The Crisis of the Young African American Male 
 IN THE Inner Cities 
 
 A Consultation of the United States Commission on Civil Rights 
 
 April 15-16, 1999 
 Washington, DC. 
 
 Volume 1: Topic Papers Submitted to ttie Commission 
 
 Reference Reference Ref
 
 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights 
 
 The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is an independent, bipartisan agency first estabhshed 
 by Congress in 1957 and reestabhshed in 1983. It is directed to: 
 
 • Investigate complaints alleging that citizens are being deprived of their right to vote by 
 reason of their race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin, or by reason 
 of fraudulent practices. 
 
 • Study and collect information relating to discrimination or a denial of equal protection 
 of the laws under the Constitution because of race, color, reUgion, sex, age, disability, 
 or national origin, or in the administration of justice. 
 
 • Appraise Federal laws and policies with respect to discrimination or denial of equal 
 protection of the laws because of race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, or national 
 origin, or in the administration of justice. 
 
 • Serve as a national clearinghouse for information in respect to discrimination or denial 
 of equal protection of the laws because of race, color, religion, sex, age, disabihty, or 
 national origin. 
 
 • Submit reports, findings, and recommendations to the President and Congress. 
 
 • Issue pubUc service announcements to discourage discrimination or denial of equal 
 protection of the laws. 
 
 Members of the Commission 
 
 Mary Frances Berry, Chairperson 
 Cruz Reynoso, Vice Chairperson 
 Carl A. Anderson 
 Christopher F. Edley, Jr. 
 Yvonne Y. Lee 
 Elsie M. Meeks 
 Russell D. Redenbaugh 
 Victoria Wilson 
 
 Ruby G. Moy, Staff Director 
 
 The Crisis of the Young African American Male in the Inner Cities is available on diskette in 
 ASCII and WordPerfect 5.1 for persons with visual impairments. Please caU (202) 376-8110. 
 
 Pubhcation date: July 2000
 
 The Crisis of the Young African American Male 
 IN THE Inner Cities 
 
 Library (MGI)- 
 MAPS AND GOVERNMENT INFORMATION 
 
 AUG 2 5 2000 
 
 DEPOSDOC 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 A Consultation of the United States Commission on Civil Rights 
 
 April 15-16, 1999 
 Washington, DC. 
 
 Volume 1: Topic Papers Submitted to the Commission
 
 Acknowledgments W (^ <r 
 
 The consultation project was first developed under the general supervision of General 
 Counsel Stephanie Y. Moore. It was subsequently organized and conducted under the super- 
 vision of Deputy General Counsel and project director Edward A. Hailes, Jr. Project team 
 leader Deborah A. Reid and attorney-advisors Lynn Dickinson,* Tricia Jefferson, Joseph 
 Manahli, Jessica Roff,* Maxine G. Sharpe,* Mark Spenser,* and Miguel A. Sapp* provided 
 the project's design, pre-consultation research, planning, participant recommendations, and 
 initial editorial review of topic papers. Attorney-advisors Sicilia Chinn* and Christopher 
 Yianilos* rendered additional project assistance. Pam Moye rendered significant support 
 services. The defame and degrade review was conducted by Peter Reilly. The consultation 
 topic papers and transcript of the consultation proceedings were prepared for publication by 
 Dawn Sweet under the supervision of Carol-Lee Hurley.* 
 
 The Commission acknowledges with gratitude all of the selected consultants and other 
 consultation participants for their important contributions to this project. 
 
 No longer with the Commission 
 
 Ul
 
 Contents 
 
 Preface vii 
 
 Panel: Criminal Justice 
 
 "The Need for Innovative Approaches to Meet the Substance Abuse and Mental Health 
 Service Needs of Inner-City African American Male Youth Involved with the 
 Juvenile Justice System" by Richard Dembo and William Seeberger 3 
 
 "Prisons as a Growth Industry in Rural America: An Exploratory Discussion of 
 
 the Effects on Young African American Men in the Inner Cities" by Tracy L. Ruling 15 
 
 "The Juvenile Justice Reform Act and the Crisis of the Young African American Male" 
 
 by Janice Joseph 36 
 
 "Crisis of the Young African American Male and the Criminal Justice System" 
 
 by MarcMauer 43 
 
 Panel: Education 
 
 "Improving the Educational Achievement of African American Males in 
 
 the Third Millennium" by Antoine M. Garibaldi 59 
 
 "Continuing the Dialogue: The Overrepresentation of African American Males 
 
 in Special Education" by Carolyn Talbert-Johnson 70 
 
 "Assessment and the Educational Progress of African American Males" 
 
 by Sylvia T. Johnson and Michael B. Wallace 80 
 
 Panel: Health Care 
 
 "Excess Mortality and Causes of Death for African American Males in Urban Areas" 
 
 by Arhne T. Geronimus 103 
 
 "An Exploration of Parental Attachment Patterns of Young African American Males 
 
 Living in the Inner City" by Camille Huggins 119 
 
 "The Health Crisis of Young Black Men in the Inner City" by John A. Rich 132 
 
 "The Effects of InternaUzed Prejudice on the Mental Health of 
 
 African American Youth" by Brian K. WiUiams 143 
 
 "The Pseudomasculineldentityand the African American Male" by Charles L. Woodley 152 
 
 Panel: Employment 
 
 "Building Equity within Welfare Reform for Children in Fragile Families" 
 
 by Ronald B. Mincy and Hillard Pouncy 163 
 
 "The Crisis of African American Males: Barriers to Successful Employment" 
 
 by Zuline G. Wilkinson 185
 
 Preface 
 
 The United States Commission on Civil Rights held a 2-day consultation on The Crisis of 
 the Young African American Male in the Inner Cities in Washington, D.C., on April 15—16, 
 1999. The central purpose of the consultation was to examine the broad range of civil rights 
 issues growing out of the crisis confronting young African American men in the nation's in- 
 ner cities. The consultation spotlighted those factors that directly contribute to the dispropor- 
 tionate numbers of these young men who struggle to survive at home, in school, in the mar- 
 ketplace, and in "the streets." This struggle is inherently demonstrated by their rates of mor- 
 bidity, unemployment, underemployment, incarceration, and last-place ranking on many 
 measures of educational performance and attainment. The consultation offered the Commis- 
 sion an opportunity to hear from selected experts about the papers they submitted to the 
 Commission on the causes and consequences of this crisis with a specific focus on criminal 
 justice, education, employment, entrepreneurial opportunities, and health care issues. The 
 consultation also featured a prominent array of knowledgeable federal and local officials, rec- 
 ognized leaders in the civil rights, human rights, religious, and law enforcement communi- 
 ties, and a number of young African American men and their local community advocates. The 
 Commission plans to build upon this consultation by considering sound solutions to address 
 the lingering problems described by the consultation participants. 
 
 This pubhcation compiles all papers submitted by the selected experts. A transcript of the 
 consultation proceedings is pubUshed as a second volume. It contains a rich record of thor- 
 ough analyses and insightful recommendations to address this compelling crisis. 
 
 vu
 
 Panel 
 
 Criminal Justice
 
 The Need for Innovative Approaches to Meet the Substance Abuse 
 and Mental Health Service Needs of Inner-City African American Male 
 Youth Involved with the Juvenile Justice System* 
 
 Richard Dembo, Ph.D.** and William Seeberger, B.S.* 
 
 Introduction 
 
 There is a poignant need to develop innova- 
 tive ways to address the substance abuse and 
 mental health needs of inner-city African Ameri- 
 can male youth involved in the juvenile justice 
 system. For a variety of reasons discussed in this 
 paper, there are formidable challenges facing 
 these youths' healthy development in the com- 
 munities in which they hve; and, for many youth 
 lead to substance abuse and mental health 
 problems for which there are few services. These 
 experiences, coupled with the differential impact 
 of the implementation of various laws, increase 
 the likeUhood of their initial involvement with 
 the juvenile justice system. Once in the juvenile 
 justice system, a number of organizational and 
 institutional policies, practices, and procedures, 
 and Hmited treatment and after-care resources, 
 foster these youths' overrepresentation in the 
 various components of the system. These com- 
 plex set of factors have led to a tragic cycle of 
 recidivism, with profound personal, family, 
 community and societal costs. The issues raised 
 by these dynamics touch on fundamental values 
 of our society, and require creative strategies to 
 reduce the tragic loss of a generation of youth 
 
 * Preparation of this manuscript was supported, in part, by 
 Grant # 1-R01-DA08707, funded by the National Institute on 
 Drug Abuse. We are grateful for their support. However, the 
 research results reported and the views expressed in the 
 paper do not necessarily imply any policy or research en- 
 dorsement by our funding agency. We should also like to 
 thank Ms. Olivia Brown for reviewing this paper, and Dr. 
 Linda Teplin for sharing preUminary data from her study of 
 juvenile detainees for use in this report. 
 
 Criminology Department, University of South Florida, 
 Tampa, FL. 
 
 Criminology Department, University of South Florida, 
 Tampa, FL. 
 
 from a meaningful participation in U.S. society. 
 Drawing upon a broad range of existing data, 
 this paper: (1) reviews these experiences and (2) 
 recommends pohcies and intervention strategies 
 to engage and remediate the substance abuse 
 and mental health problems presented by these 
 youth. 
 
 Socio-Environmental Challenges Facing 
 These Youth and Their Families 
 
 In order to understand the prevalence and 
 nature of substance abuse and mental health 
 needs of African American male youth involved 
 in the justice system, it is necessary to gain in- 
 sight into the generating conditions for these 
 problems; in particular, the socio-environmental 
 circumstances in which many of these youth and 
 their families live. A review of the extensive Ut- 
 erature on this topic reveals a situation of social 
 and economic stress, weak community infra- 
 structures, and Umited support services — 
 aggravated by the little influence community 
 residents often have on the poUtical process and 
 pubhc policy. 
 
 About 20 percent of children in the U.S. Uve 
 below the poverty level; and, among the chroni- 
 cally poor, 48 percent are under the age of 18 
 (U.S. Bvireau of Census, 1995a). African Ameri- 
 can youth are overrepresented in this group (42 
 percent) (Lewit, 1993). Poverty is particularly 
 acute in the inner city and is associated with 
 other risk factors, such as low rates of academic 
 achievement, and high rates of school dropout, 
 teen pregnancy, poor health, hunger, substance 
 abuse and dehnquency (Gibbs, 1988; Dreyfoos, 
 1990; Huston, 1991; Knitzer & Aber, 1995; also 
 see: Buckner and Bassuk, 1997). These condi- 
 tions of life produce impediments to the devel-
 
 opment of a sense of community, making large 
 numbers of youngsters witness to and victimized 
 by various aspects of their environment. For ex- 
 ample, Earls and his associates (1998) found 
 among the 800, 9-, 12-, and 15-year-old children 
 they interviewed in 80 neighborhoods in Chi- 
 cago, that these youths' exposure to violence was 
 sizable and increased with their age (heard gun- 
 fire: 64 percent, 76 percent, and 85 percent; saw 
 someone attacked with a knife: 8 percent, 14 
 percent, and 24 percent; saw someone shot: 8 
 percent, 11 percent and 21 percent). 
 
 Not surprisingly, African Americans Uving in 
 urban areas are more likely than whites to feel 
 crime is a major problem in their neighborhoods 
 and want to move (DeFrances & Smith, 1998). 
 These perceptions are related to the higher rates 
 of victimization, particularly from crimes of vio- 
 lence, youth and adults experience in these ar- 
 eas. Youth are particularly vulnerable to vic- 
 timization. It is by now well estabhshed that the 
 wdnerabihty to violent crime victimization var- 
 ies across the age range, with young people be- 
 ing overrepresented in these figures. Overall, 
 while persons 12 to 24 years of age account for 
 22 percent of the U.S. population, they represent 
 35 percent of the murder victims and 49 percent 
 of the victims of violent crime. These violent vic- 
 timization rates are highest among African 
 American youth (Perkins, 1997) and remain a 
 significant pubhc health problem. Between 1973 
 and 1992 the rate of violent victimizations 
 among young African American males grew 
 some 25 percent; and in 1992 showed an in- 
 creased prevalence for African American males 
 aged 12 to 15 (1 violent crime per 14 persons), 16 
 to 19 (1 per 6 persons), and 20 to 24 (1 per 8 per- 
 sons) (Bastian & Taylor, 1994). The picture for 
 homicides was even more grim, with African 
 American males aged 12 to 24 being nearly 14 
 times more likely to be homicide victims (67.5 
 per 100,000) than members of the general 
 population. 
 
 The pressures of life in the inner city lead to 
 a reduced sense of investment in, and a high 
 sense of alienation from, mainstream society. 
 Not surprisingly, there is a higher rate of 
 prevalence and acceptance of (not necessarily 
 approval for) drug taking and other deUn- 
 quent/criminal behavior. A nvmiber of ilhcit 
 economies develop in these areas and serve as a 
 source of income (Dembo, Hughes et al., 1993; 
 Dembo et al., 1994; Inciardi, Horowitz & Pot- 
 
 tieger, 1993). For all too many youth, drug 
 deaUng is a response to the financial pressures 
 they and their famihes are experiencing 
 (Whitehead et al., 1994). For many youths it 
 provides a sense of self-esteem and a feehng of 
 achievement involved in having an occupation or 
 career (Brunswick & Rier, 1995). At the same 
 time, involvement in the drug trade brings con- 
 siderable risks (Stanton & Galbraith, 1994): ex- 
 posure to violence (Goldstein, 1985) — particularly 
 gun violence (Blumstein, 1996), personal in- 
 volvement in drug use (Dembo, Wilhams, 
 Wothke et al., 1990), and "economic addiction" to 
 the comparatively high income derived from 
 drug trafficking (Dembo, Hughes et al., 1993). 
 Further, the implementation of various drug 
 laws, particularly those relating to crack cocaine, 
 result in an increased risk of arrest, incarcera- 
 tion and deeper involvement in the justice sys- 
 tem (Mauer & Huling, 1995). It is also important 
 to note that many African American male youth 
 at risk of drug involvement and delin- 
 quency/crime in various urban settings possess 
 personal or social characteristics which provide 
 them with resUience to involvement in these be- 
 haviors (see, for example, Werner & Smith, 
 1982). However, many youth succumb to the 
 pressures to become involved in these "deviant" 
 behaviors and reduce their options for a socially 
 productive role in mainstream U.S. society as a 
 consequence of involvement with the justice sys- 
 tem, failure in school, and hmited work skills. 
 Tragically, their families, which tend to be 
 mother headed, of low income, and often beset 
 by serious problems of their own, often lack the 
 resources to have these youths' problems ad- 
 dressed effectively and sufficiently early to re- 
 duce their deepening involvement in the legal 
 system. 
 
 Problems among Youth Involved in the 
 Juvenile Justice System 
 
 Many youths entering the juvenile justice 
 system are experiencing multiple personal, edu- 
 cational, and famUy problems (Dembo, Turner, 
 Schmeidler, Chin Sue, Borden & Manning, 
 1996). Among the problems most consistently 
 reported by researchers are: physical abuse 
 (Dembo, Wilhams, Berry, Getreu, Washburn, 
 Wish, Schmeidler & Dertke, 1988), sexual vic- 
 timization (Mouzakitis, 1981; Dembo, Wilhams, 
 La Voie, Berry, Getreu, Wish, Schmeidler &
 
 Washburn, 1989), poor emotional / psychological 
 functioning (Teplin & Swartz, 1989; Dembo, 
 Williams, Berry, Getreu, Washburn, Wish, & 
 Schmeidler, 1990), poor educational functioning 
 (Dembo, Williams, Schmeidler & Howitt, 1991) 
 and alcohol and other drug use (U.S. Depart- 
 ment of Justice, 1983a, b; Dembo, WiUiams, Wish 
 & Schmeidler, 1990). Many of these youths' diffi- 
 culties can be traced to family alcohol/other drug 
 use, mental health, or crime problems which be- 
 gan when they were young (Garbarino & Gil- 
 liam, 1980; Dembo, WilUams, Wothke, 
 Schmeidler & Brown, 1992). Further, it is in- 
 creasingly being reaUzed that these youths, par- 
 ticularly minority and inner city youths, are at 
 high risk of being infected by or transmitting the 
 human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) via in- 
 jecting drugs or crack cocaine-driven sexual ac- 
 tivity involving multiple partners (Inciardi & 
 Pottieger, 1991). Wish et al. (1992) have identi- 
 fied persons having contact with the justice sys- 
 tem as an important HIV/AIDS risk-reduction 
 target group. 
 
 For many of the reasons discussed earlier, 
 these problems are aggravated by the psychoso- 
 cial strain experienced by many inner-city Afri- 
 can American male youth and increase their risk 
 for future health problems, drug use, and dehn- 
 quency /crime. 
 
 Table 1 
 
 Percent of White and African American Male 
 Youth Found to be l-iair Test Positive for 
 IVIarijuana and Cocaine and Claiming to Have 
 Received Drug Treatment 
 
 Positive on marijuana 
 
 Marijuana positive youths claiming to 
 tiave tiad any drug treatment 
 
 Positive on cocaine 
 
 Cocaine positive youths claiming to 
 have had any drug treatment 
 
 
 African 
 
 White 
 
 American 
 
 males 
 
 males 
 
 37.7% 
 
 31 .0% 
 
 (26/69) 
 
 (9/29) 
 
 7.7% 
 
 0% 
 
 (2/26) 
 
 (0/9) 
 
 14.5% 
 
 43.2% 
 
 (11/76) 
 
 (16/37) 
 
 36.4% 
 
 6.3% 
 
 (4/11) 
 
 (1/16) 
 
 Particularly troubling are the African Ameri- 
 can male youths' involvement in drug use cou- 
 pled with their Umited involvement in treat- 
 ment/intervention services. Telhng data docu- 
 menting this point are presented in table 1, 
 which presents selected information on white 
 and African American male youths processed at 
 the Hillsborough County Juvenile Assessment 
 Center in Tampa, Florida, who enrolled in a 
 NIDA-funded Youth Support Project (discussed 
 later) between September 1, 1994, and December 
 31, 1996. 
 
 As the data dramatically document, the Afri- 
 can American males report much less involve- 
 ment in drug treatment, than their white coun- 
 terparts — even though their drug positive rate 
 for cocaine is 3 times higher and they have a 
 similar one-third positive rate for marijuana. 
 The situation for mental health services is not 
 much better. Although the emotional/psycho- 
 logical functioning of the African American and 
 white male youths was not significantly differ- 
 ent, the African American youths were again 
 less likely (but not dramatically so) to report 
 having received any mental health services in 
 the past (17 percent vs. 12 percent, respectively). 
 
 Additional information on the substance use 
 and mental health problems experienced by Af- 
 rican American male youths is available from 
 Dr. Linda A. Teplin's important study of youths 
 entering the Cook County, IlHnois, detention 
 center. Prehminary data from this study, made 
 available to the authors to present in this report, 
 indicate that African American male youths had 
 the highest urine test positive rate for any drug 
 (70 percent), compared to Hispanic males (65 
 percent) and non-Hispanic white males (62 per- 
 cent). African American male youth also had 
 higher rates of DSM-HIR diagnoses for affective 
 disorders (e.g., major depression, mania) and 
 anxiety disorders (e.g., separation anxiety disor- 
 der), than non-Hispanic males (18 percent vs. 15 
 percent and 20 percent vs. 15 percent, respec- 
 tively). 
 
 African American juveniles are overrepre- 
 sented (compared to their share of the juvenile 
 population) at every decision point of the juve- 
 nile justice system process (e.g., arrest, secure 
 detention, secure corrections, transfer to adult 
 court) in most of the states participating in the 
 Office of Juvenile Justice and Dehnquency Pre- 
 vention's recent study of disproportionate con-
 
 finement of minority juveniles (Community Re- 
 search Associates, 1997). Further, the overrepre- 
 sentation of these youth increases from decision 
 point to decision point in the juvenile justice sys- 
 tem. The Sentencing Project estimated that in 
 1995, 32 percent of African American males be- 
 tween 20 and 29 years of age were under crimi- 
 nal justice control (in prison, jail, on probation or 
 parole) (Mauer & Ruling, 1995). These figures 
 are to some degree related to their higher risk of 
 involvement in drug use and dehnquency/crime, 
 but also to a sizable extent consequent to the 
 operation of various components of the juvenile 
 justice system. Troubhngas this situation is now, 
 the future challenges are even more unsetthng. 
 
 What We Are Likely to Face in the Future 
 
 Even though these issues are challenging 
 enough, the portent for the future is more trou- 
 bling. Although evidence indicates juvenile vio- 
 lent crime has dechned in recent years, overall 
 juvenile crime continues to grow (Butts & Har- 
 rell, 1998). This increase, together with a higher 
 rate of law violation referrals to juvenile court (a 
 57 percent increase between 1980 and 1995), has 
 resulted in an increasingly clogged and back- 
 logged juvenile court system and less involve- 
 ment in case dehberation. Relatedly, there is 
 indication that younger offenders are entering 
 the juvenile system in increasing numbers and 
 bringing with them a number of serious, inter- 
 related problems (Dembo, Schmeidler et al., in 
 press). These issues, together with demographic 
 projections indicating a substantial increase in 
 the U.S. youth population in the next 10 to 20 
 years, threaten to create an increasingly over- 
 burdened justice system and a growing juvenile 
 crime problem. Further, not only will the juve- 
 nile population increase, it will become more ra- 
 cially and ethnically diverse (Snyder & Sick- 
 mund, 1995). 
 
 In addition, the rate of juvenile transfers to 
 adult court wiU continue to grow, and there is 
 legislative momentum in many states to merge 
 the juvenile and adult criminal courts (Butts & 
 Harrell, 1998). However, we beheve that these 
 efforts will not respond effectively to the chal- 
 lenges presented by a younger and more trou- 
 bled offender population — challenges which wiU 
 be made more poignant by poUcy, behavioral, 
 and socioeconomic changes that will continue to 
 occur in the U.S. 
 
 A recent study by Butts & Snyder (1997), 
 using data from Federal Bureau of Investigation 
 and National Juvenile Court data, documents 
 several disturbing trends. In comparing data on 
 juvenile arrests in 1980 to 1995, the authors 
 found violent crime arrests grew by 94 percent 
 for youth under the age of 15, compared to 47 
 percent for older youth. Further, between 1985 
 and 1994, juvenile court cases involving offend- 
 ers 12 years of age or younger increased by 32 
 percent. Butts & Snyder (1997:1) assert that 
 "offenders under age 15 represent the leading 
 edge of the juvenile crime problem, and their 
 numbers have been growing." 
 
