The heartbreaking, everyday tragedies witnessed by sociologist Alice Goffman in a poor Philadelphia neighborhood.
On the path that American children travel to adulthood, two public institutions oversee the journey. One institution, the one we hear a great deal about, is college. Many of you may remember the excitement you felt as you set off for college, maybe some of you are in college right now, and you feel this excitement this very this minute. College may have its shortcomings – it's really expensive, it leaves young people in debt -- but all in all, it’s a pretty good path. Young people graduate from college with pride, with great friends, with a good deal of knowledge about the world, maybe with a future spouse, and hopefully with a job, or the ability to get one.
I want to talk about the second major public institution that is overseeing the journey from childhood to adulthood in the United States, and that institution is prison. The young people on this journey are going to court dates instead of class, they are meeting with probation officers instead of with teachers, their junior year abroad is instead a trip to a state correctional facility, and they are graduating not with degrees in business and English but with criminal records.
This institution also costs a lot, about $44,000 a year for young people in New Jersey, even more than that in New York and California, but here tax-payers are footing the bill, and what young people are getting is not pride and great friends and skills but a cold prison cell and a permanent mark against them when they come home and apply for work. There are more young people experiencing this journey to adulthood than ever before in the US, because over the past 40 years our incarceration rate has grown by 700%. We’ve got a higher percentage of people and by a pretty big margin. What’s more, it’s poor young people who are coming of age in prison, too many drawn from African American and Latino communities, so that prison now stands firmly between the young people struggling to make it and the American dream.
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2 comments:
Title is quite misleading.
Nobody, in the vignettes portrayed so sympathetically, went to prison "for no reason".
They made choices, as did their parents, incompatible with a productive, unincarcerated and successful life. Since their parent(s) raised them not to value the habits, mindset and goals of an upwardly mobile potential member of the successful and law-abiding working class, they instead embraced the lifestyle they believe to be the epitome of the black subculture. And they end up incarcerated or dead.
That the incarceration rate has increased so dramatically, is due in part to the pointless and failed "war on drugs" which has ensnared thousands of marginally involved individuals, as collateral damage. The mandatory sentencing laws have put too many people, both white and black, behind bars for first time simple possession of marijuana, as well as severe sentencing for driving under the influence of alcohol.
It is also due to the increasing criminality of black communities. The explosion in gang activity and glorification of the "thug" subculture, by the youth oriented marketing media, produces stereotypical ghetto dirtbags as celebrity personas. The predatory, sociopathic, promiscuous, irresponsible and racist blacks, are no longer censured by their community for their lack of values, respect for others and idleness. Somehow this entitlement mentality has become the norm, entrenched in the collective psyche of an alarming percentage of this population.
Their violence seems to becoming more brazen, more spontaneous and more part of their subculture. And with this comes an increased need for police presence, and increases contact with the police, which of course greatly increases the chance it will go badly for them.
Neither did this article honestly follow up with why other kids make it to college and beyond despite otherwise reprehensible behavior. Blacks are much more likely to commit the type of "misbehavior" that results in violence, armed robbery, and dealing hard drugs, which typically result in prison time. White kids also don't tend to be repeat offenders as often, which makes a difference in subsequent sentencing.
It all comes down to personal accountability, taking ownership of one's own life and making conscious choices every day, to see opportunity and apply the hard work and discipline necessary to live outside a ghetto.
No, I didn't read this as another "poor helpless victims being unfairly railroaded into a life of supervision and incarceration" while other individuals of some unknown privileges are free to behave as badly as they want. That was the slant of the article, obviously.
I read it as an indictment of part of the black community's utter failure to raise responsible, motivated and law abiding children, who are capable of functioning within our society's without having their hands held, one way or another.
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Good job, 11:24! Well said.
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