correctional, detention, community reentry, and electronic monitoring services while providing industry leading rehabilitation and community reintegration programs to the men and women entrusted to our care.

1990s

The passing of mandatory minimum sentencing and truth in sentencing legislature contributed greatly to the exponential growth in the prison population throughout the 1990s. Mandatory minimum sentencing had a disproportionately high effect on the number of African-American and other minority inmates in detention facilities. Throughout the 1990s, the CCA and GeoGroup were both heavily connected to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and were recognized for their substantial contributions in 1999.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, the largest crime bill in history. The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act directly allotted an increase of funding of $9.7 billion for prisons and introduced the three-strikes law, which subjected convicts of three offenses to exceedingly long sentences (25 year to life minimum), amplifying the effects of mass incarceration and increasing the profit margins of the private specialized corporations such as CCA and GeoGroup and their subsidiaries. By May 1995, there were over 1.5 million people incarcerated, an increase from 949,000 inmates in 1993.

2000s

From 1984 to 2000, the overall state spending on prisons increased at an alarmingly high rate and from the year 1970 to 2005, the number of inmates in the United States surged by 700 percent. Developments in privatization of prisons continued to progress and by 2003, 44.2% of state prisoners in New Mexico were held in private prison facilities. Other states such as Arizona, Vermont, Connecticut, Alabama, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, Ohio, and Florida also began expanding their private prison contracts. As of 2015, there were 91,300 state inmates and 26,000 federal inmates housed in private prison facilities, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Nationwide, this is 7 percent and 13 percent of inmates, respectively.

In late 2016, the Obama Administration issued an executive policy to reduce the number of private federal prison contracts. On August 18, 2016, then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates issued a memorandum that stated: "I am directing that, as each contract [with a private prison corporation] reaches the end of its term, the Bureau should either decline to renew that contract or substantially reduce its scope in a manner consistent with the law and the overall decline of the Bureau's inmate population."

Less than a month into Donald Trump's presidency, Attorney General Jeff Sessions reversed the Obama Administration policy. The Trump Administration has so far increased immigration enforcement and instituted harsher criminal sentences.

Many critics of private prisons argue that prison privatization serves as a large agent for cultivating and feeding into the prison-industrial complex in the United States. John W. Whitehead, constitutional attorney and founder of the Rutherford Institute asserts "Prison privatization simply encourages incarceration for the sake of profits, while causing millions of Americans, most of them minor, nonviolent criminals, to be handed over to corporations for lengthy prison sentences which do nothing to protect society or prevent recidivism" and argues that it characterizes an increasingly inverted justice system dependent upon an advancement in power and wealth of the corporate state.

Private prisons have become a lucrative business, with CCA generating enough revenue that it has become a publicly traded company. Financial institutions have taken notice and are now some of the largest investors in private prisons, including Wells Fargo (which currently has around $6 million invested in CCA), Bank of America, Fidelity Investments, General Electric, and The Vanguard Group.

According to a 2010 investigation by the United States Department of Justice, many of the employees and prisoners were exposed to toxic metals from not being sufficiently trained nor were given the resources to handle toxic material. Injury and illness as a result were not reported to appropriate authorities. When investigated, they found that UNICOR, a prison labor program for inmates within the Federal Bureau of Prisons, had attempted to conceal evidence of working conditions from inspectors by cleaning up the production lines before they arrived.

In 2010, both the Geo Group and CoreCivic managed contracts with combined revenues amounting to $2.9 billion. In January 2017, both the Geo Group and CoreCivic welcomed the inauguration of President Trump with generous $250,000 donations to his inaugural committee.

The War on Drugs

The War on Drugs has significantly influenced the development of the prison-industrial complex. The policy measures taken to categorize drug abuse as a criminal issue (rather than a health issue as many advocate) have directly sustained the existence of the prison-industrial complex. Since President Reagan institutionalized the War on Drugs in 1980, incarceration rates have tripled. In fact, the Federal Bureau of Prisons reports that drug offense convictions have led to a majority of the US inmate population in federal prisons.

Some policy analysts attribute the end of the prison-industrial complex to the lessening of prison sentences for drug usage. Some even call for a total shutdown of the War on Drugs itself and believe that this solution will mitigate the profiting incentives of the prison-industrial complex.