 Who are these troubled youngsters? What 
 kinds of problems do they present? What are the 
 imphcations of these youths' problems for law 
 enforcement, the courts, juvenile justice, and 
 service dehvery? Centrahzed intake facilities for 
 arrested youths, such as the Hillsborough 
 County Juvenile Assessment Center (JAC), are 
 strategically poised to illuminate these concerns. 
 In addition to demographic and offense informa- 
 tion, the JAC completes a prehminary screening 
 on processed youths, which, among other things, 
 identifies potential problems they may be expe- 
 riencing (Dembo & Brown, 1994). A recent study 
 completed by Dembo, Schmeidler et al. (in press) 
 compared the sociodemographic, abuse, offense 
 history and psychosocial functioning characteris- 
 tics of 856 8- to 12-year-olds, 2,512 13- and 14- 
 year-olds and 6,215 15- to 20-year-old youths at 
 their first admission to the JAC between May 5, 
 1993, and December 31, 1995. These 9,583 
 youths represented 99 percent of the total 9,596 
 youths processed, and they accounted for about 
 20,000 total JAC admissions during this period. 
 Most of the 9,583 youths processed at the as- 
 sessment center were male (75 percent) and av- 
 eraged 15 years of age. Although African Ameri- 
 can youths constitute 13 percent of the Hillsbor- 
 ough County juvenile population, they accounted 
 for 44 percent of the arrested youths processed 
 at JAC. Fourteen percent of the youths were 
 Hispanic (mainly Mexican, Colombian, and 
 Puerto Rican). Only 18 percent of the youths re- 
 ported they Uved with both their biological par- 
 ents; and an additional 40 percent indicated they 
 resided with their mother only or their mother 
 and another adult (13 percent). Despite high 
 rates of substance abuse and mental health 
 problems indicated by administrating the Prob- 
 lem Oriented Screening Instrument for Teenag-
 
 ers (POSIT) (Rahdert, 1991), only 2 percent of 
 the youth indicated they were currently receiv- 
 ing, and 15 percent claimed they previously re- 
 ceived, mental health care. Further, only 4 per- 
 cent of the 9,583 youths reported receiving sub- 
 stance abuse treatment in the past; and less 
 than 1 percent indicated they were currently 
 receiving such services. 
 
 Additional analyses identified the 8- to 12- 
 year-olds as a particularly troubled group who 
 will present increasing demands on the pubhc 
 service and justice systems as they grow older. 
 After controlling for the effects of age, analyses 
 of covariance showed that: (1) younger aged 
 youths (8 to 12 years) had a relatively severe lag 
 between then- actual age and school grade 
 (indicating serious educational problems), and 
 (2) younger aged youths were more often African 
 American, living with their mother only, and 
 from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds 
 than older aged youths. In contrast, younger 
 aged youths had relatively mild problems and 
 older aged youths relatively more severe prob- 
 lems in self-reported hfetime frequency of alco- 
 hol and marijuana use; delinquency referral his- 
 tory for violence, property, and pubhc disorder 
 offenses; arrest charges for property felonies or 
 misdemeanors at JAC entry; and substance 
 abuse treatment history. Younger aged youths, 
 who have had less time to develop and establish 
 dehnquent behaviors, are less likely to have 
 these characteristics. In contrast, older aged 
 youths, who tj^pically exhibit delinquent behav- 
 iors, do not appear to have these other, nonde- 
 linquency characteristics. These findings, to- 
 gether with the experience that these youths 
 and their famihes are less likely to access mental 
 health (Cocozza, 1992), substance abuse, and 
 other services than other youths (Cunningham 
 & Freiman, 1996), raise poignant issues for our 
 society. 
 
 What Shall We Do? 
 
 As we have discussed, all indications are that 
 more youths, who have high needs for various 
 services, will be entering the justice system in 
 the next decade. They will bring with them sig- 
 nificant dependency and delinquency histories. 
 The pressures that will be placed on juvenile 
 justice agencies will be enormous. More pubhc 
 resources will be needed to deal with these trou- 
 bled youths as they grow older. Many of these 
 
 youths will be at a crisis point in their Uves and 
 at considerable risk of continuing their involve- 
 ment in crime and entering the adult criminal 
 justice system. 
 
 Innovative Approaches Needed for African 
 American Youth 
 
 There is a critical need to develop and rigor- 
 ously test innovative strategies to improve the 
 availabihty, accessibihty, service hnkage, and 
 dehvery of services to high-risk youths and their 
 famihes. There is a serious lack of screen- 
 ing/assessment and treatment services in most 
 communities, and large percentages of referred 
 youths do not connect with existing services. All 
 too often they fall through the cracks of the 
 service dehvery system. Tragically, many of 
 these youths are only able to obtain services as a 
 residt of their involvement in the justice system, 
 which in most jurisdictions is overburdened and 
 underresourced. However, none of the expected 
 benefits of treatment can occur unless youths 
 participate and become involved in care for a 
 sufficient period of time. 
 
 Youths entering the juvenile justice system 
 are a particularly difficult group to work with as 
 a result of their exposiu-e to the personal, socio- 
 economic, environmental, and institutional fac- 
 tors we have reviewed. Additional difficulties 
 they present are a result of the failure of juve- 
 nile justice and community-based services to re- 
 spond to their needs, and those of their famihes, 
 in a sensitive, timely, and effective manner. 
 Many African American youth and their famihes 
 have developed an experienced-based cynicism 
 regarding claims by various community-based 
 service providers, including juvenile justice per- 
 sonnel, promising to involve them in quahty 
 services: 
 
 • Too often do these youths and their famihes 
 lack the resources to pay for the services 
 they may need. 
 
 • In far too many cases, the waiting Ust for 
 services is months long. 
 
 • Too often they are made promises by work- 
 ers with huge caseloads, who are unable to 
 fulfill them in a timely manner. 
 
 • Too often multiple service providers work 
 with the youth and his family, making it dif- 
 ficult to provide effective interventions.
 
 • Too often they are involved in services which 
 are of inferior quality. 
 
 • Too often the services they are referred to 
 are at a considerable distance from their 
 neighborhoods, limiting the ability of fami- 
 nes with hmited resources to access them. 
 
 • Too often are these youth placed in costly, 
 juvenile justice residential facilities that are 
 geographically distant from their famihes 
 seriously Umiting their family members' 
 abihty to visit the youth or to participate in 
 the treatment process. In the case of com- 
 munity-based services, many services do not 
 include family members in the intake proc- 
 ess, diagnostic sessions, and in treatment. 
 
 • Too often is the intervention programming 
 at these residential facilities dominated by 
 security interests, and has hmited resources. 
 
 • Too often the service personnel they are re- 
 ferred to do not have sufficient cultural sen- 
 sitivity to effectively engage these youths 
 and their famihes in treatment. 
 
 • Too often are limited, if any, after-care serv- 
 ices provided to these youth. 
 
 As a result of these experience, African 
 American famihes have traditionally had lower 
 substance abuse and mental health treatment 
 service utdization rates (program entry, en- 
 gagement, and duration), than Anglo families 
 (Espada, 1979; Tolan et al., 1988; Sirles, 1990). 
 
 We recommend improving each of the above 
 Usted areas of deficiencies. More resources need 
 to be provided to community-based and juvenile 
 justice treatment programs. Greater cultural 
 diversity among program staff is needed, which 
 can be achieved through continual training and 
 education in cultural competency. In addition, 
 residential programs need to be less dominated 
 by security concerns, and more focused on 
 treatment — both during incarceration and upon 
 release to the community. Further, we urge that 
 a large-scale effort be launched to identify the 
 substance abuse, mental health, and related 
 problems of African American male youth at the 
 earliest decision point in the juvenile justice 
 process, and to respond to them as soon as possi- 
 ble by involving them and their families in effec- 
 tive community-based intervention services. 
 And, we recommend an ahgimient of the juvenile 
 justice system to make it possible for African 
 American male youth to be more effectively 
 served. To this end, we urge the increased avail- 
 
 ability of Juvenile Assessment Centers (Dembo 
 & Brown, 1994) and of quahty diversion pro- 
 grams. Such an initiative will reduce the flow of 
 these youths further into the juvenile justice 
 system and help reduce the enormous cost to our 
 society of crime, drug abuse and mental Ulness 
 (Dembo, Wilhams et al., 1993; Office of National 
 Drug Control Pohcy, 1997). 
 
 Public Policy — Juvenile Justice Agency 
 Recommendations: 
 
 Because juvenile justice system services, 
 whether community-based or institutional, take 
 place within a public policy-organizational con- 
 text, any recommendations for innovative serv- 
 ices need to reflect an appreciation of the multi- 
 level factors that relate to them. Hence on a 
 pubhc policy-organizational level, for African 
 American male youth entering the juvenile jus- 
 tice system, we urge: (1) the development of 
 community-based alternatives to secure deten- 
 tion and residential program placement; (2) a 
 more creative consideration of dispositional al- 
 ternatives for these youth; and (3) a review of 
 juvenile justice statutes, pohcies, and procedures 
 in various jurisdictions with a view to making 
 needed revisions to reduce racial and ethnic dis- 
 parity in the system. Serious consideration 
 should be given to developing a special unit 
 within various pubhc defender's offices to focus 
 on African American male youth as they are 
 processed in juvemle court. Each state receiving 
 block grant funds for juvenile justice services 
 should have a culturally diverse oversight com- 
 mittee to review pohcies, practices, procedures, 
 resource issues, infrastructure problems, and 
 interagency collaboration difficulties in various 
 communities as they pertain to minority youth, 
 and be empowered to make binding recommen- 
 dations to justice system agencies to make 
 needed changes to create equity within the sys- 
 tem. Funding for maintaining or enhancing 
 various juvenile justice services should be hnked 
 to these changes. An ongoing, national commit- 
 ment to help African American and other trou- 
 bled youths is needed to prevent and/or reduce 
 their substance use, consequences of use, mental 
 health, and related problems, including in- 
 volvement in dehnquent/criminal behavior. 
 OJJDP is to be applauded for its current efforts 
 in this area.
 
 Service Delivery Recommendations: 
 
 We also urge that the above discussed im- 
 provements be embedded within an integrated 
 service delivery system consisting of at least 
 five interrelated activities. 
 
 Preliminary Screening: To identify poten- 
 tial alcohol/other drug use, mental health, and 
 related problems among youths having contact 
 with the justice system. 
 
 In-depth and Broad Assessment: To docu- 
 ment the nature and seriousness of alcohol, 
 other drug, mental health, and related problems; 
 and, if indicated, develop an intervention or 
 treatment plan. Unfortunately, quality assess- 
 ments of youths entering in the juvenile justice 
 system remain the exception rather than the 
 rule. 
 
 As noted earlier, we recommend that, where 
 ever possible, communities should estabhsh cen- 
 tralized receiving facihties. Such units can serve 
 as focal points for processing and assessing trou- 
 bled youths, providing intervention, and Unking 
 them and their famihes with needed services. 
 Centrahzed intake facilities, such as Juvenile 
 Assessment Centers, can improve the availabil- 
 ity, accessibility, and delivery of services to 
 "high-risk" youths and their famihes. These cen- 
 ters can improve the linkages and coordination 
 among various community agencies serving 
 these youth — including law enforcement, the 
 courts, schools, human service agencies, and 
 treatment programs. Such an effort can help re- 
 duce duphcation of services and barriers to 
 treatment and respond to these youths in a more 
 comprehensive manner. 
 
 Intervention/Treatment: Treatment for 
 drug dependence and related psychosocial diffi- 
 culties has been found effective in reducing 
 criminality and improving psychosocial func- 
 tioning among juveniles and adults, although 
 much more is currently known about effective 
 interventions with adults (Wexler, Falkin et al., 
 1988; Hubbard, Marston et al., 1989; Gerstein & 
 Harwood, 1990; Gerstein, Johnson et al., 1994; 
 Inciardi, Martin et al., 1997). A survey of the 
 youth alcohol/other drug abuse treatment htera- 
 ture, completed by Catalano, Hawkins et al. 
 (1990-91) indicated that: (1) some treatment is 
 better than no treatment, (2) post-treatment re- 
 lapse rates are high (35 percent to 85 percent — 
 depending on the definition of relapse), and (3) 
 comparisons of treatment methods have not con- 
 sistently demonstrated the superiority of one 
 
 method over another. Positive effects of treat- 
 ment have also been found in the meta-analyses 
 completed by Weisz, Weiss et al. (1995) and Lip- 
 sey & Wilson (1998). For example, Lipsey & Wil- 
 son (1998) completed a meta-analysis of over 200 
 studies of interventions involving serious delin- 
 quents. Although the limited number of studies 
 of each treatment type lead the authors to urge 
 caution in interpreting the relative effectiveness 
 of the various treatment types, several general 
 observations can be drawn from their analyses. 
 Treatment effects were somewhat higher for 
 noninstitutionahzed offenders, compared to in- 
 stitutionalized offenders. For both noninstitu- 
 tionahzed and institutionalized offenders im- 
 pressive overall effects were found for the fol- 
 lowing programs: interpersonal skill develop- 
 ment, behavioral programs, community residen- 
 tial programs, and multiple services. Further, 
 the magnitude of effects on recidivism for the 
 best treatments was appreciable. 
 
 Multisystemic therapy (Henggler, Bourdin et 
 al., 1991; Henggeler et al., 1994; Henggeler, 
 Pickrel et al., 1996; Henggeler, 1997) has been 
 found to be effective with noninstitutionahzed 
 drug-using offenders and youth with mental 
 health problems. At the same time, programs 
 that are based on social learning theories, like 
 Therapeutic Communities (TCs), seem more ef- 
 fective among drug-involved persons who have 
 developed their drug use Ufestyle over a period 
 of years (Wexler & Wilhams, 1986; DeLeon & 
 Ziegenfuss, 1986). TCs seem particularly effec- 
 tive for youths and young adults of the urban 
 underclass (Wexler & Williams, 1986), who have 
 been overrepresented in the recent, dramatic 
 growth in the number of persons in the justice 
 system. 
 
 In regard to substance abuse intervention 
 services, repeated interventions over a pro- 
 tracted period may be needed to produce suc- 
 cessful outcomes (Pickens, Levikefeld et al., 
 1991). These programs need to reflect the fol- 
 lowing distinguishing characteristics of adoles- 
 cent substance abusers: (1) being more fasci- 
 nated with the drug-related lifestyle and less 
 fatigued with failure and the negative social 
 consequences of their drug use, (2) having an 
 unrealistic sense of their invulnerabihty and (3) 
 requiring a greater emphasis on addressing edu- 
 cational needs and parentaiyfamily support in 
 the treatment process (DeLeon & Deitch, 1987). 
 Improvements in African American male youths'
 
 vocational and educational skills may be espe- 
 cially indicated, as their involvement in drug 
 trafficking and later drug use is often a result of 
 environmental-social, rather than disturbed per- 
 sonality, factors (Dembo & Shern, 1982). 
 
 Hence, the services deUvered to African 
 American male youth need to be holistic, treat- 
 ing their drug use or mental health issues as 
 symptomatic of the often multiple problems they 
 are experiencing; and to the maximum degree 
 possible, these services should be community 
 based and in-home. The Youth Support Project 
 in Tampa, Florida, a service dehvery study 
 funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 
 is an innovative service of this kind. The Youth 
 Support Project is using a systems and struc- 
 tural approach called the Family Empowerment 
 Intervention to improve the functioning of fami- 
 Ues of youth who were arrested on misdemeanor 
 or felony charges and processed at the Hillsbor- 
 ough County Juvenile Assessment Center. To 
 our knowledge, the Youth Support Project is the 
 largest clinical trial of its type ever undertaken 
 involving this target group. Interim evaluations 
 of the intervention in regard to recidivism and 
 psychosocial functioning over time have been 
 promising (Dembo, Shemwell et al., 1998; 
 Dembo, Ramirez-Garnica et al., in press; Dembo, 
 Shemwell, Pacheco et al., in press). 
 
 Intervention services are dehvered by field 
 consultants, who visit famihes to work on the 
 following goals: (1) restore the family hierarchy 
 (parents, children, etc.); (2) restructure bounda- 
 ries between parents and children; (3) encourage 
 parents to take greater responsibility for family 
 functioning; (4) increase family structure 
 through implementation of rules and conse- 
 quences; (5) enhance parenting skills; (6) have 
 parents set Umits, expectations and rules that 
 increase the likeUhood the target youth's be- 
 havior will improve; (7) improve communication 
 skills among all family members; (8) improve 
 problem-solving skills, particularly in the target 
 youth; and (9) where needed, connect the family 
 to other systems (e.g., school, church, community 
 activities). 
 
 A distinctive feature of this intervention is 
 that the famihes are served by personnel who 
 are not trained therapists — although they are 
 trained by, and perform their work under the 
 direction of, Ucensed cUnicians. The choice of 
 paraprofessionals is based on a cost-effectiveness 
 argument, and is supported by experimental re- 
 
 search indicating that, at least for some treat- 
 ments, paraprofessionals produce outcomes that 
 are better than those under control conditions, 
 and similar to those involving professional 
 therapists (Christensen & Jacobson, 1994; 
 Weisz, Weiss, Han, Granger & Morton, 1995). 
 Further, by requiring less previous therapy 
 training, the Family Empowerment Interven- 
 tion, if final outcome analyses document its ef- 
 fectiveness, is expected to be highly attractive to 
 agencies providing services to juvenile offenders, 
 which often operate with financial constraints. 
 
 After care: After-care services are a vital 
 Link in the service continuum. While seriously 
 needed, these services are infrequent, underde- 
 veloped, and tend to be narrowly focused on sin- 
 gle problem areas. Yet, they serve aU-too-often 
 heterogeneous, multiproblem populations. For 
 example, it is counterproductive to treat youths 
 in residential settings, only to return them to 
 environments which supported their problem 
 behavior in the past, without a support system 
 to assist them in maintaining their treatment 
 gains. 
 
 In recent years, pubUc responses to "high- 
 risk" youths' troubled behavior in the community 
 have been increasingly punitive, emphasizing 
 placement in large and frequently crowded resi- 
 dential facihties. However, evidence has been 
 accumulating that these expensive "control" pro- 
 grams serve primarily to isolate youths from the 
 general society, stigmatize them, are ineffective, 
 and have no significant impact on recidivism. 
 Establishing effective community-based service 
 systems should remain a top priority. 
 
 Long-term. Continuity of Service: Juvenile 
 justice agencies tend to have an interest in trou- 
 bled youth that is episodic. Interest centers 
 around the behavioral reason for the youth's 
 contact with the system and the judicially im- 
 posed consequences of that behavior. Once the 
 period of involvement in a program or being un- 
 der supervision ends, agency interest in the 
 youth's case ceases — unless he comes to the at- 
 tention of a juvenile justice agency again. 
 
 In contrast to this public policy, as noted ear- 
 her, the troubled behavior of many youths can be 
 traced to their early years; and their problems 
 become more serious as they proceed through 
 adolescence. The delinquent behavior of these 
 youths reflects a chronic involvement in person- 
 ally and socially damaging activities. Our poU- 
 cies and service implementation need to reflect a 
 
 10
 
 developmental perspective on these issues. Seri- 
 ous consideration needs to be given to providing 
 long-term assistance to troubled youths. Service 
 delivery systems in the United States, and asso- 
 ciated support services, need to accommodate 
 themselves to the often prolonged nature or 
 processes of many of these youths' difficulties. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 Summarizing the highhghts of our discus- 
 sion: (1) there is a need to develop effective and 
 cost-efficient community-based strategies to as- 
 sist African American male youth with sub- 
 stance abuse or mental health and related prob- 
 lems, and their families; (2) these services need 
 to be socio-culturally informed (with services 
 being brought to famihes in-home whenever pos- 
 sible), multipurpose, and hohstic (e.g., not fo- 
 cused on one problem at a time), and with suffi- 
 cient duration and intensity to produce effective 
 results; (3) there is a need to identify and to de- 
 velop strategies and procedures to overcome the 
 service utihzation barriers that prevent their 
 involvement in needed care in the communities 
 in which they hve; (4) additional, and long-term 
 commitment of, resources are needed to 
 strengthen service dehvery infrastructures to 
 provide services of sufficient quahty to make a 
 constructive difference in the lives of the fami- 
 hes who use these services; (5) political and poh- 
 cymaker support are needed to maintain consis- 
 tency of legislative backing in building and 
 
 funding these infrastructures. The issues at 
 stake are vital to the quality of life in society and 
 require long-term poUtical reinforcement. They 
 provide continuing challenges to efforts to meet 
 effectively the needs of African American male 
 youth and families who are experiencing sub- 
 stance abuse, mental health and related prob- 
 lems. They also present a wonderful opportunity 
 to reduce their suffering and contribute to their 
 individual and social betterment. 
 
 These service delivery and policy issues be- 
 long on the national agenda. Policymakers have 
 not always been informed regarding the service 
 needs of high-risk families, the difficulties in- 
 volved in providing quality services to them, and 
 the existence of effective services to meet their 
 needs. Service providers have experienced 
 funding cuts in recent years, reducing their 
 abihty to respond to community service needs. 
 Finally, educational institutions need to incorpo- 
 rate these experiences and knowledge into cur- 
 ricula, training new educators, trainers, and pro- 
 fessional and nonprofessional service providers 
 so the field of service dehvery can mature. The 
 issues are clear. Hopefully, we have the poUtical 
 will to resolve them in a manner that wiU do 
 honor to the highest ideals of our nation and to 
 improve the quality of its life by creating a more 
 effective and restorative justice system 
 (Bazemore & Terry, 1997). Much work remains 
 to be done. 
 
 11
 
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 Evaluation of the Stay'n Out Therapeutic Community. 
 New York: Narcotic and Drug Research, Inc. 
 
 Wexler, H.K., & Williams, R. (1986). The Stay'n 
 Out therapeutic community: Prison treatment of sub- 
 stance abusers. Journal of Psychedelic Drugs, 18, 
 221-30. 
 
 Whitehead, T.L, Peterson, J., & Kaljee, L. (1994). 
 The "Hustle": Socioeconomic deprivation, urban drug 
 trafficking, and low-income, Afincan-American male 
 gender identity. Pediatrics, 93, 1050-54. 
 
 Wish, E.D., O'Neil, J., Crawford, J.A. & Baldau, V. 
 (1992). Lost opportunity to combat AIDS: Drug users 
 in the criminal justice system. In T. Mieczkowski 
 (ed), Drugs, Crime, and Social Policy. Boston: Allyn 
 & Bacon. 
 
 14
 
 Prisons as a Growth Industry in Rural America: An Exploratory 
 Discussion of the Effects on Young African American Men in 
 the Inner Cities 
 
 Tracy L. Huling 
 
 Introduction 
 
 In 1995, The Sentencing Project released a 
 report with a central finding that made head- 
 Unes across our nation: On any given day in the 
 United States, one out of every three young 
 black men 20 to 29 years old is under the control 
 of the criminal justice system — in prison, or jail, 
 or on probation or parole. ' In 1997, the Bureau 
 of Justice Statistics pubUshed a study telling us 
 that at current levels of imprisonment, a black 
 boy born today has a 28 percent chance of serv- 
 ing a federal or state prison term at some point 
 in his lifetime. 2 
 
 The dimensions of this American crisis are 
 broad and still unfolding. Most recently, our at- 
 tention has been drawn by reform groups and 
 the media to two profoundly disturbing facts: 1) 
 There are more African American males in our 
 prisons and jaUs than in our universities, ^ and 2) 
 Three in 10 of the next generation of black men 
 win lose the right to vote at some point in their 
 hfetime if current rates of incarceration con- 
 tinue. "* 
 
 My purpose in this paper is to explore the po- 
 tential intersections between this crisis of young 
 African American males under criminal justice 
 control and another major trend that has been 
 the subject of less national media attention and 
 Uttle rehable research: the use of prisons as a 
 conscious economic development strategy for 
 depressed communities. This is taking place first 
 and foremost in "non-metro" rural communities 
 and small towns in the United States, forging a 
 fateful, symbiotic bond between depressed com- 
 munities in urban and rural America. 
 
