ePub Bridge Building In Wartime: Colonel Wesley Brainerds Memoir (Voices of the Civil War) by Ed Malles in History

Description

For African American men without a high school diploma; being in prison or jail is more common than being employed—a sobering reality that calls into question post-Civil Rights era social gains. Nearly 70 percent of young black men will be imprisoned at some point in their lives; and poor black men with low levels of education make up a disproportionate share of incarcerated Americans. In Invisible Men; sociologist Becky Pettit demonstrates another vexing fact of mass incarceration: most national surveys do not account for prison inmates; a fact that results in a misrepresentation of U.S. political; economic; and social conditions in general and black progress in particular. Invisible Men provides an eye-opening examination of how mass incarceration has concealed decades of racial inequality.Pettit marshals a wealth of evidence correlating the explosion in prison growth with the disappearance of millions of black men into the American penal system. She shows that; because prison inmates are not included in most survey data; statistics that seemed to indicate a narrowing black-white racial gap—on educational attainment; work force participation; and earnings—instead fail to capture persistent racial; economic; and social disadvantage among African Americans. Federal statistical agencies; including the U.S. Census Bureau; collect surprisingly little information about the incarcerated; and inmates are not included in household samples in national surveys. As a result; these men are invisible to most mainstream social institutions; lawmakers; and nearly all social science research that isn't directly related to crime or criminal justice. Since merely being counted poses such a challenge; inmates' lives—including their family background; the communities they come from; or what happens to them after incarceration—are even more rarely examined. And since correctional budgets provide primarily for housing and monitoring inmates; with little left over for job training or rehabilitation; a large population of young men are not only invisible to society while in prison but also ill-equipped to participate upon release.Invisible Men provides a vital reality check for social researchers; lawmakers; and anyone who cares about racial equality. The book shows that more than a half century after the first civil rights legislation; the dismal fact of mass incarceration inflicts widespread and enduring damage by undermining the fair allocation of public resources and political representation; by depriving the children of inmates of their parents' economic and emotional participation; and; ultimately; by concealing African American disadvantage from public view.