Repressive Injustice: Political and Social Processes in the Massive Incarceration of African Americans

The problem of spiraling Black incarceration The United States has the world’s highest incarceration rate. This massive incarceration is a product of exponential growth since the 1970s (see Figure 1). By the end of the 1990s, even White European Americans were incarcerated at rates three to four times higher than Europeans. But the wave of massive incarceration fell disproportionately on Black African Americans, who by the 1990s were seven times more likely than European Americans to be in prison. The "lifetime expectancy" of spending time in prison has been estimated to be 29% for a young Black man (Bureau of Justice Statistics,1999). About 12% of Black men in their 20s were in prison in 2001 (Bureau of Justice Statistics 2002). Such high incarceration rates of young men must have major impacts on Black women, Black families, Black children and Black communities. Additionally, incarceration is rising rapidly for Black women, most of them mothers. It is sociologically impossible that Black communities could be better off under this level of incarceration than they would be with lower incarceration rates, even though Black people are disproportionately the victims of Black offenders. Hispanics and American Indians are also incarcerated at rates substantially higher than non-Hispanic Whites, although at substantially lower rates than African Americans.