 In 1996, I began research for a documentary 
 film. Yes, In My Backyard, profiHng one farming- 
 community-turned-prison-town in upstate New 
 
 York. 5 This first documentary portrait of a 
 prison town examines the small town of Cox- 
 sackie. New York, in rural Greene County. Once 
 a thriving farm community with a solid base of 
 small manufacturing and a busy main street on 
 the banks of the Hudson River, today, the com- 
 munity of Coxsackie and Greene County in gen- 
 eral are struggUng to recover from the effects of 
 the economic restructuring that devastated rural 
 America in the 1980s. Coxsackie is now host to 
 state prisons which are the largest employers in 
 the county. 
 
 Coxsackie Correctional Facihty, built on part 
 of the old Bronck farm during the Depression, 
 opened up in 1935 as the New York State Voca- 
 tional Institution — a reform school for wayward 
 youth. Now a maximum security prison, Cox- 
 sackie Correctional Facihty houses over 1,000 
 mostly black and Hispanic males under the age 
 of 21 from New York City. Coxsackie Correc- 
 tional Facihty employs almost 600 people, the 
 majority of whom are drawn from Greene and 
 surrounding counties. Nearly 400 of Coxsackie's 
 employees are security staff, including approxi- 
 mately 340 correctional officers. The vast major- 
 ity are white. 
 
 In 1983, a second medium-security state 
 prison was built in the community of Cox- 
 sackie — Greene Correctional Facihty — on land 
 adjacent to the first prison. The first of the new 
 "campus-style" prisons with "dormitories" in 
 New York, Greene Correctional Facihty was 
 originally built for 500 inmates. While it was 
 being built, it was decided to add 250 more beds. 
 About 4 years later, a second compound was 
 opened, which brought capacity up to 1,630. 
 Close to 1,000 of the 1,630 male inmates are un- 
 der 21. In 1997, a 200-bed special housing unit 
 
 15
 
 was added. Today, the two prisons employ about 
 1,200 people and house approximately 3,000 
 mostly young, mostly minority, men from New 
 York City. These young men make up nearly 
 half of the popvilation (approximately 7,000) of 
 the town and village of Coxsackie. 
 
 Making Yes, In My Backyard provided me 
 with an in-depth and unusually personal intro- 
 duction to a national and underexamined phe- 
 nomenon with potentially far-reaching conse- 
 quences for young African American men, for 
 inner-city and rural communities, and for our 
 nation. In this paper I will review existing in- 
 formation documenting the increasing use of 
 prisons as economic development for depressed 
 rural communities across the United States. I 
 will discuss the nature and evolution of problems 
 in rural America which I believe are fuehng the 
 transformation of heartland communities into 
 penal colonies, and I will consider the potential 
 consequences of this for young African American 
 men in the inner city and their communities. 
 
 Prisons: A Rural Growth Industry 
 
 "Before I even started the job, they was always 
 telling me, the worse things get out in the world, 
 the better things get in jail. You'll always have a 
 job." 
 
 Ted Flegel, farmer and retired prison guard, in Yes, 
 
 In My Backyard 
 
 For many years, prison officials faced the 
 NIMBY problem: when communities heard 
 about plans for a new prison, the outcry was 
 "Not In My Backyard!" Times have changed. 
 Communities suffering from decHnes in farming, 
 mining, timber-work, and manufacturing are 
 now begging for prisons to be built in their back- 
 yards. The acquisition of prisons as a conscious 
 economic development strategy for depressed 
 rural communities and small towns has become 
 widespread. 
 
 Since 1980, the majority of new prisons built 
 to accommodate the expanding U.S. prison 
 population have been placed in non-metro areas 
 with the result that the majority of federal and 
 state inmates are now housed in rural America.^ 
 By contrast, prior to 1980, only 38 percent of 
 prisoners were in prisons in rural communities 
 and small towns.^ Between 1990 and 1997, 203 
 correctional facihties (20 federal) were built in 
 rural and small town communities. The leading 
 
 states for new non-metro prisons — pubHc and 
 private — are Texas (41), Georgia (20), Florida 
 (17), and North Carolina (15). There are about 
 177,000 inmates in these new facilities, and ac- 
 cording to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 
 in at least 60 rural U.S. counties the shift from 
 population loss in the 1980s to population gain 
 in the 1990s can be fully or partly explained by 
 increases in prisoner populations. The new non- 
 metro prisons have about 55,000 employees, a 
 major addition to the overall rural economy. The 
 commuting field for employees typically extends 
 to several surrounding counties. Thus, there 
 may be as many as a third of all non-metro coun- 
 ties sharing in the direct job growth just from 
 the facihties built during this decade.* Non- 
 metro prisons have about 275 employees on av- 
 erage, or 31 for each 100 new inmates. These 
 ratios vary considerably by state and type of 
 prison. For example, New York's post- 1980 non- 
 metro prisons average 49 employees per 100 in- 
 mates, whereas California's average only 29 per 
 100. Minimum-security facihties tend to be more 
 Ughtly staffed.9 
 
 Calvin Beale, a senior demographer with the 
 U.S. Department of Agriculture, describes rural 
 prisons as a "classic export industry," providing 
 a service for the outside community. Unhke 
 some other rural services, such as recreation, the 
 employment is year-round. The salaries vary but 
 are at minimum adequate, and employee insur- 
 ance and other benefits are tj^picaUy good com- 
 pared to other rural and small town work.'" 
 
 Rural Decline as the Context for Prison Industries 
 
 Many rural and small town communities ac- 
 tively bid for prisons, but not all are eager to ac- 
 quire them or to add to them. The primary rea- 
 son for acceptance is economic need.'^ To under- 
 stand the context of prison development in rural 
 America it is useful to go back in time. In the 
 mid-'80s, the farm crisis rose to the forefront of 
 national attention, featured in the nightly news, 
 television documentaries, commercial films, and 
 print journahsm. It was a gripping story, with 
 homicides in the heartland and grim prophecies 
 of "death of the family farm." In fact, the deep 
 and pervasive impact of the decade of the 1980s 
 on rural America goes far beyond the farm crisis 
 and is not well understood by most Americans. 
 The impact of the farm crisis was financially 
 devastating to some communities in the Midwest 
 and broadly assaulted rural identity and self- 
 
 16
 
 image because of the importance of farming to 
 the culture and social life of rural America. The 
 loss of factories, however, had a much more per- 
 vasive and deeper impact on the economies of 
 rural communities in the 1980s than the loss of 
 farms. 12 
 
 The downsizing and loss of rural manufac- 
 tm-ing facihties was responsible for much 
 greater losses in employment, retail trade, and 
 real estate values and produced a much greater 
 strain on community service capacities. Unlike 
 the farm situation, where the demise of a few 
 farms may be balanced by the expansion of those 
 remaining, when a rural factory cuts back or 
 closes down, other plants in the community, 
 subject to the same forces of international com- 
 petition and external ownership, may not be in a 
 position to expand, even though extra trained 
 labor may be available. Even where a factory 
 closing was followed by an opening of another 
 manufacturing firm, laid-off workers who found 
 new factory jobs suffered a substantial cut in pay 
 not only because they were starting over, shorn 
 of the seniority and raises they'd earned over the 
 years and with little bargaining power in an em- 
 ployer's market, but also because the entire pay 
 scale in the new manufacturing jobs may be sig- 
 nificantly lower than in the old firms. From 
 management's point of view, cutting labor costs 
 has been the essential strategy for meeting for- 
 eign competition. The high wages that rural fac- 
 tories had been paying were what they sought to 
 escape in moving overseas. The few plants that 
 now move into rural areas from, or instead of 
 urban locations, have done so because they an- 
 ticipate lower operating costs, particularly labor 
 costs. Displaced rural workers have thus been 
 over a barrel in that they have had to accept — 
 indeed to entice — new smaller manufacturing 
 firms with reduced wage rates and inadequate 
 benefit packages because, for both the worker 
 and the rural community, there was nothing else 
 available. '3 
 
 Retaining or attracting the better paying, 
 stable manufacturing firms is, for many rural 
 communities, no longer an option. The great 
 transformation in manufacturing employment in 
 rviral communities was hardly different in na- 
 ture than what was happening in major urban 
 areas of the nation, but its consequences were 
 often different because many rural areas were 
 more dependent on manufacturing than were 
 urban communities and were less able to com- 
 
 pensate for manufacturing losses by moving into 
 the service sector. Also, the consequences are 
 more serious in rural areas because of the scale 
 factor: The loss of a few mid-sized plants in a 
 county of 50,000 people, or just one plant in a 
 community of 1,500, is far more devastating on 
 workers and a community than the same clo- 
 sures would have in a metropohtan area.'^ 
 
 While many new jobs have been created in 
 rural areas, the numbers of these jobs are not 
 nearly important as the types of jobs. Of the new 
 jobs created, a large fraction are low-paying, 
 part time, provide no health benefits, and are 
 temporary or insecure. Pick up a local paper in a 
 rural community: the ads are mostly for part- 
 time jobs or for jobs with wages that are inade- 
 quate. Even if a worker were to take two half- 
 time service sector jobs, such as those at local 
 fast-food restaurants or supermarkets, both to- 
 gether do not equal a single, full-time job that 
 was lost firom the local manufacturing plant, as 
 each of the part-time jobs offers lower hourly 
 wages than the full-time job, neither offers bene- 
 fits, and both may be temporary or insecure. 
 This shortfall in wages, benefits, and security 
 between "old employment" and "new employ- 
 ment" is not of course a uniquely rural phe- 
 nomenon. However, as with plant closings, it 
 hits rural people harder because the differential 
 between the jobs they have lost and the substi- 
 tutes they can find is particularly large and be- 
 cause there is a restricted pool of jobs for rural 
 workers. 15 The consequences are such that in 
 rural areas, even famUies with one or more 
 members in the work force are more likely than 
 urban families to fall below the poverty line, and 
 the poverty rate among rural families who work 
 increased in the 1980s. '^ 
 
 Another important effect on rural communi- 
 ties of economic downturn is the loss of young 
 people though out-migration. This is a serious 
 concern of rural communities across the country. 
 In 1988, the Wall Street Journal pubhshed a 
 story on the out-migration problem, covering 
 rural America from Maine to Montana. i'' 
 
 The cumulative impact of the changes that 
 hit rural America in the 1980s left deep eco- 
 nomic, social, and psychic wounds. This impact 
 was summed up by former Secretary of Agricul- 
 ture, Bob Bergland, as follows: "At the end of the 
 decade, it is clear that the troubles of rural 
 America have deeper roots than comparatively 
 short-term crises such as drought and farm fore- 
 
 17
 
 closures. The economic restructuring occurring 
 in rural America in the 1980s has had dramatic 
 social and economic consequences that are con- 
 tributing to the decUne of the quality of family 
 and community life in rural areas." i* 
 
 Prisons and Their "Host" Communities 
 
 Most of the research assessing prison impacts 
 on communities is exploratory. ^^ As well, exist- 
 ing studies examining prison impacts on com- 
 munities have been criticized for lack of meth- 
 odological rigor. 20 Nevertheless, review of those 
 included in a 1992 volume of the journal Crime 
 & Delinquency^^ suggests agreement on some 
 issues important to this paper. 
 
 Community opposition to prison sitings used 
 to be more widespread than it is today and based 
 on three factors: fear, concerns over economic 
 consequences, and "civic pride." The fear factor, 
 revolving around potential escapees, higher 
 community crime rates as a result of releasing 
 prisoners into the host community, the migra- 
 tion of prisoner families into the host communi- 
 ties, and, more recently, the spread of diseases 
 like HIV-AIDS beyond prison walls, has been 
 shown to be grossly exaggerated. An occurrence 
 of any one of these phenomena is rare, although 
 disproportionate media coverage of such unusual 
 occurrences has contributed to community mis- 
 perceptions. The economic consequences raised 
 by some citizens opposing prison sitings typically 
 include: decline in property values; an increase 
 in the community's tax burden as prisons do not 
 pay property taxes; and inadequate reimburse- 
 ment levels for locally provided services such as 
 water, garbage disposal, sewage disposal, educa- 
 tion, and law enforcement and court services. 
 Research findings on such economic impacts is 
 mixed, and many prison systems have now insti- 
 tuted ongoing reimbursement programs for lo- 
 cally provided services or one-time "impact 
 funds" for prison expansion. "Civic pride" con- 
 cerns include a variety of quahty-of-life issues 
 that reflect a community's conception of what an 
 ideal community is or should be. Rural citizens 
 have voiced a variety of doubts about the com- 
 patibility of "prison industries" with the rustic 
 character, quiet lifestyle, and pristine landscape 
 of many rural communities.22 As well, "status 
 and prestige" issues are often raised by people 
 afraid that prisons or other industries identified 
 as LULUs (locally unwanted land uses) such as 
 toxic waste dumps, garbage incinerators, power 
 
 plants, and airports will stigmatize a commu- 
 nity, negatively affecting a community's identity 
 in the eyes of the rest of the world as well as a 
 community's perceptions of itself.^^ 
 
 "I'm advocating right now another prison, or at 
 least additions to the existing prison . . . Because 
 the more beds we have over there, the more in- 
 mate population, the more water they're going to 
 use, and the more of our sewer services they're 
 going to use and the more jobs are going to be 
 needed . . . you politic for it — that's what you do." 
 
 Henry Rausch, mayor, Village of Coxsackie, 
 York, in Yes, In My Backyard 
 
 New 
 
 In the past, citizen opposition to prisons 
 based on concerns sometimes referred to collec- 
 tively as NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) was suf- 
 ficient to block many proposed sitings, often af- 
 ter bitter conflicts expensive to both sides. How- 
 ever, public resistance is no longer so predict- 
 able, and it is now common for rural communi- 
 ties to compete for new prisons. Two major rea- 
 sons for this change have been discussed in the 
 existing research hterature. First, as previously 
 discussed, dechning prosperity in rural commu- 
 nities and small towns has been such that many 
 local officials now lobby state and federal offi- 
 cials for prisons. Second, prison officials have 
 changed their siting practices in significant 
 ways. Many prison systems now rely on a com- 
 petitive bidding process for identifying potential 
 prison locales. ^'i For example, in 1996, 16 rural 
 communities in upstate New York appeared on a 
 hst of towns asking for prisons maintained by 
 the NYS Department of Corrections. In a state- 
 ment which typifies those coming from local ru- 
 ral leadership across America, Robert Van Slyke, 
 president of the Rome (New York) Area Cham- 
 ber of Commerce, said, "We've had a substantial 
 loss of various kinds of jobs. When we heard the 
 governor had proposed three new maximum- 
 security prisons, we asked whether Rome could 
 be considered. With the current state of the 
 economy, you have to look very seriously at 
 something like this. I think we have a compel- 
 Ung economic case to make.''^^ 
 
 In order to be considered "competitive" in the 
 bidding wars for prisons, rural communities and 
 small towns often offer financial assistance and 
 concessions such as donated land, upgraded 
 sewer and water systems, and housing subsidies. 
 
 18
 
 For example, in the all-out contest spurred by 
 New York Governor George Pataki's 1996 pro- 
 posal to build three new maximum-security pris- 
 ons, Altamont, a small Adirondack town, set 
 aside 100 acres of land to entice the state to put 
 a prison there. ^^ Antwerp, another small com- 
 munity in northern New York, appUed for a 
 $600,000 federal grant to rebuild their water- 
 supply system to increase their chances of win- 
 ning a state prison. ^^ 
 
 With the rapid privatization of prisons, some 
 local communities are getting into the prison 
 business themselves, seeking private financing 
 to build "spec" prisons in their backyards. Apple- 
 ton, Minnesota, and Hinton, Oklahoma, were 
 among the first towns taking matters into their 
 own hands by building and operating prisons as 
 economic development in the early '90s.28 Others 
 have followed. Jack Barrett, the mayor of Hold- 
 envUle, a small town in Oklahoma which had 
 lost both population and jobs as a result of the 
 oil-bust in the 1980s, made the Oklahoma De- 
 partment of Corrections an offer: We'U build you 
 a prison, Barrett said. You give us the prisoners. 
 True to his word, Barrett hooked up with Cor- 
 rections Corporation of America, the largest pri- 
 vate prison company in America, to manage his 
 proposed prison, and investors forked over the 
 $34 million the town needed for construction. In 
 1996, Holdenville opened a new 960-bed private 
 prison and not only is it chock full of Oklahoma 
 inmates but Steve Kaiser — the Oklahoma De- 
 partment of Correction's chief of operations at 
 the time of Barrett's original offer — is its war- 
 den.29 
 
 Despite a lack of research documenting long- 
 term economic impacts of prisons on communi- 
 ties, residents representing business interests 
 are most likely to give positive assessments of 
 prison effects, and rural officials often rely on 
 business leadership for guidance on prison de- 
 velopment. In the upstate New York town of 
 Romulus, Glen Cooke, the county's economic de- 
 velopment director, was quoted as saying that 
 economic development experts throughout the 
 state consider correctional facihties to be posi- 
 tive contributors to local economies, providing 
 good-paying jobs and benefits in communities 
 where employment is scarce. 3" 
 
 Ordinary citizens however often take a differ- 
 ent view. They are the most likely to view pris- 
 ons and their community effects as more nega- 
 tive or neutral than positive. ^^ Recognizing this. 
 
 prison officials repeatedly take steps to alter 
 these views through a wide variety of pubhc in- 
 formation and community relations efforts. It is 
 common for local officials to sponsor town meet- 
 ings where prison officials and their supporters 
 are invited to extol the benefits of prisons to 
 communities. When proposed prisons are on the 
 table, local newspapers are filled with articles 
 reporting grand claims for economic salvation 
 and flyers flood into local coffeeshops, general 
 stores, and mini-marts. The following statement 
 by Tip Kindel, a spokesperson for the California 
 Department of Corrections, is typical of a now 
 widespread tendency among prison officials to 
 defend prison expansion as an economic boon. 
 "Prisons not only stabihze a local economy but 
 can in fact rejuvenate it," he said. "There are no 
 seasonal fluctuations, it is a nonpolluting indus- 
 try, and in many circumstances it is virtually 
 invisible . . . You've got people that are working 
 there and spending their money there, so now 
 these communities are able to have a Little 
 League and all the kinds of activities that people 
 want. "32 
 
 Some recent accounts of prison-siting efforts 
 suggest that prison "pubhc relations" may be 
 moving into a whole new arena. After losing a 
 protracted battle in 1997 to locate a prison in the 
 Adirondack Park, the New York State Depart- 
 ment of Correctional Services (NYSDOCS) had 
 to look elsewhere for a place to build a new 750- 
 cell, double occupancy, maximum-security prison. 
 Malone, a small town in Franklin County, took it 
 and $10.8 milhon from NYSDOCS to expand and 
 extend the local water and sewer system. Addi- 
 tional negotiations are ongoing regarding more 
 monies for the town for other infrastructure im- 
 provements.33 In Southeast, Washington, D.C., 
 where a new federal prison has been proposed 
 and met with both strong support and strong 
 opposition. Corrections Corporation of America 
 (CCA), the private prison company vying for the 
 contract has reportedly offered to underwrite a 
 $1 milhon loan fund for local minority business 
 and make contributions to local youth programs. 
 An offer by CCA to pay for the costs of keeping a 
 now-closed Safeway grocery store open in the 
 community was declined by Safeway. It is also 
 reported that the prison company has offered 
 contracts to several local entrepreneurs to sup- 
 ply prison-related goods and services. The Ust of 
 other amenities offered to the community in ex- 
 change for its support of the prison includes the 
 
 19
 
 opening of a vocational training institute next to 
 the prison; home price guarantees (should the 
 price of surrounding homes be deflated because 
 of the prison); and criminal justice scholarships 
 to the University of the District of Columbia. ^^ 
 CCA's reported offers in Washington echo re- 
 ports of CCA tactics in other places: Judith 
 Greene notes in a 1999 paper on the privatiza- 
 tion of correctional services that in seeking a 
 contract with the U.S. Virgin Islands, CCA of- 
 fered the governor a $1 milhon revolving hne of 
 credit to assist local businesses and entrepre- 
 neurs in establishing contract opportunities with 
 the company. 3^ 
 
 Prisons as Economic Development: 
 Consequences for Young African American 
 Men in the Inner Cities 
 
 Prisons as a growth industry are dependent 
 upon ever-increasing numbers of prisoners, and 
 the United States provides ideal market condi- 
 tions. Our nation spends more on prisons and 
 incarcerates more people than any other indus- 
 triaUzed country in the world. In the early 
 1970s, there were about 200,000 people locked 
 up in correctional facihties in the United States. 
 Now, according to the Bureau of Justice Statis- 
 tics, there are almost 2 miUion. Well over half of 
 these people — 1,158,95& — are in state prisons. 
 California, Texas, New York, and Florida have 
 the largest state prisoner populations and Lou- 
 isiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and South 
 Carolina have the highest rates of incarcera- 
 tion.36 
 
 Despite a decrease in crime rates, criminal 
 justice spending has nearly doubled in real 
 terms since the mid-1980s and today well over a 
 third of that spending — $35.9 bilhon in 1995 — is 
 for the funding and administering of correctional 
 facihties. Most of these costs are borne by state 
 governments and go to build and maintain state 
 prisons. Looking at criminal justice spending 
 relative to the U.S. population, national per 
 capita spending was $366 in 1995, a 69 percent 
 real increase over 1983 per capita spending of 
 $217. Texas had the largest per capita growth — 
 112 percent — during this period. The top 15 
 state spenders on a per capita basis were the 
 District of Columbia, Alaska, New York, Califor- 
 nia, Nevada, New Jersey, Florida, Delaware, 
 Maryland, Connecticut, Arizona, Hawaii, Michi- 
 gan, Rhode Island, and Texas. State forecasts of 
 
 prison spending remain high into the new mil- 
 lennium as the numbers of prisoners continue to 
 grow37 
 
 Unprecedented increases in the U.S. adult 
 prison population have also spurred explosive 
 growth in the number of beds contracted from 
 the private sector. While the total number of 
 sentenced prisoners has doubled in 10 years, the 
 number of private beds under contract grew by 
 over 700 percent. With many states worried that 
 increasing prison populations will result in run- 
 away costs, the private sector is viewed as a vi- 
 able option to help provide correctional services. 
 Also, since well-capitalized private corrections 
 companies are able to form mutually advanta- 
 geous partnerships with community officials in- 
 terested in the expanded employment and com- 
 mercial opportunities that prison facilities 
 promise, it is likely that such partnerships are 
 proliferating and will continue to proliferate in 
 rural communities. ^8 
 