History of the relationship between the War on Drugs and the prison-industrial complex

One of the factors leading to the prison-industrial complex began in New York in 1973. Nelson Rockefeller, the governor of New York at the time, rallied for a stringent crackdown on drugs. Rockefeller essentially set the course of action for the War on Drugs and influenced other states' policies on this issue. For any illegal-drug dealer, even a juvenile, he advocated a life-sentence in prison exempt from parole and plea-bargaining. These demands led to the Rockefeller Drug Laws, which although were not as harsh as Rockefeller's demands, encouraged other states to enact similar laws. The federal government also took a stance on this issue and passed the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act. These laws led to overcrowding in New York prisons. The mayor succeeding Rockefeller was Mario Cuomo; he was forced to support prison expansion because he was unable to generate enough support to dismantle the drug laws. In order to receive funding for these prisons, Cuomo financed this project to the Urban Development Corporation (a public state agency) which, to the benefit of the state government, could issue state bonds without voter support. The Urban Development Corporation legally owned the prisons and the state ended up selling the Attica prison to the corporation. These events led to the recognition of the ability to gain political capital from privatizing prisons.

Impact of drug offense imprisonment on the prison-industrial complex

Policies initiated due to the War on Drugs have led to prison expansion and consequently allowed the prison-industrial complex to thrive. A study states that "The number of persons awaiting trial or serving a sentence for a drug offense in prison or jail has increased from about 40,000 in 1980 to 450,000 today." The significance of creating efficient drug punishment is heightened by the relentless cycle created when imprisoning drug sellers. Even if a drug seller is prosecuted , the drug industry still exists and other sellers take the place of the imprisoned seller. This is described as the "replacement effect". There is a constant supply of drug sellers and hence, a constant supply of potential prison inmates. The War on Drugs has initiated a perpetual cycle of drug dealing and imprisonment. As a result of these events, in many ways, a domino effect has occurred: tough-on-drug policies led to overcrowding in prisons; this was one of the factors which led to the realization of the profiting gain from prison privatization; and this incentive became one of the factors which eventually led to the system now known as the prison-industrial complex.

War on drugs and racialization of the prison-industrial complex

Critics have stated that the War on Drugs has disproportionately targeted African Americans and as a result has also reinforced the institutionalized racism embedded in the prison-industrial complex. Collected data illustrates that "Although the prevalence of illegal drug use among white men is approximately the same as that among black men, black men are five times as likely to be arrested for a drug offense." This racial disparity has led to a prison inmate population with close to a 50% African-American demographic.

Economics

Effects

Eric Schlosser wrote an article published in Atlantic Monthly in December 1998 stating that:

The 'prison-industrial complex' (PIC) is not only a set of interest groups and institutions; it is also a state of mind. The lure of big money is corrupting the nation's criminal-justice system, replacing notions of safety and public service with a drive for higher profits. The eagerness of elected officials to pass tough-on-crime legislation – combined with their unwillingness to disclose the external and social costs of these laws – has encouraged all sorts of financial improprieties.

Schlosser also defined the prison industrial complex as "a set of bureaucratic, political, and economic interests that encourage increased spending on imprisonment, regardless of the actual need".

Hadar Aviram, Professor of Law at UC Hastings, suggests that critics of the prison-industrial complex (PIC) focus too much on private prisons. While Aviram shares their concerns that "private enterprises designed to directly benefit from human confinement and misery is profoundly unethical and problematic", she claims that "the profit incentives that brought private incarceration into existence, rather than private incarceration itself, are to blame for the PIC and its evils". In the neoliberal era, she argues, "private and public actors alike respond to market pressures and conduct their business, including correctional business, through a cost/benefit prism".

Prison labor

The prison industrial complex has an economic stronghold in its inclusion and participation of private businesses that benefit from the exploitation of the prison labor; prison mechanisms remove "un-exploitable" labor, or so-called "underclass", from society and redefine it as highly exploitable cheap labor. Scholars using the term "prison industrial complex" have argued that the trend of "hiring out prisoners" is a continuation of the slavery tradition.

Jobs that are geared toward the prison industry are jobs that require little to no industry-relevant skill, have a large heavy manual labor component and are not high paying jobs. The wages for these jobs typically range between $0.12 to $0.40 per hour.

Criminologists have identified that the incarceration is increasing independent of the rate of crime. The use of prisoners for cheap labor while they are serving time ensures that some corporations benefit economically.

