Compare And Contrast Race Education And Incarceration

Race, education, and incarceration: three factors that are all undeniably linked in America’s present day society. Race has been an issue for the entirety of American history. Institutionalized racism can be seen everywhere – health outcomes, wealth distribution, housing, education, incarceration rates, and so on. One in every three black men will be incarcerated in his lifetime and blacks are five times more likely to be incarcerated than whites – this is no coincidence. There are numerous different factors as to why this may be the case, such as subconscious racism by police force, being raised and socialized in areas with higher crime rates, policy changes targeting specific populations, etcetera.
The public schools a citizen attends
are a huge risk factor when it comes to incarceration due to factors such as the psychological effect of suspension/expulsion and the lack of preparation to be college bound or acquire a job able to support a family. There are also low incentives to change these unfair policies due to donations from private prison lobbyists and the large profits being made off these incarceration trends. Our system today disproportionally effects lower income people and people of color though lack of equal education and policies that criminalize our most vulnerable. School segregation today is statistically at an all-time high since the end of the Jim Crow era (Oliver 2016). Redlining, a product of systematic racism which increases the cost of living in certain regions to force people of poverty, primarily minorities, in to or out of specific parts of town had an extremely significant impact on where African Americans moved during the civil rights era. This caused many families of color to be forced to live in ghettos without enough space to comfortably house a family and were only offered unequal education and opportunity. Many students learn about the civil rights era and redlining in history classes throughout their schooling, but are failed to be taught the lasting effects. The cycle of poverty is real and is not easy to beat; the effects of forcing freshly emancipated populations into low opportunity areas are not something that simply goes away after deciding that separate will never be equal.
Due to redlining in the past, many families of color still reside in the homes their family originally moved to at the end of the civil war era. This results in racially segregated districts all over our nation, which is a relatively commonly understood concept. It is considered normal how today one can predict the racial makeup of most neighborhoods before even leaving their car. However, the relationship school has with racially segregated areas is a concept not many Americans know much about or have taken the time to fully consider. A child’s quality of schooling influences their entire life path by affecting aspects such as college preparation, standardized testing scores, personal expectations for themselves and their future, their view on institutions of power, and so on. If a child is being raised in a racially segregated neighborhood and their parent decides to send them to their local public school, they will naturally attend a racially segregated school. Predominately black schools often have less experienced teachers, less funding, less supplies, and an overall worse learning environment; black students are six times as likely to attend a high poverty school than their white peers (Oliver 2016). Attending a high poverty school makes it incredibly difficult for a child born into a low-income household to rise to success and climb the socioeconomic ladder later in life. Less funding also results in less faculty and staff which is another major issue considering research has shown that student teacher ratios are significantly correlated with incarceration rates (Arum, Beatie 1999). With low student-teacher ratios and lack of supplies, even the most caring, dedicated teacher is unable to give the average lower-income minority student the attention and preparation they need and deserve. Inmates in a study conducted by University of Minnesota Law School on average attended a school with significantly higher poverty rates when compared to other schools in their counties and states. The people who need the most social mobility to have a successful, happy, healthy life are having their personal potential compromised as soon as they start their journey through the American public-school system. The Arkansas Law Review discusses the right to an education as the new civil right. Separate and not equal is not an issue of the past, but an issue that still needs work today. This also has psychological effects – these students see what they are being given and how much energy is being put into their futures which is discouraging because they begin to believe it is all they deserve.
It can be difficult for a student to realize their potential and establish challenging, commendable aspirations such as becoming a lawyer or doctor one day without ever seeing someone starting out in that situation reach similar success first hand. If the wealthiest people they see got to that place due to a life of crime, it becomes easy to envision that lifestyle as the idea of attainable success. According to Porter, “40% of children expelled from public schools are African American… of students arrested or referred to law enforcement while in school, 70% are African American or Latino,” being expelled or having an in-school arrest can have serious psychological repercussions. Harsh policies in segregated schools can fuel a resentment towards the criminal justice system. In addition, 68% of inmates never graduated high school and over half of African American men without a diploma will spend time in prison (Porter). Expelling students can plant the idea of dropping out into their head or further their decision making in that direction, which is yet another risk factor for criminal
behavior.
Statistically, schools are now more segregated than they have been since Brown vs Board of Education mandated school integration (Oliver 2016).
Schools have an increasingly critical role in socializing our youth and school segregation hurts minorities in multiple ways. In predominately black, high poverty schools, students are not given the resources they need to succeed. This causes them to internalize the idea that society already fuels that they are just another person destined to fall into the cycle of poverty, lack of education, and incarceration – another poor person of color in the system. A study by the University of Minnesota Law School claims that “research shows that attending a racially segregated school reduces the likelihood that an individual will graduate from high school or acquire a middle-class job,” which increases an individual’s criminality. Numerous theories and studies link financial struggle to criminal behavior. With school segregation on the rise, the number of children falling victim to that statistic is only increasing throughout this time of social change. It has been proven over and over that the desegregation of schools significantly increases a lower income black student’s likelihood to graduate, which is a huge predictive factor for many aspects later in life such as health, income, and of course likelihood to be
incarcerated.
On the other hand, when white children go to predominately white schools and live in predominantly white neighborhoods, they are not socialized with other races at a young age, creating the unintentional internal belief of separation and superiority. Their sole exposure to minorities are stories they hear on the news or portrayals they see in modern day pop culture, which often time only feed into previous ideas of negative stereotypes. The life stage where one is attending their public schools is a major time moral, social, and psychological development (Arum 1999). The lack of socialization in high income neighborhoods where most of the opportunity lies fuels systematic racism by taking away opportunity from those lower on the socioeconomic ladder, fueling alternative earning methods, internal frustration, and crime.
Desegregation efforts have been successful in the past, “Court-ordered school desegregation reduced homicide rates for blacks by about 25% and reduced long-term offending rates by about 15%” (University of Minnesota Law School). Bussing is one of the simplest means to desegregate schools. Bussing students from lower income neighborhoods into schools with better funding has proven to have lifelong positive influence on these children and their families for generations to come. Although bussing programs were extremely effective, there was still backlash from the taxpayers in the higher income neighborhoods of the schools welcoming in the underprivileged students. A 40% increase in school segregation was seen after the end of school bussing programs (Oliver 2016). Blacks and Hispanics represent 30% of our countries population, but double the representation of prison populations. Integrating our schools gives these populations a better shot at success. The school-to-prison pipeline is the idea that low income public schools are somewhat of a factory to fuel for-profit prisons. “Students end up in prison through the school-to-prison pipeline—a phenomenon tied to the zero-tolerance policies of our schools and the failed education policies of our governments” (Porter 2017). The extremely cheap labor of the inmates is used to manufacture various American goods, such as military uniforms and supplies. In 2013, inmates in federal prisons “stitched more than $100 million worth of military uniforms,” (Porter 2017). Private prisons are one of the highest spending government lobbyist corporations, and one must ask themselves why. Clearly, significant profit is being made through these institutions and the people being funneled into them if they are spending millions to keep the system broken.