 Private prisons in the United States accepted 
 their first inmates in the mid-1980s. As of De- 
 cember 1998, at least 27 states make use of pri- 
 vate prisons, and approximately 90,000 inmates 
 are being held in prisons run for profit. The Cor- 
 rections Corporation of America (CCA), the larg- 
 est U.S. private prison company, was founded in 
 1983 and began accepting its first Texas inmates 
 before it had completed a facihty in that state. 
 The inmates were housed in rented motel rooms. 
 A year later CCA approached the State of Ten- 
 nessee with an astounding offer: CCA would buy 
 the state's entire prison system for $250 milhon. 
 Though the governor of Tennessee (whose wife 
 was an early investor in CCA) was supportive, 
 the plan was blocked by the Democratic majority 
 in the state's legislature. Wackenhut Corrections 
 Corporation (WCC) is the second largest U.S. 
 prison company and its parent company, the 
 Wackenhut Corporation, has for many years 
 worked closely with the federal government 
 guarding nuclear weapons facihties and overseas 
 embassies. In the December 1998 issue of The 
 Atlantic Monthly, Eric Schlosser wrote that the 
 company has long been accused of being a CIA 
 front, an accusation that George Wackenhut, a 
 former FBI employee, denies. Schlosser also says 
 that Wackenhut Corporation provides strike- 
 breaking and antiterrorism services, and when it 
 decided to enter the private business it hired 
 Norman Carlson, the former head of the Federal 
 Bureau of Prisons. In 1997, Wackenhut became 
 
 20
 
 the first private prison company ever hired by 
 the Federal Bureau of Prisons to manage a large 
 correctional facility. ^^ 
 
 UC-Davis professor Angela Davis wrote in 
 the November 1998 issue of ColorLines Maga- 
 zine that the stocks of both CCA and WCC were 
 recently doing well: Between 1996 and 1997, 
 CCA's revenues increased by 58 percent, from 
 293 million to $462 million. Its net profit grew 
 from $30.9 million to $53.9 million. WCC raised 
 Its revenues from $138 million in 1996 to $210 
 milhon in 1997.'*'' Greene, in a 1999 paper deliv- 
 ered to the RAND Corporation on prison privati- 
 zation in the U.S., states that financial analysts 
 who closely track the private prison industry 
 anticipate continued robust growth. The reve- 
 nue-generating potential of the industry has 
 been projected to triple by 2002.''* 
 
 "Race-ing" Justice 
 
 African American, Latino, and Native peoples 
 are incarcerated in numbers vastly dispropor- 
 tionate to their numbers in our overall popula- 
 tion. Today, nearly 70 percent of the prison and 
 jail population in the U.S. are people of color. 
 Nearly aU are poor. In 1995, 47 percent of fed- 
 eral and state inmates were black, the largest 
 group behind bars. Latinos are the fastest 
 growing group behind bars. Between 1985 and 
 1995, Latinos jumped from 10 percent to 18 per- 
 cent of all state and federal inmates. In 1995, 45 
 percent of state prison inmates were unem- 
 ployed at the time of their arrest. The rest re- 
 ported an income of less than $10, 000. ■'^ Evi- 
 dence from one state — New York — suggests the 
 possibility that a majority of all state prisoners 
 may come from a relatively small number of 
 communities in the nation's inner cities. Data 
 published in the early '90s showed that 75 per- 
 cent of all New York's state prisoners came from 
 seven predominantly African American and La- 
 tino communities in New York City.''^ 
 
 The so-caUed war on drugs is primarily re- 
 sponsible for the tremendous increase in the 
 number of people going to prison and for the in- 
 creasing racial disparities in prison populations. 
 Since 1980, the number of drug offenders behind 
 bars has gone from approximately 50,000 to 
 about 400,000 — representing more people than 
 are in prison for all crimes in England, France, 
 Germany, and Japan combined. ''■* Between 1985 
 and 1994, drug offenders constituted more than 
 a third (36 percent) of the increase in the state 
 
 prison population and more than two-thirds (71 
 percent) of the increase in the federal prison 
 population. ''5 Many people point to the drug war 
 as the single most important reason for the in- 
 creasing rates of imprisonment for young black 
 men. In 1992, blacks made up about 12 percent 
 of the U.S. population and, according to the Na- 
 tional Household Survey on Drug Abuse, about 
 13 percent of those reporting using any illicit 
 drug on a monthly basis. Yet more than a third 
 of all drug possession arrests, more than half of 
 all possession con'victions, and three-quarters of 
 state prison sentences for possession involved 
 blacks. In 1996, black inmates were nearly twice 
 as Ukely as white inmates to be admitted to state 
 prison for a drug offense. Nearly 40 percent of all 
 black state prison admissions were drug offend- 
 ers. ''^ 
 
 Recent data on these offenders suggest that 
 few convicted drug offenders are dangerous 
 criminals. In New York, for example, nearly 80 
 percent of the drug offenders who received 
 prison sentences in 1997 had never been con- 
 victed of a violent felony. One in four drug of- 
 fenders in prison in New York was convicted of 
 simple possession, primarily of minute quanti- 
 ties.'*'' While 74 percent of the drug-using popula- 
 tion in New York is white, African Americans 
 and Latinos comprised 94 percent of the drug 
 offenders in New York State prisons at the end 
 of 1997.^8 In the words of Professor David 
 Courtwright, the drug war has functioned "as a 
 kind of giant vacuum cleaner, hovering over the 
 nation's inner cities, sucking young black men 
 off the street and into prison. "''^ 
 
 Impacts of High Incarceration Rates of African 
 American Males on Inner-City Communities: 
 Transferring "Wealth" from Inner Cities to Rural 
 Communities 
 
 If one accepts the assumptions and claims 
 that prisons bring to their host communities a 
 panoply of "benefits," it makes sense to explore 
 the following question: If rural communities ex- 
 perience a net gain in becoming prison hosts, do 
 inner-city communities experience a net loss as a 
 result of providing a disproportionate share of 
 the "raw material" which makes the gains 
 claimed for rural prison host communities possi- 
 ble? In exploring this question, I will borrow and 
 add to a phrase and concept — the transfer of 
 wealth — from Dina Rose and Todd Clear of the 
 University of Florida.^'' 
 
 21
 
 According to Rose and Clear (1998), while 
 there is little direct empirical evidence of the 
 social impacts of high incarceration rates, there 
 is a substantial body of indirect evidence that 
 high incarceration rates of African American 
 males in the U.S. have profound impacts on in- 
 ner-city communities. Rose and Clear challenge 
 the assumption that arresting and removing 
 large numbers of offenders from then- communi- 
 ties will always make these communities safer or 
 stronger. Citing research indicating that offend- 
 ers represent assets as well as liabihties to their 
 communities. Rose and Clear posit that the re- 
 moval of large numbers of young men from in- 
 ner-city neighborhoods may negatively affect 
 their socioeconomic composition. For example, 
 while studies of inner-city youth gangs docu- 
 ment the violent criminal lifestyles of gang 
 members, they also document the connections of 
 these young men to children, famihes, and oth- 
 ers in their neighborhoods. In one study, a ma- 
 jority of active gang members were fathers, and 
 a minority were employed in legitimate jobs 
 though most worked sporadically.^' 
 
 In addition, because the growth in imprison- 
 ment in recent years has been increasingly made 
 up of nonviolent drug offenders. Rose and Clear 
 suggest that the removal of potential assets may 
 be increasing. That is these men may be offend- 
 ers who leave their communities for prisons and 
 take with them the support they have been pro- 
 viding to networks that sustain family and 
 community structures. Several studies point to 
 the conclusion that some active offenders whose 
 crimes make them eligible for incarceration are 
 financial assets to their families and communi- 
 ties. They contribute directly to the welfare of 
 their famihes and other intimates in the same 
 way noncriminal males do, although perhaps 
 they provide fewer total dollars. ^^ 
 
 Rose and Clear (1998) also cite evidence sug- 
 gesting that incarceration of criminally active 
 fathers does not necessarily improve the envi- 
 ronment for remaining sons. One study^^ of a 
 male jail intake sample finds prehminary evi- 
 dence for the existence of substantial positive 
 parenting prior to incarceration. After the male's 
 imprisonment, the responses of the jailed in- 
 mate's family to his incarceration includes ad- 
 dress changes because the remaining family 
 moved into more cramped quarters and new 
 school districts; family disruption, including the 
 arrival of new male roles into the family replac- 
 
 ing the inmate; reduced time for maternal par- 
 enting due to taking secondary employment; and 
 so on. All of these factors are potentially dis- 
 rupting forces for the family, and each tends to 
 disturb family cohesiveness, which studies show 
 would predict serious dehnquency.^'' 
 
 Rose and Clear state that research shows 
 that many, if not most, criminals also have legal 
 employment so that their removal from the 
 neighborhood removes a worker from the local 
 economy. While removal of a single offender may 
 free a legitimate job for a noncriminal worker, in 
 local areas where a high proportion of residents 
 engage in both legal and nonlegal work, remov- 
 ing many individuals may devastate the local 
 economy. Family members earning money con- 
 tribute to the welfare of their famihes and this is 
 true regardless of whether those earnings are 
 from legal or nonlegal activities. In an effort to 
 sustain their famUies, mothers rely upon regu- 
 lar, substantial financial help from people in 
 their personal networks because neither welfare 
 nor low-paying jobs provide sufficient income to 
 cover expenses. Incarceration removes from the 
 neighborhood many of the men who provide 
 some tjTje of support to these women. 
 
 Rose and Clear (1998) clearly suggest that 
 prior to incarceration, most prisoners are an 
 economic resource to their neighborhoods and 
 immediate famihes. They also argue that once 
 arrested and incarcerated, this economic value is 
 transformed and transferred. It is transformed 
 into penal capital — the demand for salaried cor- 
 rectional employees to provide security. It is also 
 transferred to the locahty of the prison where 
 the penal system's employees reside and Uve. 
 
 Prisoner Labor 
 
 "Today we're just clearing some brush along the 
 property lines for the water treatment plant. 
 We've done a lot of painting this year, painting a 
 community center building in Athens, painted 
 the inside of a church parish hall, put a roof on 
 the town of New Baltimore town hall, had them 
 sealing blacktop . . . just about everything. They 
 get an industrial rate which amounts to 42 cents 
 an hour. " 
 
 Prison guard coordinator of inmate work crew, 
 Greene Correctional Facility, in Yes, In My Backyard 
 
 22
 
 "We try to accommodate whatever we can . . . 
 schools are another area where we get involved. 
 Like basic tasks: reupholstering, furniture, ex- 
 amination tables that may in the school. We have 
 the wherewithal to do that ... 7 don't recall any 
 school in the local area, any church, any non- 
 profit organization that's come to us with a proj- 
 ect that we can't handle inside the facility where 
 we've turned them away." 
 
 Dominic Mantello, warden, Coxsackie Correctional 
 Facility's 
 
 In addition to the transformation of a young 
 black man's economic value into the demand for 
 salaried prison employees through his incarcera- 
 tion, it is also important to consider the benefits 
 that accrue to rural communities as a result of 
 the exploitation of his labor once he is impris- 
 oned. In her article assessing the impacts of 
 prisons on host communities, Carlson (1991) 
 states: "Overall the findings on prison impacts 
 show that prisons provide considerable economic 
 benefits to their host communities and sur- 
 rounding areas through direct employment, local 
 purchasing, and inmate labor" (emphasis 
 added). She goes on to say that while in small 
 towns prisons operate much like any other in- 
 dustry in terms of their potential benefits, 
 "Prisons as industries do have the added plus of 
 a captive workforce available for community 
 projects."^^ 
 
 Community work projects performed by pris- 
 oners are very common in prisons located in ru- 
 ral communities and small towns, and prison 
 officials see them as good "community relations." 
 There can be a lot of competition within the 
 community for the services of inmates working 
 both inside and outside the prison. While maxi- 
 mum-security inmates may not participate in 
 outdoor crews in some areas of the country, it is 
 common for all prisoners to work on projects 
 benefiting the host community as part of their 
 indoor programming. 
 
 Concern over the exploitation of prisoner la- 
 bor by pubhc and private prisons is growing. 
 Since 1990, 30 states have made it legal to con- 
 tract out prison labor to private companies 
 where the workers have virtually no rights and 
 get paid a fraction of outside wages — much of 
 which they often don't get to keep. Private 
 prison companies using inmate labor pay no 
 overtime, no vacation, no sick pay, no unem- 
 
 ployment insiorance, and no workers' compensa- 
 tion. Prison workers don't have the right to or- 
 ganize, strike, file a grievance, or talk to the 
 press. They can be "hired," "fired," and replaced 
 at will. A recent report from the Washington of- 
 fice of the United Auto Workers provides the 
 following examples: 
 
 • Spaulding golf balls are packed by prisoners 
 in Hawaii. Inmates test blood for medical 
 firms and raise hogs in Arizona. New Mexico 
 prisoners take hotel reservations. 
 
 • Konica has its copiers repaired by prisoners 
 who get between 35 to 47 cents per hour. 
 
 • TWA reservations clerks make up to 
 $18/hour in the union. The company pays 
 the prison $5/hour for the same work. The 
 prisoners themselves get less than 50 
 cents/hour out of this. 
 
 • Oregon inmates are "leased" to outside em- 
 ployers for $3 per day. 
 
 • In Texas, Lockhart Technologies closed its 
 plant in Austin, where it assembled and re- 
 paired circuit boards for corporations like 
 IBM and Texas Instruments. The work is 
 now done by inmates in a private prison run 
 by Wackenhut which expropriates 80 percent 
 of the minimum wage paid. 
 
 • The California Department of Corrections 
 has been seeking a market niche in Japan's 
 jeans market for its convict-made "Gangsta 
 BIues."57 
 
 Population Impacts and Implications: Are Inner- 
 City Communities Losing Dollars and Political 
 Power to Rural Communities? 
 
 "When the U.S. census counts people every ten 
 years, they count prisoners as well. They're con- 
 sidered residents. And, what ends up happening 
 is the population is skewed, is increased by the 
 number of people who are residing in the prisons. 
 So, race, age, ethnicity, income — basically any 
 factor you could put your finger on that describes 
 a community is skewed in the case of Coxsackie, 
 town and village of Coxsackie, and the county in 
 general . . . There are federal programs and state 
 programs that base their assistance to the com- 
 munity on population, so that gets altered ..." 
 
 Ronald Roth, director, Greene County Planning De- 
 partment, New York'* 
 
 23
 
 Another item of potential wealth that is 
 transferred out of inner cities along with inmate 
 labor is that prisoner's residential status as re- 
 corded in the census. Inmates of prison facihties 
 are counted for census purposes in the communi- 
 ties where the institutions are located. In con- 
 trast, inmates of local jails are allocated to their 
 home addresses — unless they have no fixed ad- 
 dress — on the premise that they are short-term 
 residents of the jail compared with the longer 
 confinement of prison inmates. This pohcy has 
 many imphcations. Beale (1998) reports that in 
 at least 60 rural U.S. counties the shift fi-om 
 population loss in the 1980s to population gain 
 in the 1990s can be fully or partly explained by 
 increases in prisoner populations. 
 
 Non-metro counties that obtained new pris- 
 ons during 1980-1989 had an overall population 
 increase of 8.8 percent fi"om 1980 to 1990, well 
 above the 4.2 percent average and amounting to 
 nearly half of all 1980-1990 population growth 
 in those counties.^^ Some states and the federal 
 government put multiple prisons in the same 
 county or are building large prisons (especially 
 in California). As a result, a number of non- 
 metro counties now have very substantial prison 
 populations. In 1994, there were 28 counties in 
 which at least 3,000 inmates were being held. 
 Walker and Anderson Counties in Texas and 
 Kings County in California, housed a total of 
 36,000 prisoners, with 10,000 inmates or more in 
 each county.^" In the North, where the rural 
 population is heavily white, the Isirge increase in 
 rural prison inmates of primarily urban origin 
 explains many cases of unusually high growth of 
 non-metro black and Hispanic population counts. 
 In upstate New York, three counties that ac- 
 quired prisons saw their total black population 
 rise from 529 in 1980 to 4,413 in 1990. Most of 
 this increase was prison related. The most ex- 
 treme example is that of Browne County, lUi- 
 nois, a small Corn Belt farm county where the 
 black population rose in between 1980 and 1990 
 from 1 person to 547 after a prison opened.^' 
 
 Because a variety of federal and state funding 
 allocations are based, in some fashion, on the 
 census, it may be that rural communities hosting 
 prisons are gaining government funding as a 
 result of high incarceration rates while inner- 
 city communities are losing funding. To my 
 knowledge, such prisoner-related transfers of 
 wealth as a result of census pohcies have not 
 been the subject of pubUshed research or public 
 
 discussion. However, in states where a signifi- 
 cant percentage of the prisoner population is 
 drawn from a relatively small number of inner- 
 city communities (e.g.. New York) or where pris- 
 ons are particularly large (e.g., California) or 
 clustered in one region (e.g., New York and 
 Michigan), one can posit that census-driven eco- 
 nomic impacts may be profound. Additionally, 
 and in particular in the North, where predomi- 
 nantly minority prisoner populations are 
 counted in the census of predominantly white 
 communities, there may be additional imphca- 
 tions in terms of funding formulas which weigh 
 race and ethnicity as factors. 
 
 In states like New York where several of 
 these situations exist, one could conceivably 
 track the flow of dollars directly out of a few 
 identifiable inner-city communities and into a 
 few rural counties. According to analyses pub- 
 hshed in the early '90s, the vast majority of New 
 York's state prisoners (75 percent) come from 
 seven predominantly African American and La- 
 tino neighborhoods in New York City,^^ while an 
 even greater percentage (89 percent) are housed 
 in correctional facihties in rural areas. ^^ 
 
 Another potential consequence for communi- 
 ties of prisoner-related population shifts are 
 changes in pohtical representation and power. 
 Pohtical districts are based on population size 
 and determine the number of congressional, 
 state, and local representatives. Population 
 groups may "win" or "lose" based on demo- 
 graphic shifts. From census to census, shifts 
 within and without states may result in the gain 
 or loss of representatives for communities. 
 Again, in the case of prisoner-driven population 
 gain or loss, the imphcations for resulting gain 
 or loss in pohtical representation and power are 
 likely to be most significant for communities 
 losing a large percentage of their populations to 
 prisons and for communities and counties expe- 
 riencing significant population growth as a re- 
 sult of their roles as prison hosts. 
 
 Finally, as prison privatization adds fuel to 
 an already increasing tendency for states to 
 house their prisoners out-of-state, the potential 
 for interstate as well as intrastate consequences 
 of prisoner-driven population shifts also grows. 
 
 Prisons Versus Social Programs 
 
 As prison development has surged over the 
 last two decades, social programs benefiting the 
 poor in rural and urban America have receded 
 
 24
 
 dramatically. As recently as 1993, the states 
 collectively spent more on Aid to Families with 
 Dependent Children (AFDC) than they did on 
 corrections. By 1996, these priorities were re- 
 versed. Government expenditures on corrections 
 grew by nearly $8 billion nationwide while 
 AFDC outlays were cut by almost 2 billion. As a 
 result, states began channeling 42 percent more 
 of their resources toward imprisonment than 
 income support for poor families. Federal wel- 
 fare reform has led to even further cuts.^* 
 
 Beginning in the '80s, the shift in government 
 funding priorities toward penal institutions pro- 
 viding jobs and other economic supports to rural 
 communities and away from programs benefit- 
 ing inner-city communities is perhaps nowhere 
 so starkly illustrated as in the case of the use of 
 low-income housing funds by New York's former 
 governor, Mario Cuomo, to build prisons. In 
 1981, New York's voters defeated a $500 milhon 
 bond issue for new prison construction. Cuomo 
 decided to use the state's Urban Development 
 Corporation (UDC) as an alternative means of 
 financing prisons. Created in 1968 to bmld 
 housing for the inner-city poor, the UDC was 
 legislatively birthed on the day of Martin Luther 
 King, Jr.'s, funeral, to honor his legacy. Using 
 the UDC's authority to issue state bonds without 
 voter approval, Cuomo added more prison beds 
 than all the previous governors in the state's 
 history combined. The total cost to New York 
 taxpayers including interest eventually reached 
 about $7 billion.65 
 
 Though the UDC strategy failed to stem the 
 tide of prison overcrowding in New York, it did 
 manage to turn the Urban Development Corpo- 
 ration into a rural development corporation that 
 invested billions of dollars in rural upstate New 
 York. While thousands of young black men (and 
 black women) were swept from the streets of in- 
 ner cities in police "drug sweeps" and into the 
 state's prison system by New York's Rockefeller 
 drug laws, 28 of the 29 correctional facilities 
 built during the Cuomo years were bviilt in rural 
 upstate New York.^^ 
 
 "It is now clear, throughout the country, not just 
 New York, that the only pot of state dollars big 
 enough and discretionary enough to support or to 
 be stolen to pay for more prisons is higher educa- 
 tion . . . The higher education community gets 
 fooled, in a way, every year because they're told, 
 "Don't worry, this prison expansion comes out of 
 
 capital money, it's just borrowed money so it 
 doesn 't affect your annual support. " But of course 
 that's foolish, because once the prison is built, 
 each inmate costs $30,000 a year. You're now hit- 
 ting operating money. And we now say to the 
 higher education people, "Gee folks, we're giving 
 you every dollar we possibly can but we just don't 
 have that money any more. Fixed costs are eating 
 it up." What are these fixed costs? The fixed costs 
 result from the prison expansion!" 
 