As the prison population grows, a rising rate of incarceration feeds small and large businesses such as providers of furniture, transportation, food, clothes and medical services, construction and communication firms. Furthermore, the prison system is the third largest employer in the world. Prison activists who dispute the existence of a prison industrial complex have argued that these parties have a great interest in the expansion of the prison system since their development and prosperity directly depends on the number of inmates. They liken the prison industrial complex to any industry that needs more and more raw materials, prisoners being the material.

Activists Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans report in Masked Racism: Reflections on the Prison Industrial Complex by Angela Davis that "For private business, prison labor is like a pot of gold. No strikes. No union organizing. No health benefits, unemployment insurance, or workers' compensation to pay. No language barriers, as in foreign countries. New leviathan prisons are being built on thousands of eerie acres of factories inside the walls. Prisoners do data entry for Chevron, make telephone reservations for TWA, raise hogs, shovel manure, make circuit boards, limousines, waterbeds, and lingerie for Victoria's Secret -- all at a fraction of the cost of 'free labor'." 

Corporations, especially those in the technology and food industries, contract prison labor, as it is legal and often completely encouraged by government legislature. The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC) serves as a federal tax credit that grants employers $2,400 for every work-release employed inmate. "Prison insourcing" has increasingly grown in popularity as the cheaper alternative to outsourcing with a wide variety of companies such as Whole Foods, McDonald's, Target, IBM, Texas Instruments, Boeing, Nordstrom, Intel, Wal-Mart, Victoria's Secret, Aramark, AT&T, BP, Starbucks, Microsoft, Nike, Honda, Macy's and Sprint and many more actively participating in prison insourcing throughout the 1990s and 2000s.

Statistics show that when the unemployment rate is correlated to the incarceration rate. The prison system is easily manipulated and geared toward help support the most economically advantageous situation. With more prisoners comes more free labor. When having larger privatized prisons makes it cheaper to incarcerate each individual and the only side effect is having more free labor, it is extremely beneficial for companies to essentially rent out their facilities to the state and the government. Private or for profit prisons have an incentive in making decisions in regards to cutting costs while generating a profit. One method for this is using prison inmates as a labor force to perform production work.

Advocates of prison labor cite that rehabilitation is promoted through discipline, a strong work ethic, and providing inmates with valuable skills to be used upon release. Gina Honeycutt, executive director of the National Correctional Industries Association stated, "Many offenders have never worked a legal job and need to learn the basics like showing up on time, listening to a supervisor and working as part of a team." Studies have also shown that participants in prison labor programs often have a lower risk of recidivism, showing that graduates of the program are less likely to be repeat offenders on average. Honeycutt also stated, "In recent years, the focus of many work programs has shifted to concentrate even more on effective rehabilitation of inmates. The transition in the last five years has been away from producing a product to producing a successful offender as our product."

Cynthia Young states that prison labor is an "employers' paradise". Prison labor can soon deprive the free labor of jobs in a number of sectors, since the organized labor turns out to be un-competitive compared to the prison counterpart, attributed to the crowding-out effect.

Journalist Jonathan Kay in the National Post defined the "prison industrial complex" as a "corrupt human-warehousing operation that combines the worst qualities of government (its power to coerce) and private enterprise (greed)". He states that inmates are kept in inhumane conditions and that the need to preserve the economic advantage of a full prison leads prison leaders to thwart any effort or reforms that might reduce recidivism and incarcerations.

Private prison stock prices from 2002 to 2012.

Investments

In a Bureau of Prisons (BOP) funded study by Doug McDonald. and Scott Camp, known as the "Taft Studies", privatized prisons were compared side-to-side with the public prisons on economic, performance, and quality of life for the prisoner scales. The study found that in a trade off for allowing prisons to be more cheaply run and operated, the degree to which prisoners are reformed goes down. Because the privatized prisons are so much larger than the public-run prisons, they were subject to economies of scale. Privatized prisons run on business models, promoting more an efficient, accountable, lower cost alternative to decrease government spending on incarceration.

In 2011, The Vera Institute of Justice surveyed 40 state correction departments to gather data on what the true cost of prisons were. Their reports showed that most states had additional costs ranging from one percent to thirty-four percent outside of what their original budget was for that year.

