SOC216H5 Chapter Notes - Chapter WEST: Bruce Western, High School Dropouts, Social Inequality
Document Summary
Even during the economic boom of the 1990s, more young black men who had dropped out of school were in prison than on the job. When we count prisoners among the unemployed, we find that racial inequality in employment and earnings is much greater than when we ignore them. In addition, the penal system fuels inequality by reducing the wages and employment prospects of released prisoners: the low-wage, unstable employment they experience when they return to society deepens the divisions of race and class. For most of the 20th century, imprisonment policies had little effect on social inequality. Prison was reserved for the most violent or incorrigible offenders. This began to change in the early 1970s when stricter law enforcement enlarged the prison population: while incarceration once used to flag dangerousness or persistent deviance, by. 2000 it had become a common event for poor minority males. Total incarceration rate of seven-tenths of one percent of the u. s. population.