 Daniel Feldman, former chair, Corrections Commit- 
 tee, New York State Assembly, in Yes, In My Back- 
 yard 
 
 Another stark illustration of the trade-offs for 
 young minorities in government pohcies that 
 prioritize funding for incarceration is the steal- 
 ing of higher education dollars for the building of 
 prisons. PubUc concern over this has recently 
 surfaced in many states. In California, the state 
 prison budget has already surpassed that of the 
 state's once stellar university system. In Michi- 
 gan, Governor John Engler proposed a 1999— 
 2000 budget with an $80.4 million increase in 
 spending for prisons and an overall increase for 
 corrections that was double the proposed per- 
 centage increase for higher education.^' In New 
 York, despite a $2 bilhon state surplus. Governor 
 George Pataki proposed deep cuts in education, 
 including a sharp reduction in tuition aid to poor 
 college students, for the millennium year. Com- 
 bined with his veto last year of $500 miUion in 
 school construction, Pataki's proposals to spend 
 $180 milhon for construction of a new maximum 
 security prison, another $180 milhon already 
 appropriated for a maximum security prison to 
 be built in rural Seneca county by the summer of 
 2000, and $21 million to operate a third maxi- 
 mum-security prison nearly completed in the 
 small town of Malone in northern New York,^^ 
 met with unusually strong criticism. Noting that 
 crime rates have decreased in New York by 29 
 percent since 1995, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, 
 testifying at a state budget hearing, said that 
 New York's Republican governor was "using our 
 children as pohtical trade-offs," by underfinanc- 
 ing schools while building prisons in depressed 
 upstate communities to molhfy voters who need 
 jobs. "These poor schools serve as feeder systems 
 for the prison-industrial complex," he said to re- 
 porters after the hearing.^^ 
 
 25
 
 Since fiscal year 1988, New York's public uni- 
 versities have seen their state's support for their 
 operating budgets plummet by 29 percent while 
 funding for prisons has increased by 76 percent. 
 In actual dollars, there has been a nearly equal 
 trade-off, with the NYS Department of Correc- 
 tional Services receiving a $761 milhon increase 
 during that time while state funding for New 
 York's city and state university systems has de- 
 cHned by $615 million. Young people of color 
 have been hit the hardest by these shifts in 
 funding priorities. There are now more blacks 
 and Hispanics locked up in prison than there are 
 attending the state universities. And since 1989, 
 there have been more blacks entering the state 
 prison system for drug offenses each year than 
 there were graduating from the state university 
 system with undergraduate, master's and doc- 
 toral degrees combined. In 1988, SUNY adminis- 
 trators estimated "total undergraduate student 
 cost" (including tuition and incidental fees, room, 
 board, books, transportation, and other costs) to 
 be $6,303. At that time, those costs represented 
 13.5 percent of the national white median family 
 income, 20 percent of the Latino family income 
 and 24 percent of the African American family 
 income. The disproportionate burden experi- 
 enced by famihes of color has since intensified, 
 as the total cost of attending SUNY rose to 
 $11,478 by 1997. Today, these costs represent 25 
 percent of the white median family income and 
 42 percent of the national median income for 
 both blacks and Hispanics. '° 
 
 The education vs. prisons trade-offs are par- 
 ticularly tragic for young people and for the soci- 
 ety at large because research shows that quality 
 education is one of the most effective forms of 
 crime prevention.'^' 
 
 Losing Family and Community Ties 
 
 On January 17, 1996, the American Correc- 
 tional Association's Delegate Assembly unani- 
 mously ratified a new Pubhc Correctional Pohcy 
 statement regarding crime prevention. A section 
 of this pohcy statement reads: "Correctional 
 practitioners should become involved in the 
 search for and development of poUcies and pro- 
 grams that will be effective in both the preven- 
 tion of crime and the lowering of recidivism 
 rates. Correctional agencies and organizations 
 should . . . consider the offender's family as an 
 integral partner in the offender's treatment pro- 
 gram, and as an essential element in crime pre- 
 
 vention among families at risk. Using this ap- 
 proach, we assist not only the offender, but an- 
 other high-risk group: the children of offend- 
 
 ers. 
 
 '72 
 
 This statement recognizes that persons under 
 criminal justice control, their families, and soci- 
 ety at large benefit when prisoners are able to 
 maintain or estabhsh positive relationships with 
 their families. Studies examining the impact of 
 the family on recidivism have consistently found 
 that prisoners who are able to maintain strong 
 family ties while in prison have significantly 
 greater success on parole. '^ The most extensive 
 and often-quoted study on family impacts on 
 prisoner recidivism points to the significance of 
 visitation as the crucial mechanism whereby 
 famUies maintain strong ties. In their study, 
 Holt and Miller''' show a significant difference in 
 the recidivism rate of prisoners who have had 
 regular, continuing visits from family members 
 as compared to those who did not have visitors 
 or had sporadic visits. The recidivism rate 
 among those prisoners with regular family visi- 
 tors was significantly lower than that of any 
 other group. Another important finding of this 
 study is that even the most highly regarded pa- 
 role success indicators (e.g., "having a job wait- 
 ing") were not found to affect parole success as 
 much as having a family to go home to. 
 
 Similarly, there is wide agreement in child 
 welfare hterature concerning the importance to 
 children of parent-child visitation following a 
 separation, and particularly for children who 
 suffer a forced separation from a parent as in the 
 case of fathers who are incarcerated. Visitation 
 dispels common fears about their parent's well- 
 being and common feelings of rejection and guilt. 
 In addition, according to Denise Johnston, M.D., 
 director of the Center for Children of Incarcer- 
 ated Parents at Pacific Oaks College in Pasa- 
 dena, "visitation is the first and perhaps most 
 important step toward family reunification." 
 While some adults who work with children of 
 incarcerated parents and some family members 
 express concerns about the "appropriateness" of 
 children visiting prisons or jails, there is no evi- 
 dence in the hterature, either from empirical 
 studies or statements of expert opinion, that 
 parent-child visitation in a jail or prison setting 
 has any significant or long-term negative conse- 
 quences for participating children. '^ 
 
 While there has been httle study of the im- 
 pact of incarceration on wives and other prisoner 
 
 26
 
 intimates, existing studies find that prisoners' 
 wives report that such hardships as increased 
 parenting responsibilities, providing their incar- 
 cerated husbands with material goods, the fi- 
 nancial costs of communicating with their incar- 
 cerated husbands, and lonehness created a socio- 
 emotional impoverishment directly related to 
 famihal structural change that occurred after 
 their husbands' imprisonment. While prison vis- 
 iting can be a grim experience insofar as the 
 constraints placed upon visiting can undermine 
 emotionally satisfying interactions, the extent of 
 visitation by the women in spite of such con- 
 straints speaks to the importance placed by 
 women on visiting. In a recent ethnographic 
 study of 30 prisoners' wives (defined to include 
 women hving consensually with prisoners for at 
 least 6 months prior to their arrest), Laura 
 Fishman comments, "Given the constraints upon 
 visiting, the extent to which the women in the 
 study population visited their husbands was 
 starthng. Twenty wives averaged two visits 
 every week when the prison was within easy 
 commuting distance from their homes . . . Many 
 of them beheved it was absolutely necessary to 
 visit their husbands although it was very diffi- 
 cult at times to make the trip. However, when 
 the prison was located at considerable distance 
 from wives' homes, the frequency of visits de- 
 creased.'"'^ 
 
 As prisoner populations are increasingly 
 made up of inner-city men placed in rural pris- 
 ons, opportunities for visitation important to 
 maintaining family ties are dramatically dimin- 
 ished. Moreover, the practice by states of ship- 
 ping their prisoners out-of-state, a practice fu- 
 eled and likely to be increased by prison privati- 
 zation, may significantly increase the incidence 
 and speed of prisoner family breakdown. For 
 example, almost 3,000 Wisconsin prisoners are 
 now housed outside the state, primarily in pri- 
 vate prison facihties, and the Wisconsin De- 
 partment of Corrections has requested money for 
 4,500 new rental beds.''' While it is true that 
 some prisoner families are already "broken" 
 prior to incarceration by other forces, including 
 the prisoner's lifestyle and lack of material and 
 emotional resources to invest in famihes, it is 
 also true that famihes and children are often 
 cited by male prisoners as a major source of mo- 
 tivation and support. It is indeed ironic that for 
 some men in some prisons, incarceration affords 
 the first opportunity they have had to begin the 
 
 process of gaining the human capital (e.g., edu- 
 cation, occupational skills, and good physical and 
 mental health) necessary to view themselves as 
 having something important to give to others.''* 
 
 Implications and Suggestions for the Future 
 
 Despite decreasing crime rates, an overall 
 drop in admissions to state prisons, and a de- 
 crease in new court commitments for drug of- 
 fenders, between 1990 and 1997 the number of 
 people in state prisons increased 7 percent an- 
 nually. Truth in Sentencing Laws and tightening 
 of parole are expected to increase the state 
 prison population in coming years through the 
 incarceration of more people for longer periods of 
 time.'^ In addition, population trends are likely 
 to spur even greater growth among young 
 adults. 
 
 From 1995 to 2010, the Census Bureau proj- 
 ects that the population aged 18-24 years — ages 
 at which incarceration starts to accelerate — will 
 grow by 21 percent. Growing prison populations 
 and rising health care costs for prisoners will 
 continue to put pressure on state budgets. As a 
 result, more prison capacity will be built and 
 more jobs in those prisons will be created at 
 rates unlikely to be drastically lower than cur- 
 rent ones. A combination of states' concerns over 
 out-of-control corrections spending and the po- 
 Utical strength of the private prison sector is 
 likely to significantly increase the private share 
 of state corrections well into the new millen- 
 nium. It should not come as a surprise that fi- 
 nancial analysts forecast astounding growth in 
 revenues for the private prison industry into the 
 foreseeable future. 
 
 I can find no evidence in these trends to indi- 
 cate that the grossly disproportionate incarcera- 
 tion of young black men will lessen in the near 
 future. Indeed, the recent and continuing pubhc 
 hysteria over "super-predator" youth combined 
 with these trends suggest the opposite. For the 
 coming decade, I do not foresee a change major 
 enough in the fortunes of either inner cities or 
 depressed rural communities to significantly al- 
 ter the symbiotic dynamic that has developed 
 between them over the past two decades: Inner 
 cities will continue to lose vast numbers of their 
 young men — and much of their "wealth" as I 
 have discussed — to the penal system and to 
 communities which are far away from their own. 
 And, given the predicted growth in the share of 
 
 27
 
 the "prison market" that will become privatized 
 in the near future, I predict a concomitant 
 growth in the share of young black men who will 
 be serving time in rural communities in states 
 other than their own. In fact, at this point I be- 
 lieve we can only hope that prisons for profit will 
 be constrained from shipping prisoners out of 
 the country where labor costs are cheaper and 
 accountabihty even less of a problem than it is 
 here. The impact of this on prisoner families and 
 on recidivism rates can only be negative from all 
 points of view excepting those that support the 
 further destabihzation of inner-city families and 
 communities and criminaUzation of blacks to 
 support the prison-industrial complex. 
 
 While there is some anecdotal evidence (in 
 the form of newspaper accounts, postings on the 
 Internet from local antiprison citizen groups, 
 and the like) to suggest that, among average 
 citizens, rural and smaU town community oppo- 
 sition to the siting of prisons — and in particular 
 to the siting of private prisons — may be growing, 
 there is, to my knowledge, no research confirm- 
 ing this. Also, the same anecdotal reports indi- 
 cate no change in the pubUcly expressed support 
 for prison development among local, county, and 
 state officials as well as community business in- 
 terests. 
 
 The recent attempt to site a privately man- 
 aged federal prison in Southeast, Washington, 
 D.C., is an interesting deviation in the pattern of 
 rural prison sitings. Community reactions to the 
 proposal are mixed with proponents predicting 
 the usual economic benefits and opponents— 
 particularly in the surrounding suburbs — 
 expressing NIMBY-Uke concerns. However, 
 there are additional features in this local battle 
 that are largely absent fi"om rviral debates. Pro- 
 ponents are making the argument that an inner- 
 city prison would keep prisoners close to their 
 famiUes. Dissenters are expressing opposition to 
 the prison as a symbol of a racist criminal justice 
 system and an unsatisfactory response to the 
 needs of the community for sustainable economic 
 development support. Because inner-city com- 
 munities fit the economic profile of an attractive 
 prison locale as defined by pubUc and private 
 prison officials (e.g., economic need is great 
 enough to overcome other community concerns 
 about having a prison in their backyard) and 
 inner-city prisons would have the added advan- 
 tage of keeping prisoners close to home it may be 
 
 that other such sitings will be attempted and 
 successful in the future. 
 
 In sum, I beheve that over the last two dec- 
 ades a prison-industrial complex has indeed 
 been created which, at this point and into the 
 near future, is dependent on the continuing eco- 
 nomic decline of communities in rural and inner- 
 city America. 
 
 I am pessimistic both about the potential for 
 any major reversals in the trends I have dis- 
 cussed and the development of sufficient wUl 
 among this country's political and business lead- 
 ership to instigate major change "from the top." 
 If major change is to occur, I beheve it will begin 
 "at the bottom" among concerned, ordinary citi- 
 zens of all races and ethnic backgrounds. That 
 said, I do believe there are actions that con- 
 cerned leadership could take to help facihtate 
 citizen efforts toward changing these trends over 
 the long-run and mitigating their impact on 
 young African American men, their famihes, and 
 communities in the near future. These actions 
 include: 
 
 1. Use the mechanisms and forums available to 
 concerned leadership to extend the frame- 
 work for public, pohcymaker, and profes- 
 sional discussion of sentencing and correc- 
 tions policies and practices to include a sig- 
 nificant new emphasis on community im- 
 pacts. 
 
 2. Fund applied research to determine the ac- 
 tual economic effects on inner-city and rural 
 communities of prisoner-driven population 
 shifts and census poUcies; exploitation of 
 prisoner labor; and increased state spending 
 for corrections. 
 
 3. Fund research to determine the extent to 
 which prisoner-family ties and recidivism 
 have been affected by prison-siting practices 
 over the past two decades. 
 
 4. Fund interdisciplinary and longitudinal re- 
 search examining the economic, social, po- 
 litical, and cultural impacts on communi- 
 ties — particularly inner-city and rural com- 
 munities — of prison expansion and siting 
 trends. 
 
 5. Make existing and new research findings on 
 prison/community impacts widely available 
 
 28
 
 to the public in formats that are accessible to 
 average citizens. 
 
 6. Provide opportunities for citizen leaders in 
 inner-city and rural communities to come to- 
 gether to discuss the relationship that has 
 been forged between their communities by 
 criminal justice policy and practice. 
 
 7. Provide opportunities for "experts" in a vari- 
 ety of fields, including criminal justice, rural 
 poUcy, economic development, racial justice, 
 social welfare, labor, business, and so on, to 
 share knowledge and perspectives on the 
 prison-industrial complex across discipUne, 
 geography, and practice. 
 
 8. Fund efforts by organizations outside gov- 
 ernment to research and mount legal chal- 
 lenges to prison-siting practices that make it 
 impossible to maintain or nurture prisoner- 
 family ties; exploitative prison labor prac- 
 tices; and other government and corporate 
 practices discussed in this paper that can be 
 shown to disproportionately damage com- 
 munities and people of color. 
 
 9. Fund efforts by independent media organiza- 
 tions, journalists, and producers to document 
 and disseminate media examinations of the 
 problems discussed. 
 
 29
 
 Endnotes 
 
 1. Marc Mauer and Tracy Huling, "Young Black 
 Americans in the Criminal Justice System: Five 
 Years Later," The Sentencing Project, October 1995. 
 
 2. Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Lifetime Likeli- 
 hood of Going to a State or Federal Prison," 1997. 
 
 3. Marc Mauer, "Americans Behind Bars: The In- 
 ternational Use of Incarceration," The Sentencing 
 Project, 1994. 
 
 4. Jamie Fellner and Marc Mauer, "Losing the 
 Vote: The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws 
 in the United States," Human Rights Watch and The 
 Sentencing Project, 1998. 
 
 5. Tracy Hubng (Producer), Yes, In My Backyard. 
 Galloping Girls Productions, Inc. and WSKG Public 
 Broadcasting in association with the Independent 
 Television Service and Eastern Educational Network, 
 1998. 
 
 6. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, a 
 "metropolitan statistical area" is a central city of at 
 least 50,000 people or an urbanized area consisting of 
 50,000 people or more in a city (or cities) and the sur- 
 rounding counties that are economically tied to it. 
 "Non-metropolitan" America is all that which is not 
 included in such metropohtan statistical areas. 
 
 7. Calvin Beale "Rural Prisons: An Update," Rural 
 Development Perspectives, vol. 11, no. 2, February 
 1996. 
 
 8. Calvin Beale, presentation at conference. Crime 
 and Politics in the 21st Century, sponsored by the 
 Campaign for an Effective Crime Policy, Bethesda, 
 MD, Nov. 12-14, 1998. 
 
 9. Calvin Beale, "Prisons, Population, and Jobs in 
 Non-Metro America," Rural Development Perspectives, 
 vol. 8, no. 3, 1993. 
 
 10. Ibid. 
 
 11. Calvin Beale, "Rural Prisons: An Update," Ru- 
 ral Development Perspectives, vol. 11, no. 2, February 
 1996. 
 
 12. Janet M. Fitchen, Endangered Spaces, Endur- 
 ing Places: Change, Identity and Survival in Rural 
 America, Westview Press: Colorado, 1991. 
 
 13. Ibid. 
 
 14. Ibid. 
 
 15. Ibid. 
 
 16. Isaac Shapiro, "Laboring for Less: Working but 
 Poor in Rural America," Center on Budget and Policy 
 Priorities, 1989. 
 
 17. Marj Charher, "Small-town America Battles a 
 Deep Gloom as its Economy Sinks," Wall Street Jour- 
 nal, Aug. 4, 1988. 
 
 18. Bob Bergland, "Rural Mental Health: Report of 
 the National Action Commission on the Mental 
 Health of Rural Americans," Journal of Rural Com- 
 munity Psychology, vol. 9, no. 2, 1988. 
 
 19. Jerrald Krause, "Introduction: Special Issue on 
 Policy, Prisons and Communities," Crime & Delin- 
 quency, vol. 38, no. 1, January 1992. 
 
 20. Marilyn McShane, Frank Wilhams III, and 
 Carl Wagoner, "Prison Impact Studies: Some Com- 
 ments on Methodological Rigor," Crime & Delin- 
 quency, vol. 38, no. 1, January 1992. 
 
 21. Jerrald Krause (ed.), "Special Issue: Policy, 
 Prisons and Communities," Crime & Delinquency, vol. 
 38, no. 1, January 1992. 
 
 22. David Shichor, "Myths and Realities in Prison 
 Siting," in Crime & Delinquency, vol. 38, no. 1, Janu- 
 ary 1992. 
 
 23. Jerrald Krause, "The Effects of Prison-Siting 
 Practices on Community Status Arrangements: A 
 Framework Applied to the Siting of California State 
 Prisons," Crime & Delinquency, vol. 38, no. 1, January 
 1992. 
 
 24. Katherine Carlson, "Doing Good and Looking 
 Bad: A Case Study of Prison/Community Relations," 
 Crime & Delinquency, vol. 38, no. 1, January 1992. 
 
 25. Albany Times Union, "Prisons? Rural towns 
 want in: Lots of competition upstate for 8,650-bed jail 
 expansion proposal," undated. 
 
 26. Raymond Hernandez, "Give Them the Maxi- 
 mum: Small Towns Clamor for the Boom a Big Prison 
 Could Bring," The New York Times, Feb. 26, 1996. 
 
 27. David Shampine, "Northern New York's Prison 
 Sweepstakes Has Players in Four Counties," Water- 
 town Daily Times, June, 2, 1996. 
 
 28. Calvin Beale, "Rural Prisons: An Update," Ru- 
 ral Development Perspectives, vol. 11, no. 2, February 
 1996. 
 
 29. Christopher Swope, "The Inmate Bazaar," 
 Governing, October 1998. 
 
 30. Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, "Romulus 
 Considers Courting a Prison," undated. 
 
 31. Katherine Carlson, "Doing Good and Looking 
 Bad: A Case Study of Prison/Community Relations," 
 Crime & Delinquency, vol. 38, no. 1, January 1992. 
 
 32. Jonathan Frankbn, "Jails go up, yes, in their 
 backyards," Boston Globe. July 31, 1994. 
 
 33. New York State Department of Correctional 
 Services, "Malone construction meeting June timeta- 
 ble ... as community residents count down its open- 
 ing," DOCS TODAY, February 1999. 
 
 34. Michael Schaffer, "Prison Terms," The District 
 Line, undated. 
 
 35. Judith Greene, "Privatization of Correctional 
 Services: Critical Issues for State Policymakers," 
 January 1999. Unpubhshed paper presented at work- 
 shop. Balancing Investments in Prisons, Police, and 
 Prevention, sponsored by RAND Criminal Justice 
 Program, Santa Monica, Jan. 15-17, 1999. 
 
 30
 
 36. Fox Butterfield, "Number of Inmates Reaches 
 Record 1.8 million," The New York Tunes, Mar. 15. 
 1999. 
 
 37. Deborah EUwood and Donald Boyd, "State and 
 Local Criminal Justice Spending: Recent Trends and 
 Outlook for the Future," State Fiscal Brief, Center for 
 the Study of the States, the Nelson A. Rockefeller 
 Institute of Government, Februai-y 1999. 
 
 38. Judith Greene, "Privatization of Correctional 
 Services: Critical Issues for State Policymakers," 
 January 1999. Unpublished paper presented at work- 
 shop, "Balancing Investments in Prisons, Police, and 
 Prevention," sponsored by RAND Criminal Justice 
 Program, Santa Monica, Jan. 15-17, 1999. 
 
 39. Eric Schlosser, "The Prison-Industrial Com- 
 plex," The Atlantic Monthly, December 1998. 
 
 40. Angela Y. Davis, " Masked Racism: Reflections 
 on the Prison-Industrial Complex," ColorLines Maga- 
 zine, November 1998. 
 
 41. Judith Greene, "Privatization of Correctional 
 Services: Critical Issues for State Policymakers." 
 January 1999. Unpublished paper presented at work- 
 shop, "Balancing Investments in Prisons, Police, and 
 Prevention," sponsored by RAND Criminal Justice 
 Program, Santa Monica, Jan. 15-17, 1999. 
 
 42. Angela Y. Davis, "Masked Racism: Reflections 
 on the Prison Industrial Complex," ColorLines Maga- 
 zine, November 1998. 
 
 43. Correctional Association of New York and New 
 York State Coalition for Criminal Justice, 
 "Imprisoned Generation," 1990. 
 
 44. Correctional Association of New York, "Fifteen 
 Major Points Re: Prison Expansion in the United 
 States and in New York," July 1998. 
 
 45. Marc Mauer, "Americans Behind Bars: U.S. 
 and International Use of Incarceration," The Sen- 
 tencing Project, June 1997. 
 
 46. Paula Ditton and Doris James Wilson, "Truth 
 in Sentencing in State Prisons," Bureau of Justice 
 Statistics Special Report, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Janu- 
 ary 1999. 
 
 47. Human Rights Watch, "Official Data Reveal 
 Most New York Drug Offenders Are Non-Violent," 
 1999. 
 
 48. Correctional Association of New York, "Fifteen 
 Major Points Re: Prison Expansion in the U.S. and in 
 New York," July 1998. 
 
 49. David T. Courtwright, "The Drug War's Hid- 
 den Toll," Issues in Science and Technology, Winter, 
 1996-97. 
 
 50. Dina Rose and Todd Clear, "Incarceration, So- 
 cial Capital, and Crime: Imphcations for Social Disor- 
 ganization Theory," Criminology, vol. 36, no. 3, 1998. 
 
 51. Scott Decker and Barrik Van Winkle, Life in 
 the Gang: Family, Friends and Violence, Cambridge 
 University Press: New York, 1996. 
 