In 2016, during President Obama's administration private prisons were on the decline, as they were considered more expensive and less safe than government-run facilities. Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates stated, "Private prisons simply do not provide the same level of correctional services, programs, and resources; they do not save substantially on costs; and as noted in a recent report by the Department's Office of Inspector General, they do not maintain the same level of safety and security." Private prison stocks were at their lowest point since 2008 and on August 18, 2016, the United States Justice Department noticed a declining reliance on private prisons and was developing a plan to phase out its use of private prisons.

The stock prices of the largest private prison operations, CoreCivic and Geo Group, skyrocketed in 2016 following the election of President Trump, with CoreCivic experiencing a 140% increase and Geo Group rising 98%. Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated in a February 21, 2017 memo that the Obama administration had "impaired the U.S. Bureau of Prison's ability to meet the future needs of the correctional system" and rescinded the Obama directive that would curtail the government use of private prisons. In 2017, CNN attributed this rise of private prison stock to President Trump's commitment to lowering crime and toughening immigration, translating to more individuals to be arrested, therefore leading to an increase of private prison profits. Both companies donated heavily to the Trump election campaign in 2016.

Immigration

Funding of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is increasing as about a total of $4.27 billion was allotted to the INS in the 2000 fiscal budget. This is 8% more than in the 1999 fiscal budget. This expansion, experts claim, has been too rapid and thus has led to an increased chance on the part of faculty for negligence and abuse. Lucas Guttengag, director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project stated that, "immigrants awaiting administrative hearings are being detained in conditions that would be unacceptable at prisons for criminal offenders". Such examples include "travelers without visas" (TWOVs) being held in motels near airports nicknamed "Motel Kafkas" that are under the jurisdiction of private security officers who have no affiliation to the government, often denying them telephones or fresh air, and there are some cases where detainees have been shackled and sexually abused according to Guttengag. Similar conditions arose in the ESMOR detention center at Elizabeth, New Jersey where complaints arose in less than a year, despite having a "state-of-the-art" facility.

The number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. is 11.3 million. Those that argue against the PIC claim that effective immigration policy has failed to pass since private detention centers profit from keeping undocumented immigrants detained. They also claim that despite having the incarceration rate grow "10 times what it was prior to 1970", "it has not made this country any safer"' Since the September 11 attacks in 2001, the budget for Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), have nearly doubled from 2003 to 2008, with CBP's budget increasing from $5.8 billion to $10.1 billion and ICE from $3.2 billion to $5 billion and even so there has been no significant decrease in immigrant population. Professor Wayne Cornelius, professor Emeritus of Political Science at UC San Diego, even argued that it is so ineffective that "92–97%" of immigrants who attempt to cross in illegally "keep trying until they succeed", and that such measures actually increase the risk and cost of travel, leading to longer stays and settlement in the US.

There are around 400,000 immigrant detainees per year, and 50% are housed in private facilities. In 2011, CCA's net worth was $1.4 billion and net income was $162 million. In this same year, The GEO Group had a net worth of $1.2 billion and net income of $78 million. As of 2012, CCA has over 75,000 inmates within 60 facilities and the GEO Group owns over 114 facilities. Over half of the prison industry's yearly revenue comes from immigrant detention centers. For some small communities in the Southwestern United States, these facilities serve as an integral part of the economy. According to Chris Kirkham, this constitutes part of a growing immigration industrial complex: "Companies dependent upon continued growth in the numbers of undocumented immigrants detained have exerted themselves in the nation's capital and in small, rural communities to create incentives that reinforce that growth." A study by the ACLU says that many are housed in inhumane conditions as many facilities operated by private companies are exempt from government oversight, and studies are made difficult as such facilities may not be covered by a Freedom of Information Act.

In 2009, University of Kansas professor Tanya Golash-Boza coined the term, "Immigration Industrial Complex", defining it as "the confluence of public and private sector interests in the criminalization of undocumented migration, immigration law enforcement, and the promotion of 'anti-illegal' rhetoric", in her paper "The Immigration Industrial Complex: Why We Enforce Immigration Policies Destined to Fail".

In 2009, congressional immigration detention policies requires that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) maintain 34,000 immigration detention beds daily. This immigration bed quota has steadily increased with each passing year, costing ICE around $159 to detain one individual for one day.

