Are low-income African-Americans living in "virtual" PRISONS?

  I am a fan of “Lock Up”, the MSNBC network’s on going documentary about life for inmates in America’s prison industrial complex.  The series actually looks at incarceration from many angles … from prison administrators, prison guards and through the eyes of the inmates.  The inmates talk about the inadequate housing conditions due to an overcrowded prison population, inadequate nutrition, inadequate protection against crime and violence, inadequate healthcare, the lack of opportunities to enhance their education while, allegedly, being “rehabilitated” and the limited employment opportunities within the prison system.  Now granted, prisons should NOT foster country club environments.  After all, prisons are PENAL institutions for those who have violated the laws of the land.  However, if you were to close your eyes and dismiss the fact that prison inmates are airing these grievances, you virtually would find yourself smack dab in the middle of any low income, predominantly African-American community in the United States.  The very grievances aired by inmates featured in “Lock Up” are the same grievances people in low income African-American communities have.  Are low-income African-Americans living in virtual PRISONS?

In order to answer the question, let’s take a comparative look at the components of the grievances. 

•  Inadequate housing- In the “Lock Up” documentary, one consistent theme is the overcrowded living conditions, i.e., inadequate housing.  In a report released by Center for Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE), it is clearly stated that “in the United States, racial minorities disproportionately make up the ranks of the homeless and those whose lives are jeopardized or otherwise threatened due to inadequate housing” and that “racial and ethnic minorities, the elderly, children, and the poor have been disproportionately affected by this lack of affordable housing and inadequate living conditions”. This report was part of Cornell University’s study on Urban Housing. 

• Inadequate nutrition- On “Lock Up” the prisoners complain ALL THE TIME about the lack of quality meals during their incarceration.  According to a study generated by the California Law Review, the award winning legal publication that is published by the Boalt Hall School of Law on the campus of the University of California at Berkeley, the predominant food source available to predominantly African-American communities, an obvious observation is made: “Fast food has become a major source of nutrition in low-income, urban neighborhoods across the United States.”  The study, entitled “Fast Food: Oppression through Poor Nutrition” goes on to add: “Although some social and cultural factors account for fast food's overwhelming popularity, targeted marketing, infiltration into schools, government subsidies, and federal food policy each play a significant role in denying inner-city people of color access to healthy food. The overabundance of fast food and lack of access to healthier foods, in turn, have increased African American and Latino communities' vulnerability to food-related death and disease.  Structural perpetuation of this race and class based health crisis constitutes ‘food oppression.’ " 

(Food oppression?  Wow … oppression has now reached the point where it has earned sub-titles.)   The Prevention Institute, based in Oakland, California also chimed in on the causes and affects on inadequate nutrition: “Getting supermarkets and healthy foods into low-income neighborhoods has been a priority for community food activists and local residents who see a link between food accessibility and overall community health. However, the emergence of research measuring the associations between food environments and eating habits is a recent occurrence.

Many low-income residents are increasingly reliant on local ‘mom and pop’ or corner liquor stores for day-to-day food necessities. This results in lower quality and higher prices for food compared to what is available in supermarkets.” 

• Inadequate protection against crime and violence- protecting inmates from becoming crime victims in prison is a joke.  Inmates are constant targets of crimes ranging from robbery, assault, rape, attempted murder and murder.  The protection against crime and violence in predominantly African-American communities leave a lot to be desired as well.  Pulitzer Prize winner Bob Herbert hits the ball out of the ballpark in his op-ed column, “Too Long Ignored”.  Herbert (now a Fellow at Demos) goes on to state the usual suspects of the root causes of crime in the African-American community … poverty, single parent households, lack of education … again the usual suspects of urban corridors in America.  In a piece in The Economist, a  weekly news and international affairs publication, after comparing America’s prison industrial complex to the Gulags of Soviet controlled Easter Europe even coined a new term, “Lockuptown”.  Here’s an excerpt from the piece, “What’s America’s Real Crime Rate”: “For a great many poor people in America, particularly poor black men, prison is a destination that braids through an ordinary life, much as high school and college do for rich white ones. More than half of all black men without a high-school diploma go to prison at some time in their lives. Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today—perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system—in prison, on probation, or on parole—than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under “correctional supervision” in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height. That city of the confined and the controlled, Lockuptown, is now the second largest in the United States.”

• Inadequate education- The inmates on “Lock Up” complain about the lack of educational opportunities.  The same grievance has emanated from the African-American community for decades.  The education component is the key to most, if not ALL, that ails the African-American community in my (not so) humble opinion.  An EDUCATED community is a CONFIDENT community.  A study released by the Teachers College at Columbia University entitled,“The Social Costs of Inadequate Education” drives home a no nonsense point: “What are the consequences of all these disparities for the education outcomes of black children? Families with less income have less income to devote to the welfare of children. Families with less financial wealth are less able to save for college. Inequalities in economic security, compounding educational and health inequalities, contribute to differences in the adult lives of blacks and whites in American society. These inequalities cycle back into differences in how black and white adults are able to support and nurture their children, perpetuating inequalities for another generation. In addition, young black adults are less likely than whites to participate fully in civic life and democratic governance, either because they are less prepared for it in their schools and communities or because they have fewer opportunities for involvement.”

   The last component to be discussed, transportation, would not be an area the “Lock Up” inmates and the African-American community at large would share grievances for obvious reasons.  However, transportation, or lack thereof, is worth taking a look at.

•  Inadequate public transportation- the lack of access to adequate public transportation ties all of the aforementioned grievances together.  Because 20% of African-American homes don’t own a car, reliance on public transportation to get to work, school, to shop, to visit the doctor is the only viable transportation option.  The Leadership Conference of Civil Rights refers to the need of “transportation equity”; developing public mass transit systems that benefit everyone irrespective of socio-economic class. 

   When you consider the number of grievances that inmates featured in “Lock Up” have in common with low-income African-Americans … housing conditions, crime and safety issues, nutrition, education in addition to the transportation barriers that African-Americans at large are faced with, one question HAS to be asked: are low-income African-Americans living in virtual prisons?

Well … ARE they?

Peace, peace in the Middle East!

Craig Riggins

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