 52. Laura Fishman, Women at the Wall, SUNY 
 Press: New York, 1990; Ariela Lowenstein, 
 
 "Temporary Single Parenthood — The Case of Pris- 
 oner's Families," Family Relations, vol. 35, 1986; Rob- 
 ert MaCoun and Peter Renter, "Are the Wages of Sin 
 30$ an Hour? Economic Aspects of Street-Level Drug 
 Dealing." Crime & Delinquency, vol. 38, 1991; Mercer 
 Sullivan, Getting Paid: Youth, Crime and Work in the 
 Inner-City, Cornell University Press: New York, 1989; 
 Lisa Maher, "Punishment and Welfare: Crack Co- 
 caine and the Regulation of Mothering" in Clarice 
 Feinman (ed.), TTie Criminalization of a Woman's 
 Body, Haworth: New York, 1991; Nathan McCall, 
 Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in 
 America, Random House: New York, 1994; Sanyika 
 Shakur, Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Crip, 
 Atlantic Monthly Press: New York, 1993. 
 
 53. Margaret Smith and Todd Clear, "Fathers in 
 Prison: Interim Report," Draft Report to the Edna 
 McConnel Clark Foundation by the Rutgers Univer- 
 sity School of Criminal Justice, Newark, New Jersey, 
 1997. 
 
 54. Robert Sampson, "Communities and Crime" in 
 Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi (eds.), Posi- 
 tive Criminology, Sage: California, 1987. 
 
 55. Tracy HuUng (Producer), Interview with Do- 
 minic Mantello, January 1997, Footage Log 24, Yes, 
 In My Backyard, Galloping Girls Productions, Inc. 
 and WSKG Public Broadcasting in association with 
 the Independent Television Service and Eastern Edu- 
 cational Network, 1998. 
 
 56. Katherine Carlson, "What Happens and What 
 Counts: Resident Assessments of Prison Impacts on 
 Their Communities," Humboldt Journal of Social 
 Relations, vol. 17, 1991. 
 
 57. United Auto Workers, "Use of Prison Labor 
 Growing in U.S.," Washington Report, vol. 37, no. 3, 
 Feb. 28, 1997. 
 
 58. Tracy Huling (Producer). Interview with Ron- 
 ald Roth, April 1997, Footage Log t41, Yes In My 
 Backyard, Galloping Girls Productions, Inc. and 
 WSKG Public Broadcasting in association with the 
 Independent Television Service and Eastern Educa- 
 tional Network, 1998. 
 
 59. Calvin Beale, "Prisons, Population, and Jobs in 
 Non-metro America," Rural Development Perspectives, 
 vol. 8, no. 3, 1993. 
 
 60. Calvin Beale, "Rural Prisons: An Update," Ru- 
 ral Development Perspectives, vol. 11, no. 2, February 
 1996. 
 
 61. Calvin Beale, "Prisons, Population, and Jobs in 
 Non-metro America," Rural Development Perspectives, 
 vol. 8, no. 3, 1993. 
 
 62. Correctional Association of New York and New 
 York State Coalition for Criminal Justice, 
 "Imprisoned Generation," 1990. 
 
 63. Daniel Feldman, "20 Years of Prison Expan- 
 sion: A Failing National Strategy," Public Admini- 
 stration Review, vol. 53, no. 6, November/December 
 1993. 
 
 31
 
 64. Gregory Winter, "Trading Places: When Pris- 
 ons Substitute for Social Programs," ColorLines 
 Magazine, November 1998. 
 
 65. Enc Schlosser, "The Prison-Industrial Com- 
 plex," The Atlantic Monthly, December 1998. 
 
 66. Ibid. 
 
 67. Dee- Ann Durbin, Associated Press, "Prisons 
 receive biggest increase under Engler's 1999-2000 
 budget," Lansing State Journal, Feb. 12, 1999. 
 
 68. Joel Stashenko, Associated Press, "Pataki offi- 
 cials stand by plans for new prisons," Times Union, 
 Feb. 24, 1999. 
 
 69. Richard Perez-Pena, "Crew and Jesse Jackson 
 Denounce Pataki's Budget Plan for Schools," TTie New 
 York Times, Feb. 10, 1999. 
 
 70. Robert Gangi, Vincent Schiraldi, and Jason 
 Zeidenberg, "New York State of Mind? Higher Educa- 
 tion vs. Prison Funding in the Empire State, 1988- 
 1998," Justice Policy Institute and Correctional Asso- 
 ciation of New York, 1998. 
 
 71. Center on Crime, Communities and Culture, 
 Open Society Institute, "Education as Crime Preven- 
 tion," Research Brief, Occasional Paper Series, no. 2, 
 September 1997. 
 
 72. Family & Corrections Network Report, issue 8, 
 AprU 1996. 
 
 73. Creasie Finney Hairston, "Family Ties During 
 Imprisonment: Do They Influence Future Criminal 
 Activity?" Federal Probation, Administrative Office of 
 the United States Courts, vol. LII, no. 1, March 1988. 
 
 74. Norman Holt and Donald MiUer, "Explorations 
 in Inmate-Family Relationships," California Depart- 
 ment of Corrections, report no. 46, January 1972. 
 
 75. Denise Johnston, M.D., "Parent-Child Visita- 
 tion in the Jail or Prison" in Katherine Gabel and 
 Denise Johnston, M.D. (eds.) Children of Incarcerated 
 Parents. Lexington Books: New York, 1995. 
 
 76. Laura T. Fishman, Women at the Wall: A 
 Study of Prisoners' Wives Doing Time on the Outside, 
 SUNY Press: New York, 1990. 
 
 77. Judith Greene, "Privatization of Correctional 
 Services: Critical Issues for State Pohcymakers," 
 January 1999, Unpublished paper presented at work- 
 shop, "Balancing Investments in Prisons, Pobce, and 
 Prevention," sponsored by RAND Criminal Justice 
 Program, Santa Monica, January 15-17, 1999. 
 
 78. Family & Corrections Network Report, 
 "Incarcerated Fathers," issue 8, April 1996. 
 
 79. Paula Ditton and Doris James Wilson, "Truth 
 in Sentencing in State Prisons," Bureau of Justice 
 Statistics Special Report, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Janu- 
 ary 1999. 
 
 32
 
 Bibliography 
 
 Albany Times Union, "Prisons? Rural towns want 
 in: Lots of competition upstate for 8,650-bed jail ex- 
 pansion proposal," undated. 
 
 Calvin Beale, "Prisons, Population, and Jobs in 
 Non-Metro America," Rural Development Perspectives, 
 vol. 8, no. 3, 1993. 
 
 , "Rural Prisons: An Update," Rural 
 
 Development Perspectives, vol. 11, no. 2, February 
 1996. 
 
 , presentation at conference. Crime and 
 
 Politics in the 21st Century, sponsored by the Cam- 
 paign for an Effective Crime Policy, Bethesda, MD, 
 Nov. 12-14, 1998. 
 
 Bob Bergland, "Rural Mental Health: Report of 
 the National Action Commission on the Mental 
 Health of Rural Americans," Journal of Rural Com- 
 munity Psychology, vol. 9, no. 2, 1988. 
 
 Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Lifetime Likelihood 
 of Going to a State or Federal Prison," 1997. 
 
 Fox Butterfield, "Number of Inmates Reaches Re- 
 cord 1.8 million," The New York Times, Mar. 15, 1999. 
 
 Katharine Carlson, "Doing Good and Looking Bad: 
 A Case Study of Prison/Community Relations," Crime 
 & Delinquency, vol. 38, no. 1, January 1992, 
 
 , "What Happens and What 
 
 Counts: Resident Assessments of Prison Impacts on 
 their Communities," Humboldt Journal of Social Re- 
 lations, vol. 17, 1991. 
 
 Marj Charlier, "Small-town America Battles a 
 Deep Gloom as its Economy Sinks," Wall Street Jour- 
 nal, Aug. 4, 1988. 
 
 Center on Crime, Communities and Culture, Open 
 Society Institute, "Education as Crime Prevention," 
 Research Brief, Occasional Paper Series, no. 2, Sep- 
 tember 1997. 
 
 Correctional Association of New York and New 
 York State Coalition for Criminal Justice, 
 "Imprisoned Generation," 1990. 
 
 Correctional Association of New York, "Fifteen 
 Major Points Re: Prison Expansion in the U.S. and in 
 New York," July 1998. 
 
 Angela Y. Davis, "Masked Racism: Reflections on 
 the Prison-Industrial Complex," ColorLines Magazine, 
 November 1998. 
 
 Scott Decker and Barrik Van Winkle, Life in the 
 Gang: Family, Friends and Violence, Cambridge Uni- 
 versity Press: New York, 1996. 
 
 Paula Ditton and Doris James Wilson, "Truth in 
 Sentencing in State Prisons," Bureau of Justice Statis- 
 tics Special Report, U.S. Department of Justice, Janu- 
 ary 1999. 
 
 Family & Corrections Network Report, "Incarcerated 
 Fathers," issue 8, April 1996. 
 
 Dee-Ann Durbin, Associated Press, "Prisons re- 
 ceive biggest increase under Engler's 1999-2000 
 budget," Lansing State Journal, Feb. 12, 1999. 
 
 Deborah Ellwood and Donald Boyd, "State and Lo- 
 cal Criminal Justice Spending: Recent Trends and 
 Outlook for the Future," State Fiscal Brief, Center for 
 the Study of the States, the Nelson A. Rockefeller 
 Institute of Government, February 1999. 
 
 Daniel Feldman, "20 Years of Prison Expansion: A 
 FaiUng National Strategy," Public Administration 
 Review, vol. 53, no. 6, November/December 1993. 
 
 Jamie Fellner and Marc Mauer, "Losing the Vote: 
 The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in 
 the United States," Human Rights Watch and The 
 Sentencing Project, 1998. 
 
 Laura T. Fishman, Women at the Wall: A Study of 
 Prisoners' Wives Doing Time on the Outside, SUNY 
 Press: New York, 1990. 
 
 Janet M. Fitchen, Endangered Spaces, Enduring 
 Places: Change, Identity and Survival in Rural Amer- 
 ica, Westview Press: Colorado, 1991. 
 
 Jonathan Franklin, "Jails go up, yes, in their 
 backyards," Boston Globe, July 31, 1994. 
 
 Robert Gangi, Vincent Schiraldi, and Jason Zei- 
 denberg, "New York State of Mind? Higher Education 
 vs. Prison Funding in the Empire State, 1988-1998," 
 Justice Policy Institute and Correctional Association 
 of New York, 1998. 
 
 Judith Greene, "Privatization of Correctional 
 Services: Critical Issues for State Policymakers," 
 January 1999, Unpublished paper presented at work- 
 shop, "Balancing Investments in Prisons, Police, and 
 Prevention," sponsored by RAND Criminal Justice 
 Program, Santa Monica, Jan. 15-17, 1999. 
 
 Creasie Finney Hairston, "Family Ties During 
 Imprisonment: Do They Influence Future Criminal 
 Activity?" Federal Probation, Administrative Office of 
 the United States Courts, vol. LII, no. 1, March 1988. 
 
 Raymond Hernandez, "Give Them the Maximum: 
 Small Towns Clamor for the Boom a Big Prison Could 
 Bring," The New York Times, Feb. 26, 1996. 
 
 Norman Holt and Donald Miller, "Explorations in 
 Inmate-FamUy Relationships," California Depart- 
 ment of Corrections, report no. 46, January 1972. 
 
 Tracy Huling (Producer), Yes, In My Backyard, 
 Galloping Girls Productions, Inc. and WSKG Public 
 Broadcasting in association with the Independent 
 Television Service and Eastern Educational Network, 
 1998. 
 
 (Producer), Interview with Dominic 
 
 Mantello, January 1997, Footage Log 24, Yes, In My 
 Backyard, Galloping Girls Productions, Inc. and 
 WSKG Public Broadcasting in association with the 
 
 33
 
 Independent Television Service and Eastern Educa- 
 tional Network, 1998. 
 
 (Producer), Interview with Ronald 
 
 Roth, April 1997, Footage Log t41, Yes In My Back- 
 yard, Galloping Girls Productions, Inc., and WSKG 
 Public Broadcasting in association with the Inde- 
 pendent Television Service and Eastern Educational 
 Network, 1998. 
 
 Human Rights Watch, "Official Data Reveal Most 
 New York Drug Offenders Axe Non-Violent," 1999. 
 
 Denise Johnston, M.D.. "Parent-Child Visitation 
 in the JaU or Prison" in Katherine Gabel and Denise 
 Johnston, M.D. (eds.) Children of Incarcerated Par- 
 ents, Lexington Books: New York, 1995. 
 
 Jerrald Krause, "Introduction: Special Issue on 
 Policy, Prisons and Communities," Crime & Delin- 
 quency, vol. 38, no. 1, January 1992. 
 
 , "The Effects of Prison-Siting Prac- 
 tices on Community Status Arrangements: A Frame- 
 work Applied to the Siting of California State Pris- 
 ons," Crime & Delinquency, vol. 38, no. 1, January 
 1992. 
 
 (ed.), "Special Issue: Policy, Prisons 
 
 and Communities," Crime & Delinquency, vol. 38, no. 
 1, January 1992. 
 
 Ariela Lowenstein, 'Temporary Single Parent- 
 hood — The Case of Prisoner's Families," Family Rela- 
 tions, vol. 35, 1986. 
 
 Robert MaCoun and Peter Renter, "Are the Wages 
 of Sin 30$ an Hour? Economic Aspects of Street-Level 
 Drug Dealing," Crime & Delinquency, vol. 38, 1991. 
 
 Lisa Maher, "Punishment and Welfare: Crack Co- 
 caine and the Regulation of Mothering" in Clarice 
 Feinman (ed.). The Criminalization of a Woman's 
 Body, Haworth: New York, 1991. 
 
 Marc Mauer, "Americans Behind Bars: The Inter- 
 national Use of Incarceration," The Sentencing Proj- 
 ect, 1994. 
 
 , "Americans Behind Bars: U.S. and In- 
 ternational Use of Incarceration," The Sentencing 
 Project, June 1997. 
 
 Marc Mauer and Tracy HuUng, 'Toung Black 
 Americans in the Criminal Justice System: Five 
 Years Later," The Sentencing Project, October 1995. 
 
 Nathan McCall, Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young 
 Black Man in America, Random House: New York, 
 1994. 
 
 Marilyn McShane, Frank Williams III, and Carl 
 Wagoner, "Prison Impact Studies: Some Comments on 
 Methodological Rigor," Crime & Delinquency, vol. 38, 
 no. 1, January 1992. 
 
 New York State Department of Correctional Serv- 
 ices, "Malone construction meeting June timetable . . . 
 as community residents count down its opening," 
 DOCS TODAY, February 1999. 
 
 Richard Perez-Pena, 'Crew and Jesse Jackson 
 Denounce Pataki's Budget Plan for Schools," The New 
 York Times, Feb. 10, 1999. 
 
 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, "Romulus Con- 
 siders Courting a Prison," undated. 
 
 Dina Rose and Todd Clear, "Incarceration, Social 
 Capital, and Crime: Implications for Social Disorgani- 
 zation Theory," Criminology, vol. 36, no. 3, 1998. 
 
 Robert Sampson, "Communities and Crime" in Mi- 
 chael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi (eds.), Positive 
 Criminology, Sage: California, 1987. 
 
 Michael Schaffer, "Prison Terms," The District 
 Line, undated. 
 
 Eric Schlosser, "The Prison-Industrial Complex," 
 The Atlantic Monthly, December 1998. 
 
 Sanyika Shakur, Monster: The Autobiography of 
 an L.A. Crip, Atlantic Monthly Press: New York, 
 1993. 
 
 David Shampine, "Northern New York's Prison 
 Sweepstakes Has Players in Four Counties," Water- 
 town Daily Times, June 2, 1996. 
 
 Isaac Shapiro, "Laboring for Less: Working but 
 Poor in Rural America," Center on Budget and Pobcy 
 Priorities, 1989. 
 
 David Shichor, "Myths and Realities in Prison 
 Siting," in Crime & Delinquency, vol. 38, no. 1, Janu- 
 ary 1992. 
 
 Margaret Smith and Todd Clear, "Fathers in 
 Prison: Interim Report," Draft Report to the Edna 
 McConnel Clark Foundation by the Rutgers Univer- 
 sity School of Criminal Justice, Newark, New Jersey, 
 1997. 
 
 Joel Stashenko, Associated Press, "Pataki officials 
 stand by plans for new prisons," Times Union, Feb. 
 24, 1999. 
 
 Mercer Sullivan, Getting Paid: Youth, Crime and 
 Work in the Inner-City, Cornell University Press: New 
 York, 1989. 
 
 Christopher Swope, "The Inmate Bazaar," Govern- 
 ing, October 1998. 
 
 United Auto Workers, "Use of Prison Labor 
 Growing in U.S.," Washington Report, vol. 37, no. 3, 
 Feb. 28. 1997. 
 
 Gregory Winter, 'Trading Places: When Prisons 
 Substitute for Social Programs," ColorLines Maga- 
 zine, November 1998. 
 
 34
 
 Additional Statement to Supplement the Record 
 
 Tracy Huung 
 June 14, 1999 
 
 At the time I prepared and delivered a summary 
 of my paper, "Prisons as a Growth Industry in Rural 
 America: An Exploratory Discussion of the Effects on 
 Young African American Men in the Inner Cities" to 
 the Commission, I was not aware of any research or 
 pubUc discussion on prisoner-driven population im- 
 pacts as a result of census policy, which counts pris- 
 oners in the populations of prison host communities. 
 
 Since that time, I have been searching for evi- 
 dence of the potential economic and poUtical impacts I 
 discuss in the paper, and would like to enter the fol- 
 lowing information, which confirms these impacts, 
 into the record. 
 
 First, according to a recent newspaper account, a 
 bill was signed into Arizona state law in mid-May by 
 Governor Jane Hull, which allows a municipality, 
 until February 28, 2001, to annex a state prison 
 within 15 miles of its borders. The reason for the bill, 
 according to the newspaper account, is to allow cities 
 and towns to "increase their population with the 
 added inmates and receive a greater portion of state 
 shared revenue." It is reported that the town of Buck- 
 eye plans to annex both the Lewis state prison facility 
 and its neighbor, the Southwest Regional Prison 
 Complex and the Juvenile Corrections Facility. To- 
 gether, the facilities house 976 inmates, all of whom 
 will be included in the town's population if the an- 
 nexations are completed before April 1, 2000, the 
 deadline for the 2000 census. In addition, the Lewis 
 prison population is expected to jump to nearly 2,400 
 by December 1999. The newspaper account states: 
 
 Buckeye receives about $1.3 miUion in state revenue from 
 sales, income, highway-user and vehicle taxes, and local 
 transit funds. That portion could jump by $726,465 after the 
 town annexes the prison complexes. City officials expect to 
 receive $285 per inmate. By 2006, if a mid-decade census is 
 conducted. 
 
 the town's inmate population could bring more than $2 mil- 
 bon in additional tax revenue, said Town Manager Joe Blan- 
 ton. (Yoji Cole, "Doors Open for Buckeye to Annex State 
 Prison," Arizona Republic, May 21, 1999). 
 
 Second, in April of this year, a bill was introduced 
 into Congress that would allow states and the District 
 of Columbia to count for census purposes the state 
 and federal prisoners they export to other states for 
 incarceration. The bill was sponsored by Congress- 
 man Mark Green from Wisconsin, which now sends 
 3,751 of its 18,717 prisoners to Texas, Tennessee, 
 Oklahoma, and Minnesota. That figure is expected to 
 grow to 10,000 in the next 2 years, according to 
 Green. In one newspaper account describing testi- 
 mony on the bill at a June 9 hearing in Washington, 
 Green said. 
 
 Does all this really matter? I believe it does. Why? First, 
 because at least $185 billion a year is doled out in federal 
 aid based on population. Second, because the number of 
 House seats each state gets also is based on the census, and 
 Wisconsin is in serious danger of losing one of its nine 
 (seats) after the 2000 count (Craig Gilbert, "Lawmaker takes 
 his case for counting out-of-state inmates to House panel," 
 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 10, 1999). 
 
 Using rough estimates, Green's office estimates 
 that the practice of counting them (prisoners) where 
 they are imprisoned could ultimately cost the state 
 between $5 miUion and $8 million a year (Ibid.). 
 
 These accounts and the situations and events 
 they describe, should leave no doubt that prisoner- 
 related census population impacts are significant 
 economically and politically, and that some local 
 officials are aware of, and acting to take advantage 
 of, these impacts. 
 
 35
 
 The Juvenile Justice Reform Act and the Crisis of 
 the Young African American IVIale 
 
 Janice Joseph, Ph.D. 
 
 Juvenile Justice Reform Legislation 
 
 There is no doubt that juvenile deUnquency is 
 increasing and is becoming more violent. 
 Greater access to firearms, involvement in 
 gangs, and loss of society's control over some ju- 
 veniles all contribute to this epidemic of violent 
 behavior among juveniles. In an attempt to deal 
 with the increase in delinquency, the federal 
 government and state government have passed 
 "get tough" legislation. This paper will examine 
 the federal legislative reforms and how they will 
 affect African American males. 
 
 Brief History of Juvenile Justice 
 
 Juvenile justice has developed from the doc- 
 trine of parens patriae, "parent of the country" or 
 "common guardian of the community." Under 
 this doctrine, the right of the state superseded 
 parental rights if the parents were seen as unfit 
 or not up to the task of the education, training, 
 and moral development of their child. 
 
 The philosophy of youth conduct as distinct 
 from that of adults evolved to the extent that the 
 first separate juvenile court was established in 
 the United States in Illinois in 1899. The current 
 juvenile justice system was developed after 
 World War II and was characterized by a cen- 
 trahzed administration of juvenile facilities with 
 training and treatment as its goals rather than 
 retribution. The juvenile justice system is in- 
 tended to be a civil procedure, not a criminal 
 procedure. 
 
 Juvenile justice has traditionally been a local 
 and state concern but was raised to the national 
 level when Congress passed the Juvenile Justice 
 and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) of 
 
 1974.1 The purpose of the law is to assist state 
 and local governments in their efforts to reduce 
 juvenile crime through prevention programs and 
 activities which hold juveniles accountable for 
 their actions. The goals also include (1) the dein- 
 stitutionaUzation of status offenders; (2) the 
 separation of juveniles and adults in jails and 
 lockups; (3) the removal of juveniles from adult 
 jails and lockups; and (4) identification, assess- 
 ment, and planning to confront the problem of 
 disproportionate minority confinement. This act 
 also authorized the estabhshment of the Ofiice of 
 Juvenile Justice and Dehnquency Prevention 
 (OJJDP) in the Law Enforcement Assistance 
 Administration (LEAA). The role of the OJJDP 
 was to develop and implement worthwhile pro- 
 grams that prevent and reduce juvenile crimes. 
 Since 1974, the Juvenile Justice and DeUn- 
 quency Act has had a significant impact on juve- 
 nile justice poUcy, and the OJJDP has been ex- 
 tremely influential in matters of disseminating 
 information about juvenile offenders and pre- 
 vention.2 
 
 The juvenile justice system was originally 
 built upon a simple philosophy: The fundamen- 
 tal purpose of all agencies charged with the care 
 and handhng of adjudicated juveniles should be 
 to act in the best interests of the child. For the 
 past 100 years this principle, which grew out of 
 the 19th century juvenile court movement, has 
 provided the one major distinguishing feature 
 between the juvenile justice system and the 
 criminal justice system. 
 