In 2010, immigration detention policies implemented by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) benefited the two major private prison corporations CCA and GeoGroup, increasing their share of immigrant detention beds by 13%. Compared to data from 2009, the percentage of ICE immigrant detention beds in the United States are owned and operated by private for-profit prison corporations has increased by 49%, with CCA and GeoGroup operating 8 out of 10 of the largest facilities. Although the combined revenues of CCA and GEO Group were about $4 billion in 2017 from private prison contracts, their number one customer was ICE.

Impact and response

Women

A graph of the US incarceration rate under state and federal jurisdiction per 100,000 population 1925–2008 (omits local jail inmates). The male incarceration rate (top line) is 15 times the female rate (bottom line).

 

In 1994, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women was released which stated that "Among many other abuses women prisoners have identified, are pat searches (male guards pat searching and groping women), illegal strip searches (male guards observing strip searches of women), constant lewd comments and gestures, violations of their right to privacy (male guards watching women in showers and toilets), and in some instances, sexual assault and rape." International human rights standards reinforce this by stating "the rape of a women in custody is an act of torture". In addition, some prisons fail to meet women's needs with providing basic hygiene and reproductive health products.

In regards to women and the prison-industrial complex, Angela Davis stated that "State-sanctioned punishment is informed by patriarchal structures and ideologies that have tended to produce historical assumptions of female criminality linked to ideas about the violation of social norms defining a 'woman’s place'. Considering the fact that as many as half of all women are assaulted by their husbands or partners combined with dramatically rising numbers of women sentenced to prison, it may be argued that women in general are subjected to a far greater magnitude of punishment than men." She also suggested that the "historical and philosophical connections between domestic violence and imprisonment [comprise] two modes of gendered punishment – one located in the private realm, the other in the public realm".

Angela Davis continues to argue: "the sexual abuse of women in prison is one of the most heinous state-sanctioned human rights violations within the United States today. Women prisoners represent one of the most disenfranchised and invisible adult populations in our society. The absolute power and control the state exercises over their lives both stems from and perpetuates the patriarchal and racist structures that, for centuries, have resulted in the social domination of women."

According to Angela Davis and Cassandra Shaylor in their research entitled "Race, Gender, and the Prison-Industrial Complex", most women in prison experience some degree of depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. Very often they are neither diagnosed nor treated, with injurious consequences for their mental health in and out of prison. Many women report that when requesting counseling, they are offered psychotropic medications instead. As technologies of imprisonment become increasingly repressive and practices of isolation become increasingly routine, mentally ill women often are placed in solitary confinement, which can only exacerbate their condition.

Minorities

US homicide victims by race, 1980–2008

 

US homicide convictions by race, 1980–2008

 

70 percent of the United States prison population are people of color. Due to a variety of factors, different ethnic groups have different rates of offending, arrest, prosecution, conviction and incarceration. In terms of percentage of ethnic populations, in descending order, the U.S. incarcerates more Native Americans, African Americans, followed by Hispanics, Whites, and finally Asians. Native Americans are the largest group incarcerated per capita.

Response

A 2014 report by the American Friends Service Committee, Grassroots Leadership, and the Southern Center for Human Rights claims that recent reductions in the number of people incarcerated has pushed the prison industry into areas previously served by non-profit behavioral health and treatment-oriented agencies, referring to it as the "Treatment Industrial Complex", which "has the potential to ensnare more individuals, under increased levels of supervision and surveillance, for increasing lengths of time – in some cases, for the rest of a person's life". Sociologist Nancy A. Heitzeg and activist Kay Whitlock claim that contemporary bipartisan reforms being proposed "are predicated on privatization schemes, dominated by the anti-government right and neo-liberal interests that more completely merge for-profit medical treatment and other human needs supports with the prison-industrial complex".

Sociologist Loïc Wacquant of UC Berkeley is also dismissive of the term for sounding too conspiratorial and for overstating its scope and effect. However Bernard Harcourt, Professor of Law at Columbia University, considers the term useful insofar as "it highlights the profitability of prison building and the employment boom associated with prison guard labor. There is no question that the prison expansion served the financial interests of large sectors of the economy."

Another writer of the era who covered the expanding prison population and attacked "the prison industrial complex" was Christian Parenti, who later disavowed the term before the publication of his book, Lockdown America (2000). "How, then, should the left critique the prison buildup?" asked The Nation in 1999:

Not, Parenti stresses, by making slippery usage of concepts like the 'prison–industrial complex'. Simply put, the scale of spending on prisons, though growing rapidly, will never match the military budget; nor will prisons produce anywhere near the same 'technological and industrial spin-off'.