 * Professor of criminal justice, Richard Stockton CoUege of 
 New Jersey. 
 
 1 18 U.S.C. 4351-5042 (1998); 42 U.S.C. §§ 3701, 3723, 3733, 
 3758, 3772-3774, 3811, 3814, 3821, 3882, 3883, 3888, 5601- 
 5785 (1998). 
 
 2 Preston Elrod and R. Scott, Juvenile Justice: A Social, 
 Historical, and Legal Perspective (Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen 
 Publishers, 1999). 
 
 36
 
 Over time, however, an increasing number of 
 policy makers and politicians have identified a 
 group of juveniles who they believe should be 
 treated punitively. The view is that the juvenile 
 court lacks the resources and capacity to effec- 
 tively deal with these juveniles who instead 
 should be transferred to criminal court. 
 
 In response to a national concern about 
 growing juvenile deUnquency and youth crime, 
 the federal government has passed several 
 pieces of legislation that are designed to amend 
 the Juvenile Justice and Dehnquency Preven- 
 tion Act. 
 
 Federal Legislation 
 
 Senate leaders and President Chnton have 
 introduced legislation to expand the role of the 
 federal government in combating dehnquency 
 and violence. Federal legislative initiatives in- 
 clude the Violent and Hard Core Juvenile Of- 
 fender Reform Act of 1996, the Violent and Re- 
 peat Juvenile Offender Act, and the Juvenile 
 Crime Control and Prevention Act of 1997. 
 These were passed to amend the Juvenile Jus- 
 tice and Dehnquency Prevention Act of 1974. 
 
 The Violent and Hard Core Juvenile Offender 
 Reform Act amends the Juvenile Justice and 
 Dehnquency Prevention Act of 1974 to identify 
 violent and hard-core juvenile offenders 14 years 
 and older and to prosecute them in criminal 
 court for violent crimes such as murder, rape, 
 robbery, aggravated assault, and any serious 
 drug offense. It allows for repeat juvenile offend- 
 ers 14 years and older to be tried in criminal 
 court if they commit three offenses that would 
 carry at least a 1-year sentence if committed by 
 an adult. The law also stipulates that criminal 
 records should be maintained for the juvenile 
 felons and that their fingerprints and photo- 
 graphs be forwarded to the Federal Bureau of 
 Investigation for a national data bank. It also 
 makes juveniles' criminal records more accessi- 
 ble to school officials. The statute also amends 
 the Federal Dehnquency Act to direct the U.S. 
 Sentencing Commission to have juveniles' felony 
 offenses considered in their sentencing as adult 
 offenders. 3 
 
 The Violent and Repeat Juvenile Offender 
 Act of 1997 consists of various provisions. It al- 
 lows states to make juvenile records available to 
 
 elementary and high schools, and colleges to 
 which juveniles may later apply. It also allows 
 juveniles to be prosecuted in criminal court for 
 federal crimes at the age of 14; requires that ju- 
 veniles in the federal court system being tried as 
 adults be subject to detention in the same man- 
 ner and to the same extent as adults; and ehmi- 
 nates various "protections" now available to ju- 
 veniles under federal law. This bill also provides 
 $500 million per year as an incentive grant pro- 
 gram to help states address their juvenile crime 
 problems; 60 percent of these funds are desig- 
 nated for the construction of juvenile detention 
 centers and drug testing. '' 
 
 The Juvenile Crime Control and Delinquency 
 Prevention Act of 1997 is the counterpart to the 
 Violent and Repeat Juvenile Offender Act. It 
 proposes estabhshing a federal model for holding 
 juveniles accountable for their crimes, loosening 
 restrictions on juvenile records, broadens the 
 possibdity of punishment as a judicial alterna- 
 tive, and provides $1.5 bUhon in incentive grants 
 to states to strengthen their juvenile justice sys- 
 tems. Under the bill, states would be required to 
 prosecute juveniles as adults, and states have to 
 maintain records of repeat offenders that commit 
 felonies. The primary funding in this bill is tar- 
 geted toward intervention only after the juve- 
 niles have committed a crime. ^ 
 
 Under current federal law, juveniles who 
 commit misdemeanors, nonviolent felonies, or 
 drug-related offenses may only be prosecuted in 
 federal court if the Attorney General certifies 
 that the state does not want or have jurisdiction 
 over the juvenile. As a result, most misdemeanor 
 and minor felony cases against juveniles are 
 handled in state courts, even if the federal court 
 also exercises jurisdiction. The above legislation 
 changed that by removing the requirement that 
 the federal courts may only get involved if the 
 state cannot or dechnes to prosecute the juve- 
 nile. 
 
 In addition to the legislation, the Clinton ad- 
 ministration has vowed to make addressing 
 youth crime a top priority. The administration 
 has proposed to crack down on gangs and youth 
 violence, ban handgun ownership, impose life 
 sentences for juvenile violent offenders, and give 
 federal prosecutors the power to transfer juve- 
 
 ' Violent and Hard Core Juvenile Offender Act, S. 1245, 
 1995. 
 
 * Frank Schmalleger, Criminal Justice Today (Upper Saddle 
 River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999). 
 
 5 Juvenile Crime Control Act, 1997. 
 
 37
 
 niles to adult court. The President also plans to 
 spend $500 million for state and local antigang 
 prosecution; $170 million to assist states in 
 building more facilities for juveniles; $75 million 
 to fight truancy and school violence; $60 million 
 for after-school programs to keep youths off the 
 street; and $50 million for enhanced juvenile 
 court and probation systems. The money would 
 be available only to states that allow more juve- 
 niles to be treated as adults, punish juveniles for 
 every offense, and keep adult-type records on 
 them.^ 
 
 Impact of Juvenile Legislative Reforms on 
 African American Males 
 
 According to the Uniform Crime Reports, Af- 
 rican American youths are overrepresented in 
 the numbers of individuals arrested and incar- 
 cerated for violent crimes. For example, in 1996 
 African American juveniles accounted for 47 
 percent of all juveniles arrested for violent 
 crimes.^ Consequently, the legislation passed by 
 the federal government allowing juveniles to be 
 tried as adults will have a tremendous impact on 
 African American males. 
 
 In fact, history demonstrates that minority 
 youth, primarily African Americans, are dispro- 
 portionately transferred to adult courts. Data 
 from 1985 indicate that males comprised the 
 majority of juvenile cases transferred to adult 
 court. Of the juveniles transferred to adult court, 
 57 percent were white, 42 percent black, and 2 
 percent of other ethnic groups. By 1994, the per- 
 centage of white and black juvenile offenders 
 transferred to adult court were similar (49 per- 
 cent and 48 percent, respectively). The number 
 of 15- to 19-year-old males, the group that com- 
 mits the most crime, is likely to grow to 30 per- 
 cent by the year 2015. Many of these males will 
 be minorities, especially African Americans. If 
 the population growth materializes, there is a 
 good chance that the rate of juvenile violence, 
 including homicide, will double by the year 
 2015.8 
 
 * Frank SchmaUeger, Criminal Justice Today (Upper Saddle 
 River, NJ: Prentice HaU, 1999). 
 
 ' Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports 
 for United States 1996 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government 
 Printing Office, 1997). 
 
 * Howard Snyder and Melissa Sickmund, Juvenile Offenders 
 and Their Victims: A Focus on Violence (Pittsburgh, PA: 
 National Center for Juvenile Justice, 1995). 
 
 Once juveniles are transferred to adult 
 courts, they are treated as adults and subjected 
 to similar sanctions as adults. Under the legisla- 
 tion, not only would more African American 
 males be transferred to criminal court, but their 
 numbers in advilt prisons would increase as weU. 
 Placing juveniles, especially African Americans, 
 in adult jails and prisons will increase the prob- 
 ability that they will be victimized in the adult 
 system. In addition, the adult correctional sys- 
 tem is not equipped to meet the needs of these 
 juveniles. The likelihood that they will be reha- 
 bUitated is unlikely. More importantly, transfer- 
 ring juveniles to criminal court means that they 
 can be subjected to the death penalty. 
 
 Once transferred to the criminal court, a 
 young African American male would be treated 
 as an adult, at any age, for subsequent offenses, 
 even if he was not convicted. Once transferred, 
 the youth would remain in the exclusive jurisdic- 
 tion of the criminal court.^ 
 
 The transferring of young African American 
 males to adult courts would undoubtedly con- 
 tribute to the social deterioration of African 
 American communities. Given the high number 
 of African Americans, especially males, already 
 incarcerated, the social and financial impact on 
 the black community is tremendous. Donzier 
 argues that "we are on the verge of a social ca- 
 tastrophe because of the sheer number of Afri- 
 can Americans behind bars."'° Black males are 7 
 times more likely than white males to be incar- 
 cerated. In some cities, more than half of young 
 black males are under correctional supervision. 
 In the nation as a whole, one in four black males 
 between the ages of 20 and 29 is under the con- 
 trol of the nation's prison system." Moreover, 
 imprisonment for African American males at a 
 young age may meike it difficult, if not impossi- 
 ble, for them to return to society for a productive 
 conventional life. 
 
 According to Marc Mauer of The Sentencing 
 Commission, the number of African American 
 males in prisons and jails in the United States is 
 
 3 Shay Bilchik, State Responses to Serious and Violent Juve- 
 nile Crime (Pittsburgh, PA: National Center for Juvenile 
 Justice, 1996). 
 
 '" S. R. Donzier, The Real War on Crime: The Report of the 
 National Criminal Justice Commission (New York: Harper 
 Perennial, 1995), p. 99. 
 
 " M. Mauer and T. Huling, Young Black Americans and the 
 Criminal Justice System: Five Years Later (Washington, DC: 
 The Sentencing Project, 1995). 
 
 38
 
 greater than the number of African American 
 males enrolled in higher education institutions. '^ 
 The process of transferring juveniles to adult 
 courts would put more African Americans in 
 prison rather than college. Traditionally educa- 
 tion has been an investment in the future of so- 
 ciety, and the fact that more young African 
 American males will be transferred to adult 
 court represents a "disinvestment" in the future 
 of African American males. This will continue to 
 erode the social fabric of the African American 
 communities. 
 
 Transferring African American male juve- 
 niles to criminal court will not deter criminal 
 behavior among these youths. Two well-designed 
 studies found that transfer laws have no deter- 
 rent effect on juvenile crime in the relative short 
 term (up to 8 years after these laws have been 
 enacted). Jensen and Metsger conducted a time- 
 series analysis (that is, an analysis plotting ef- 
 fects over a period of time) after the 1981 Idaho 
 automatic transfer statute was passed, and 
 found a 13 percent increase in arrest rates for 
 violent juvenile crime. '^ Singer and McDowall 
 also found no deterrent effect of the New York 
 law automatically sending violent juvenile of- 
 fenders to adult court, in the 6-year period after 
 the law was passed. This was true even though 
 the law was widely used and although the state 
 had made significant efforts through the news 
 media to inform juveniles of the new law.''' Thus, 
 the practice of transferring juvenile offenders to 
 criminal court does not appear to deter juvenile 
 crimes. Consequently, the legislation will serve 
 to label young African American males as crimi- 
 nals, but may have very little impact on their 
 antisocial behavior. 
 
 Transferring juveniles to adult court is, 
 therefore, not the answer to the crime situation 
 among African American males. At best, trans- 
 fers are a short-term solution to a complex social 
 condition that will not be simplified by transfer- 
 ring juveniles to the jurisdiction of the criminal 
 court; they merely serve to appease the pubUc's 
 
 '2 M. Mauer, Young Black Americans and the Criminal Jus- 
 tice System: Five Years Later. 
 
 " E.L. Jensen and L. Metsger, "A Test of the Deterrent Ef- 
 fect of Legislative Waiver on Violent Juvenile Crime," Crime 
 and Delinquency, vol. 40, pp. 96-100. 
 
 '■' S. Singer and D. McDowall, "Criminalizing Delinquency: 
 The Deterrent Effects of the New York Juvenile Offender 
 Law," Law and Society Review, 22(3), 1994, pp. 521-35. 
 
 desire for retribution. After all, the majority of 
 these African American juveniles transferred to 
 criminal court will reenter society stigmatized by 
 their criminal label and, in all hkelihood, more 
 dangerous than they were before being sanc- 
 tioned as adults. 
 
 Legislative Reforms and Reduction of Juvenile 
 Crimes 
 
 The basic question is whether "get-tough" 
 legislation effectively reduces juvenile crime in 
 the African American community. The idea of 
 severely punishing the few to deter the many is 
 counterproductive, because potential criminals 
 either think that they are not going to get 
 caught, or because they are so emotionally des- 
 perate, or psychologically distressed, that they 
 do not care about the consequences of their ac- 
 tions. Transferring juveniles to criminal court 
 has a role in pubhc safety, but it is not the cure- 
 all. Its value is limited, and its use should be 
 limited. 
 
 The federal juvenile justice legislative re- 
 forms lack balance. The legislation is full of pu- 
 nitive measures to prosecute and lock up chil- 
 dren, but contains no preventive strategies. Fo- 
 cusing only on the back-end of the juvenile jus- 
 tice system — after children get into trouble — is 
 short-sighted. Society should be preventing chil- 
 dren from getting into trouble and intervening 
 at the first warning signs, before they drift into 
 criminal activity. 
 
 Instead of trying so hard to be "tough on 
 crime," the federal government should be "smart 
 on prevention" by providing programs that can 
 reduce crime. Effectively addressing the issue of 
 juvenile offenders holds the greatest potential 
 for reducing the nation's juvenile crime rate. The 
 alternative to transferring juveniles to adult 
 court is a comprehensive community response to 
 juvenile unlawfulness that views juvenile and 
 criminal justice as components of a larger 
 whole — society. Moreover, this response must 
 address crime as a community problem with a 
 community solution, instead of viewing it solely 
 as a justice system problem with a justice system 
 solution. 
 
 The reasons why African American males en- 
 ter the juvenile justice system are complex and 
 need to be addressed in a comprehensive way. 
 The following are some recommendations: 
 
 39
 
 • The practice of transferring juveniles to 
 criminal court should be abolished because it 
 is ineffective and results in the creation of a 
 permanent criminal record for the juvenile. 
 The legislation needs to be reexamined. 
 
 • Programs in the juvenile justice system 
 should be designed to rehabihtate offenders 
 and reduce the likelihood that they will re- 
 turn to the system. 
 
 • Governments should develop and implement 
 a wide range of effective options for violent 
 offenders. States and federal governments 
 should spend more money on diversion and 
 rehabUitation programs, instead of on trans- 
 ferring juveniles to adult court. Transfers 
 should be used as a last resort for offenders 
 who cannot be diverted or rehabihtated. 
 
 Given the fact that "get-tough" legislation 
 would have httle or no deterrent effect on crime 
 rates among African Americans, and the fact 
 that the practice of transferring African Ameri- 
 cans to adult court has social and financial con- 
 sequences for the community, the question is: 
 How can the number of African Americans in 
 prison be reduced? The answer Ues in crime pre- 
 vention strategies and the elimination of dis- 
 crimination in the criminal justice system. 
 
 Punitive measures to combat crimes are 
 "after-the-fact" solutions to the juvenile crime 
 problem in the African American community. 
 These measures attack deUnquency and delin- 
 quents rather than the social factors that are 
 linked to the criminal behavior of African 
 Americans. Instead of "after-the-fact" efforts, 
 governments need to provide "before-the-fact" 
 comprehensive social programs to prevent 
 criminal behavior among African Americans. 
 
 Solutions to the delinquency problem must 
 focus on factors that predispose African Ameri- 
 can males to delinquent behavior. Although a 
 high percentage of African Americans have more 
 contact with the criminal justice system than 
 many whites do, this does not mean that race or 
 ethnicity is related to criminal behavior. Instead, 
 social class is a more important factor than ei- 
 ther race or ethnicity. Many African Americans 
 reside in the inner city areas that are socially 
 disorganized, physically decayed, and economi- 
 cally deprived. These personal circumstances are 
 conducive to high rates of crime. The social envi- 
 
 ronment of African Americans is, therefore, pri- 
 marily responsible for crime rate differences. ^^ 
 
 The most effective way to curb crime and de- 
 hnquency among African Americans is to pre- 
 vent African Americans from committing the 
 acts in the first place. Governments, therefore, 
 need to focus their crime and deUnquency con- 
 trol measures on increased employment pohcies 
 and educational programs. Specifically they 
 should: 
 
 • Focus on poverty and the lack of economic 
 opportunities in the African American com- 
 munity by providing more jobs and job- 
 training programs. Given the role of poverty 
 and economic inequities in fostering delin- 
 quency among African Americans, it is plau- 
 sible that reducing poverty and the economic 
 disparity between African Americans and 
 the rest of society would help reduce dehn- 
 quent behavior. 
 
 • Provide African Americans with early child- 
 hood developmental programs, parent- 
 training programs, educational and recrea- 
 tional programs, drug treatment programs, 
 and counsehng programs. Criminal behavior 
 among African Americans would be more ef- 
 fectively reduced by education and treat- 
 ment, with prison as a last resort. 
 
 • Provide preventive measures which are more 
 effective and significant than punitive reac- 
 tions. Punishment may be necessary, but of- 
 ten fails to teach new, alternative means to 
 achieve desired goals. 
 
 The above recommendations are both short 
 term and long term. The tendency is for govern- 
 ments to focus on short-term pohcies and ignore 
 long-term strategies. The problem of delin- 
 quency cannot be solved entirely with legislative 
 pohcies and strategies because these are reactive 
 in nature. What is also necessary is prevention, 
 which requires long-term pohcies and strategies. 
 Governments have to focus more on prevention 
 if they are to deal with deUnquency among Afri- 
 can Americans. 
 
 Summary 
 
 Transferring juveniles to adult court is part 
 of the "get tough" poUcy of federal and state gov- 
 
 's T. Duster, Crime, "Youth unemployment, and the black 
 underclass," Crime and Delinquency, 33(2), pp. 300-16. 
 
 40
 
 ernments. There is little evidence that this fed- 
 eral legislation deters deUnquency. Conse- 
 quently, claims that transferring youths to adult 
 court protects the community appear to be inac- 
 curate. The legislation will instead cause num- 
 bers of African American males to be entangled 
 in the criminal justice system. 
 
 Criminal justice pohcies are often short- 
 sighted and formulated in response to emotional 
 appeals. The media sensationahsm of particular 
 crimes and criminals, and the poUtical power of 
 the crime issue usually prompt new legislation — 
 legislation that often lacks proper planning and 
 thorough examination of long-term impact. 
 "Getting tough" has always been a quick fix for 
 crimes that society fears. 
 
 If the current federal juvenile justice legisla- 
 tion is left unchallenged and unchanged, the 
 number of African American males transferred 
 to criminal court will increase and the so-called 
 get tough measures will continue to be detrimen- 
 tal to the black community. To break this cycle 
 and reduce the number of African American 
 
 males in the criminal justice system, state and 
 federal governments need to reexamine their 
 "get tough" legislation on minority juveniles, es- 
 pecially African American males. In addition, 
 there needs to be much more discussion about 
 effective prevention programs. State and federal 
 governments should provide social programs for 
 African American males to break the cycle of 
 poverty, unemployment, and crime. Delinquent 
 behavior and violence can be reduced in the Af- 
 rican American community if governments pro- 
 vide education and jobs. The choice is clear; 
 schools and jobs should be available to African 
 Americans instead of harsh punishment. When 
 federal and state governments choose to build 
 more prisons to house juveniles instead of pro- 
 viding better schools and job opportunities for 
 African Americans, this is criminal. It appears, 
 however, that further increases in the use of 
 transfers are likely, given present "get tough" 
 sentiments among pohticians and the pubUc in 
 general. 
 
 41
 
 Bibliography 
 
 Bilchik, Shay (1996). State Responses to Serious 
 and Violent Juvenile Crime. Pittsburgh, PA: National 
 Center for Juvenile Justice. 
 
 Elrod, Preston & Scott, R. (1999). Juvenile Justice: 
 A Social, Historical, and Legal Perspective. Gaithers- 
 burg, MD: Aspen Publishers, 1999. 
 
 Donzier, S.R. (1995). 77ie Real War on Crime: The 
 Report of the National Criminal Justice Commission. 
 New York, NY: Harper Perennial. 
 
 Duster, T. (1987). Crime, Youth Unemployment, 
 and the Black Underclass. Crime and Delinquency, 
 33(2), 300-16. 
 
 Federal Bureau of Investigation (1997). Uniform 
 Crime Reports for United States 1996. Washington, 
 DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 
 
 Jensen, E.L. & Metsger, L. (1994). A Test of the 
 Deterrent Effect of Legislative Waiver on Violent Ju- 
 venile Crime. Crime and Delinquency, 40, 96-100. 
 
 Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act 
 of 1974, 18 U.S.C. §§ 4351-5042 (1998), 42 U.S.C. §§ 
 3701, 3723, 3733, 3758, 3772-3774, 3811, 3814, 3821, 
 3882, 3883, 3888; 5601-5785 (1998). 
 
 Mauer, M. & Huhng, T. (1995). Young Black 
 Americans and the Criminal Justice System. Five 
 Years Later. Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project. 
 
 Schmalleger, Frank (1999). Criminal Justice To- 
 day. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. 
 
 Singer, S.L. & McDowall, D. (1988). Criminalizing 
 Delinquency: The Deterrent Effects of the New York 
 Juvenile Offender Law. Law and Society Review, 
 22(3), 521-35. 
 
 Snyder, Howard & Sickmund, Melissa (1995). Ju- 
 venile Offenders and Their Victims: A Focus on Vio- 
 lence. Pittsburgh, PA: National Center for Juvenile 
 Justice, 1995. 
 
 Violent and Hard Core Juvenile Offender Act, S. 
 1245, 1995. 
 
 42
 
 Crisis of the Young African American IVIale and 
 tlie Criminal Justice System 
 
 Marc Mauer* 
 
 Introduction 
 
 In recent years policy attention regarding the 
 crisis of the African American male has focused 
 on a variety of areas in which African American 
 males have suffered disproportinately from so- 
 cial ills. These have included education, housing, 
 employment, and health care, among others. 
 Perhaps in no other area, though, have these 
 problems been displayed as prominently as in the 
 realm of crime and the criminal justice system. 
 
 African Americans have been affected in this 
 area in two significant regards. First, African 
 Americans are more likely to be victimized by 
 crime than are other groups. This creates a set of 
 individual and community problems which im- 
 pede upon other areas of productive activity. 
 Second, the dramatic rates at which African 
 American males have come under some form of 
 criminal justice supervision has created a com- 
 plex set of consequences which affect not only 
 individual victims and offenders, but famihes 
 and communities as well. 
 
 This paper will explore the current status of 
 African American males within the criminal jus- 
 tice system, and consider projections for the fu- 
 ture should current pohcies continue. It will also 
 assess the factors that have created such high 
 levels of criminal justice control. Finally, it will 
 provide a set of recommendations for public pol- 
 icy that would help to alleviate the disastrous 
 circumstances that currently prevail, while hav- 
 ing a more constructive impact on public safety. 
 