Prisons in the U.S. are becoming the primary response to mental illness among poor people. The institutionalization of mentally ill people, historically, has been used more often against women than against men.

Reform

Prison abolition movement

A response to the prison industrial complex is the prison abolition movement. The goal of prison abolition is to end the prison industrial complex by eliminating prisons. Prison abolitionists aim to do this by changing the socioeconomic conditions of the communities that are affected the most by the prison-industrial complex. They propose increasing funding of social programs in order to lower the rate of crimes, and therefore eventually end the need for police and prisons.

Alternatives to detention

Due to the overcrowding in prisons and detention centers by for-profit corporations, organizations such as Amnesty International, propose using alternatives such as reporting requirements, bonds, or the use of monitoring technologies. The questions often brought up with alternatives include whether they are effective or efficient. A study published by the Vera Institute attempts to answer this question by stating that when alternatives such as monitoring technologies were used, they found that 91% of the individuals appeared at their court date. The Institute recorded that the relative cost of using such alternatives has been estimated at $12 per day  a relatively low price in comparison to the reported average cost of incarceration in the U.S., which has been priced at roughly $87.61 per day.

Despite the relative efficiency and effectiveness of alternative to detention, there is still much debate that these alternatives will not change the dynamics of incarceration. This argument lies in the fact that major corporations such as the GEO Group and Corrections Corporations of America will still be profiting by simply re-branding and moving towards rehabilitation services and monitoring technologies. Rather than effectively ending and finding a solution to the PIC, more people will simply find themselves imprisoned by another system. Other opposition to alternatives comes from the public. According to Ezzat Fattah, opposition towards prison alternatives and correctional facilities is due to the public fearing having that having these facilities in their neighborhoods will threaten the security and integrity of their communities and children.

Critical Resistance

The movement gained momentum in 1997, when a group of prison abolition activists, scholars, and former prisoners collaborated to organize a three-day conference to examine the prison-industrial complex in the U.S. The conference, Critical Resistance to the prison-industrial complex, was held in September 1998 at the University of California, Berkeley and was attended by over 3,500 people of diverse academic, socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. Two years after the conference, a political grassroots organization was founded bearing the same name with the mission to challenge and dismantle the prison-industrial complex.

In 2001, the organization adopted a national structure with local chapters in Portland, Los Angeles, Oakland, and New York City to develop campaigns and projects working towards abolishing the prison industrial complex. Currently, the cause has shifted towards supporting efforts towards resisting state repression and developing tools to re-imagine life without the prison industrial complex.

In 2010, at the U.S. Social Forum, committed activists joined together to discuss prison justice and stated that "Because we share a vision of justice and solidarity against confinement, control, and all forms of political repression, the prison industrial complex must be abolished." Following the forum, the rise of Formerly Incarcerated, Convicted People's Movement helped to incorporate abolition into other movements such as Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and the Movement for Black Lives.

School-to-prison pipeline reform

A competing explanation for the disproportionate arrest and incarceration of people of color and persons with lower socioeconomic status is the school-to-prison pipeline, which generally proposes that practices in public schools (such as zero-tolerance policies, police in schools, and high-stakes testing) are direct causes of students dropping out of school and, subsequently, committing crimes which lead to their being arrested. 68% of state prisoners had not completed high school in 1997, including 70 percent of women state prisoners. Suspension, expulsion, and being held back during middle school years are the largest predictors of arrest for adolescent women. The school-to-prison pipeline disproportionately affects young black men with an overall incarceration risk that is six to eight times higher than young whites. Black male high school dropouts experienced a 60% risk of imprisonment as of 1999. There is a recent trend of authors describing the school-to-prison pipeline as feeding into the prison-industrial complex.

Since the shortcomings of zero-tolerance discipline have grown very clear, there has been a widespread movement to support reform across school districts and states. Growing research that shows suspensions, especially for minor infractions and misbehavior, are a flawed disciplinary response has encouraged many districts to adopt new disciplinary alternatives. In 2015, mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio joined with the Department of Education to address school discipline in a campaign to tweak the old policies. Blasio also spearheaded a leadership team on school climate and discipline to take recommendations and craft the foundations for more substantive policy. The team released recommendations that work towards reducing the racial disparity in suspension and discussing the underlying root cause of disciplinary infractions through restorative justice.