 Overview of the Status of African American 
 IVIales and the Criminal Justice System 
 
 A wealth of statistical information is now 
 available to document what a walk through vir- 
 
 tually any urban courthouse or state prison dis- 
 plays quite graphically. A courtroom observer in 
 New York, Detroit, Atlanta, Los Angeles, or any 
 other major city will witness a sea of black and 
 brown faces sitting at the defense table or 
 shackled together on the bus transporting pris- 
 oners from the jail for court hearings. In the 
 prison visiting room, mothers, wives, and girl- 
 friends who have often traveled several hours by 
 bus or car wait to see their loved ones in stuffy 
 and noisy visiting rooms with little privacy. 
 
 Living conditions within the prison system 
 have never been pleasant or comfortable, but a 
 harsher pohtical chmate now threatens to undo 
 many of the reforms achieved through Utigation 
 and pohtical advocacy over the past several dec- 
 ades. Congressional action in 1994 prohibited 
 inmates from receiving PeU grants to continue 
 higher education studies, while many states 
 have passed their own legislation denying in- 
 mates access to various forms of recreation or 
 cultural activities. Much of this legislation has 
 been not just mean-spirited, but counterproduc- 
 tive as well, by hmiting prisoners' access to the 
 acquisition of skills that might be used construc- 
 tively upon their return to the community. 
 
 These conditions now disproportionately af- 
 fect African American males and other minori- 
 ties due to their overwhelming numbers within 
 the criminal justice system. The state of these 
 disproportions can be seen in the following: 
 
 • 49 percent of prison inmates nationally are 
 African American, compared to their 13 per- 
 cent share of the overall population.' 
 
 * Assistant director, The Sentencing Project. 
 
 ' Unless otherwise specified, all data on prison and jail 
 populations throughout is taken firom various reports of the 
 Bureau of Justice Statistics. 
 
 43
 
 • Nearly one in three (32 percent) black males 
 in the age group 20-29 is under some form of 
 criminal justice supervision on any given 
 day — either in prison or jail, or on probation 
 or parole. 2 
 
 • As of 1995, 1 in 14 (7 percent) adult black 
 males was incarcerated in prison or jail on 
 any given day, representing a doubling of 
 this rate from 1985. The 1995 figure for 
 white males was 1 percent. 
 
 • A black male born in 1991 has a 29 percent 
 chance of spending time in prison at some 
 point in his life. The figure for white males is 
 4 percent, and for Hispanics, 16 percent. 
 
 While African American males have been the 
 most severely affected demographic group 
 within the criminal justice system, other minori- 
 ties have also been disproportionately affected. 
 Hispanics now constitute 17 percent of the 
 prison population nationally, compared to their 
 10 percent share of the total population. The 
 number of Hispanic inmates increased by more 
 than half in the period 1990-96. Women, and 
 particularly minority women, while incarcerated 
 in smaller numbers than men, have also experi- 
 enced dramatic growth in recent years. The 
 number of women in the prison system increased 
 by 418 percent from 1980 to 1995, compared to a 
 rise of 236 percent for men. Black women are 
 now incarcerated at a rate 7 times that of white 
 women. 
 
 Toward an Understanding of the 
 Overrepresentation of African American 
 Males in the Criminal Justice System 
 
 In 1954, at the time of the historic Brown v. 
 Board of Education^ decision, African Americans 
 constituted about 30 percent of persons admitted 
 to state and federal prisons. That figure should 
 have been disturbing since it was substantially 
 higher than the black share of the national 
 population. But that proportion has now in- 
 creased still more dramatically, to the point 
 where blacks represent half of all prison admis- 
 sions. 
 
 This development would seem to be rather 
 odd considering the changes that have taken 
 
 place in American society over the past half- 
 century. The nation has experienced the civil 
 rights movement, and economic opportunities 
 have opened up for many historically disadvan- 
 taged groups. Within the criminal justice sys- 
 tem, minorities have moved into positions of 
 leadership in many jurisdictions, so it is now 
 common to see blacks as pohce chiefs, judges, 
 and prison wardens, perhaps not in proportion to 
 their share of the population, but nonetheless 
 considerably more prominently than in earher 
 times. 
 
 Given these positive changes, how has the 
 situation of black males within the criminal jus- 
 tice system worsened so considerably to the 
 point where it threatens the viability of an entire 
 generation? Some have argued that these out- 
 comes may be unfortunate, but are inevitable 
 given high black rates of crime. Others suggest 
 that a new generation of "superpredators" unlike 
 any cohort of the past has been created. In the 
 following sections we analyze the statistical evi- 
 dence and research findings that enable us to 
 understand these developments. These can be 
 divided into four areas of inquiry: 1) Crime 
 rates; 2) race and class effects; 3) bias within the 
 criminal justice system; and 4) drug policies. 
 
 Crime Rates 
 
 All things being equal, the degree to which 
 members of a demographic group engage in 
 crime should be related to the extent to which 
 members of that group are incarcerated. In addi- 
 tion, among those individuals who commit 
 crimes, the extent of an individual's criminal 
 history is a critical factor that influences 
 whether an offender will be sentenced to prison. 
 Thus, if African Americans exhibit higher rates 
 of serious offending and/or have lengthier crimi- 
 nal histories than other groups, we could expect 
 this to be reflected in the composition of the 
 prison population. 
 
 For property offenses, African Americans 
 constituted 32 percent of arrests in 1996,^ dis- 
 proportionate to their 13 percent share of the 
 national population. (While arrest rates may not 
 correlate precisely with crime rates, they are 
 generally the best approximation of the degree of 
 offending.) For violent crimes, though, black of- 
 
 2 Marc Mauer and Tracy Ruling, "Young Black Americans 
 and the Criminal Justice System: Five Years Later," The 
 Sentencing Project, October 1995. 
 
 3 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 
 
 * FBI, Crime in the United States, 1996, 1997. All subse- 
 quent data on crime rates taken from this and previous re- 
 ports in this series. 
 
 44
 
 fending rates are considerably higher than for 
 other groups, accounting for 43 percent of those 
 arrests in 1996. 
 
 The high black proportion of violent crime 
 clearly explains some of the disparity that we 
 see in the prison population, but not to the ex- 
 tent that is often portrayed in popular media. 
 Two issues in particular stand out in this regard: 
 
 • While the black proportion of violent arrests 
 is high, it has remained essentially un- 
 changed for 20 years. Since 1976, this pro- 
 portion has fluctuated in a narrow range of 
 43—47 percent. Even during the upsurge of 
 black juvenile homicides in the late 1980s, a 
 dechning rate of homicide among black 
 adults resulted in a stable rate overall for 
 African Americans. 
 
 • Explanations of black juvenile homicides in 
 the 1980s that focus on the "superpredator" 
 theory have no basis in fact. Justice Depart- 
 ment data show that the entire rise in such 
 homicides for the period 1984—1994 was re- 
 lated to firearms, as has been the dechne in 
 homicides beginning in 1995. Thus, the le- 
 thality of young offenders increased by hav- 
 ing access to guns, rather than there being a 
 new "breed" of young killers. Further, if the 
 15- to 19-year-olds who were committing 
 violent crimes in the late 1980s were actu- 
 ally "superpredators," then they should have 
 displayed these tendencies in the early 1980s 
 as well, when they were in the 10-14 age 
 range. Data for this period, though, show no 
 such trends, with that group's rate of vio- 
 lence similar to other periods of time.^ This 
 therefore lends support to the explanation 
 that the greater availabihty of firearms, 
 much of it related to the drug trade, was the 
 primary source of the increase in violence. 
 
 Prominent analyses of the overall racial com- 
 position of the prison population have been con- 
 ducted by criminologist Alfred Blumstein. In an 
 examination of the 1991 state prison population, 
 he concluded that 76 percent of the higher black 
 rate of imprisonment could be accounted for by 
 
 higher rates of arrest for serious offenses.^ While 
 this held true for most crimes, the critical excep- 
 tion in this regard was drug offenses, which wiU 
 be detailed further below. The remaining 24 per- 
 cent of disparity might be explained by criminal 
 histories, racial bias, or other factors. 
 
 A related examination of incarceration data 
 by sociologists Robert Crutchfield, George 
 Bridges, and Susan Pitchford found that while 
 national level data seemed to show a high cor- 
 relation between arrest rates and incarceration 
 for African Americans, the variation in this rela- 
 tionship at the state level was quite significant.'' 
 In the northeast states, only 69 percent of racial 
 disparity was explained by arrest, while in the 
 north central states, fewer blacks were actually 
 incarcerated than one would have predicted by 
 just using arrest data. Overall, this suggests 
 that a variety of factors, which include crime 
 rates, law enforcement practices, and sentencing 
 legislation, may play a role in the degree of ra- 
 cial disparity in incarceration. 
 
 A second factor that may explain higher rates 
 of incarceration is the criminal history of an of- 
 fender. The more serious a prior criminal record, 
 the greater the likehhood of receiving a prison 
 term for a new offense. Whether one acquires a 
 criminal record is clearly in part related to the 
 level of criminal activity, but it is also often a 
 function of race, geographical location, and other 
 factors. 
 
 Many African Americans, for example, have 
 experienced the crime known as "driving while 
 black." In different parts of the country, there is 
 strong evidence regarding the propensity of po- 
 Uce to stop black males, while driving, for al- 
 leged traffic violations. Often, the justification 
 offered for these actions is that they are neces- 
 sary for the purpose of apprehending alleged 
 drug traffickers, with the aid of drug courier 
 "profiles." In Volusia County in central Florida, 
 researchers documenting traffic stops made by 
 local pohce in the late 1980s found that more 
 than 70 percent of the drivers stopped were ei- 
 ther African American or Hispanic. This com- 
 
 * Philip J. Cook and John H. Laub, "The Unprecedented 
 Epidemic in Youth Violence," in Michael Tonry, ed., Crime 
 and Justice: A Review of Research, University of Chicago 
 Press, forthcoming, 1999. 
 
 6 Alfred Blumstein, "Racial Disproportionahty of U.S. Prison 
 Populations Revisited," University of Colorado Law Review, 
 vol. 64, no. 3, 1993. 
 
 ' Robert D. Crutchfield, George S. Bridges, and Susan R. 
 Pitchford, "Analytical and Aggregation Biases in Analyses of 
 Imprisonment: Reconciling Discrepancies in Studies of Ra- 
 cial Disparity," Journal of Research in Crime and Delin- 
 quency, vol. 31 (May 1994). 
 
 45
 
 pared to data showing that blacks constituted 12 
 percent of the state's driving age population and 
 15 percent of drivers convicted of traffic viola- 
 tions. Blacks and Hispanics were also stopped 
 for longer periods than whites, and represented 
 80 percent of the cars that were searched fol- 
 lowing a stop.* These types of discretionary law 
 enforcement practices may lead to African 
 Americans acquiring a criminal record more 
 rapidly than whites, later resulting in a greater 
 chance of receiving a prison sentence. In addi- 
 tion, given that most drivers stopped in "profile" 
 checks are in fact not drug traffickers, these 
 practices often contribute to African American 
 distrust of law enforcement. 
 
 Race and Class Effects 
 
 As the trials of O.J. Simpson illustrated so 
 clearly, discussions of race and the criminal jus- 
 tice system are often heavily overlaid with con- 
 siderations of class as well. Racial disparities are 
 related in part to the volume of crime committed 
 by various groups, but they are also a function of 
 differing forms of treatment that relate to the 
 background and resources of the offender. 
 
 Criminologist Delbert ElUott has conducted 
 analyses of youthful offending and its relation to 
 race and class. ^ In longitudinal studies of data 
 from the National Youth Survey he has found 
 several intriguing patterns: 
 
 • Self-reported rates of offending behavior by 
 young males are high across all racial 
 groups, with 42 percent of males reporting 
 that they have engaged in some form of vio- 
 lent offending — aggravated assault, robbery, 
 or rape — by the age of 27. 
 
 • Black males engage in serious violent of- 
 fending at higher rates than white males, 
 but not dramatically so. By age 27, 48 per- 
 cent of black males have reported at least 
 one instance of such behavior, compared to 
 38 percent of white males, a ratio of about 
 5:4. For lower class males, the differences 
 are even smaller, about 7:6 black to white. 
 
 * David A. Harris, " 'Driving While Black' and All Other 
 Traffic Offenses: The Supreme Court and Pretextual Traffic 
 Stops," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 87 
 (summer 1997), p. 562. 
 
 9 Delbert S. Elliott, "Serious Violent Offenders: Onset, De- 
 velopmental Course, and Termination — The American Soci- 
 ety of Criminology 1993 Presidential Address," Criminology, 
 vol. 32, no. 1 (1994): 1-21. 
 
 • Offenses by blacks are more likely to lead to 
 arrest than those of whites. While the self- 
 reported involvement of adolescent males 
 represents a 3:2 black/white differential, the 
 arrest ratio is 4:1. 
 
 • While there are no dramatic differences in 
 the degree to which blacks and whites be- 
 come involved in offending at some point, 
 blacks are nearly twice as likely to continue 
 offending into their 20s. The key variable in 
 this regard is the adoption of adult roles. 
 Thus, among young adults who are employed 
 or living in a stable relationship, there are 
 no significant differences in the persistence 
 of offending by race. 
 
 Overall, these studies suggest that while 
 criminal behavior cuts across race and class 
 hnes, the societal response to these behaviors 
 may significantly influence the course of a po- 
 tential criminal career. Decisions regarding the 
 most effective balance of responses by law en- 
 forcement, social services, and community inter- 
 vention are critical in determining many of these 
 outcomes. 
 
 Racial Bias in the Criminal Justice System 
 
 The criminal justice system has historically 
 served as a focal point of much of societal racism. 
 A long legacy of practices such as the convict 
 leasing system, extra-judicial lynchings, and po- 
 Uce brutahty have shaped the history of African 
 Americans and the criminal justice system. Over 
 the past 30 years, though, significant change has 
 occurred in some aspects of the system. In many 
 jurisdictions minorities have moved into posi- 
 tions of leadership within law enforcement, the 
 courts, and corrections systems. Supreme Court 
 decisions have placed restrictions on such prac- 
 tices as prosecutorial bias in jury selection. De- 
 spite these constructive changes, though, racial 
 disproportions have worsened over this period of 
 time. 
 
 In assessing the extent to which racial bias 
 within the criminal justice system has contrib- 
 uted to these disparities, there is mixed research 
 evidence. Imposition of the death penalty pro- 
 vides the most compelling evidence for ongoing 
 racial disparity. A series of studies has demon- 
 strated that, controlling for a wide range of vari- 
 ables, the race of both victim and offender has a 
 significant impact on the determination of a sen- 
 
 46
 
 tence of death as opposed to life in prison. David 
 Baldus and colleagues, for example, found that 
 murder defendants charged with kilhng whites 
 faced a 4.3 times greater chance of receiving 
 death than those charged with kilhng blacks, i" 
 
 In looking at sentencing outcomes for other 
 offenses, the research evidence is less clear re- 
 garding whether minorities receive harsher sen- 
 tences than whites. A number of studies have 
 found Uttle difference in sentences imposed 
 when controUing for relevant variables, par- 
 ticularly the severity of the offense and the of- 
 fender's prior record. A 1990 Rand study, for ex- 
 ample, concluded that offenders in California 
 generally received comparable sentences re- 
 gardless of race, for most offenses. ^^ The one ex- 
 ception was in the area of drug sentences, a dis- 
 tinction that we will explore below. 
 
 Other research illuminates the complexity of 
 these findings. A review of prosecutorial deci- 
 sionmaking conducted by John Hagan and Ruth 
 Peterson suggests that prosecutors stereotjrpe 
 cases according to case-specific characteristics, 
 by making racially biased assessments of the 
 credibihty of the victim and offender as wit- 
 nesses. Nonwhite victims tend to be considered 
 less credible witnesses, while white victims, es- 
 pecially of nonwhite defendants, are considered 
 highly credible. '2 Since most crime is intraracial, 
 committed against victims of the same race, 
 these dynamics may actually benefit black de- 
 fendants but penahze black victims in some 
 cases. Thus, studies that conclude that no racial 
 bias can be detected at sentencing may actually 
 be overlooking more complex victim-offender 
 racial dynamics. 
 
 Research on sentencing in a number of juris- 
 dictions has concluded that disparity based on 
 race does in fact occur. One of the more sophisti- 
 cated such studies examined case processing and 
 sentencing outcomes for persons arrested for a 
 felony offense in New York State, for the years 
 
 10 David C. Baldus, Charles Pulaski, and George Wood- 
 worth, "Comparative Review of Death Sentences: An Em- 
 pirical Study of the Georgia Experience," Journal of Crimi- 
 nal Law and Criminology, vol. 74 (fall 1983), pp. 661-753. 
 
 " Stephen Klein, Joan Petersilia, and Susan Turner, "Race 
 and Imprisonment Decisions in California," Science (Feb. 16, 
 1990). 
 
 '2 John Hagan and Ruth D. Peterson, "Criminal Inequality 
 in America: Patterns and Consequences," in John Hagan 
 and Ruth D. Peterson, Crime and Inequality (Stanford, CA: 
 Stanford University Press, 1995), p. 28. 
 
 1990-92. Controlling for factors including prior 
 criminal history, gender, and county, the re- 
 searchers found that for the more serious of- 
 fenses, there was relatively httle difference in 
 sentencing, although it was estimated that 300 
 black and Hispanic offenders who received 
 prison terms would not have had they been 
 white. For property offenses and misdemeanors, 
 though, minorities were considerably more likely 
 to receive jail terms, resulting in an additional 
 4,000 sentences a year for minorities statewide. i^ 
 Simdar results regarding sentencing in less seri- 
 ous cases have been found in other studies. 
 
 The key issue in this regard appears to he in 
 the use of discretion by the courts when sen- 
 tencing offenders. Violent offenders, regardless 
 of their race or ethnicity, are quite likely to be 
 sentenced to prison. For less serious offenders, 
 however, where there is an option but no obliga- 
 tion to sentence an offender to prison, prosecu- 
 tors and judges are making decisions in each 
 case about whether an offender will, for exam- 
 ple, receive 6 months in jail, or be required to 
 enter a treatment program and make restitution 
 to a victim. 
 
 It would be a mistake simply to attribute the 
 results of such studies to prosecutorial and judi- 
 cial racist behefs; in some jurisdictions a signifi- 
 cant number of prosecutors and judges are mi- 
 norities, prosecuting and sentencing other mi- 
 norities to terms of incarceration. The results 
 instead may reflect the degree to which offend- 
 ers bring different sets of resources with them to 
 the court system. For example, do white offend- 
 ers have greater access to private defense attor- 
 neys, who can devote more time to their cases, to 
 try to convince prosecutors and judges that a jail 
 or prison term is not warranted? Do they have 
 greater access to expert psychiatric testimony, or 
 can they afford to subsidize placement in a sub- 
 stance abuse treatment program? Or, is uncon- 
 scious racism at play: Do whites speak in a lan- 
 guage and manner that is more comfortable to 
 the decisionmakers in the courtroom? 
 
 These questions have important imphcations 
 for developing remedies for the racial disparities 
 that are so prominent in the criminal justice sys- 
 tem. While some might advocate that a solution 
 to minority overrepresentation in the prison sys- 
 
 '•' James F. Nelson, Disparities in Processing Felony Arrests 
 in New York State, 1990-92 (Albany, NY: Division of Crimi- 
 nal Justice Services, 1995). 
 
 47
 
 tem would be to sentence more white offenders 
 to prison, such an approach would be extremely 
 costly, and would not alleviate any of the hairms 
 suffered by minority communities. 
 
 The alternative approach is to examine the 
 factors that enable white, or middle-class, of- 
 fenders to be sentenced to nonprison terms more 
 frequently, and to rephcate those conditions for 
 low-income people. For example, if middle-class 
 offenders have greater access to drug treatment 
 resources, courts and communities could expand 
 such services to make them accessible to a 
 broader range of offenders. Additionally, greater 
 resources could be devoted to indigent defense 
 services, a proposal to which Attorney General 
 Janet Reno has frequently called attention. 
 
 Drug Policies and Racial Disparity 
 
 Since 1980, the "war on drugs" has been the 
 most significant factor contributing to the rise of 
 prison and jail populations. Drug policies have 
 also had a disproportionate impact on African 
 Americans and have exacerbated the racial dis- 
 parities that already existed within the criminal 
 justice system. This has come about in two ways: 
 First, drug offenders overall have increased as a 
 proportion of the criminal justice population, 
 and second, the proportion of African Americans 
 among drug offenders has been increasing. 
 
 From 1980 to 1995, drug arrests nationally 
 nearly tripled from 581,000 to 1,476,000, thus 
 bringing nearly a million additional drug cases 
 to the court system each year. Over the course of 
 this period, drug cases came to be treated much 
 more harshly. Primarily as a result of manda- 
 tory sentencing pohcies adopted by all 50 states 
 and the federal government, convicted drug of- 
 fenders are now far more Ukely to be sentenced 
 to prison than in the past. Justice Department 
 data reveal that the chances of a drug arrestee 
 being sentenced to prison rose by 447 percent 
 between 1980 and 1992. 
 
 The combined impact of increased drug ar- 
 rests, along with harsher sentencing policies, 
 has led to a vast expansion of drug offenders in 
 the nation's prisons and jails. Whereas in 1980, 1 
 of every 16 state prison inmates was incarcer- 
 ated for a drug offense, by 1995, 1 of every 4 
 prisoners was a drug offender. The increase from 
 19,000 drug offenders in 1980 to 225,000 in 1995 
 represented more than a 1,000 percent increase 
 in this 15-year period. 
 
 While the numbers of inmates in the federal 
 prison system are smaller overall, the scale of 
 the increase has been similar. The 4,900 federal 
 drug offenders in 1980 represented 25 percent of 
 the inmate population. This grew to 51,700, or 
 60 percent, by 1995. Looking at prisons and jaUs 
 combined, there are now an estimated 400,000 
 inmates either awaiting trial or serving time for 
 a drug offense, out of a total inmate population 
 of 1.7 miUion. 
 
 As these pohcies have been implemented, 
 they have increasingly affected African Ameri- 
 can and Hispanic communities. The African 
 American proportion of drug arrests has risen 
 from 25 percent in 1980 to 37 percent in 1995. 
 Hispanic and African American inmates are 
 more likely than non-Hispanic whites to be in- 
 carcerated for a drug offense. As of 1991, 33 per- 
 cent of Hispanic state prison inmates had been 
 convicted of a drug offense, 25 percent of blacks, 
 and 12 percent of non-Hispanic whites. 
 
 In recent years much attention has also been 
 devoted to discussion of the federal crack/cocaine 
 sentencing disparities. As a result of mandatory 
 sentencing legislation passed by Congress in 
 1986 and 1988, crack cocaine offenses are pun- 
 ished far more harshly than powder cocaine 
 crimes. Whereas the sale of 500 grams of powder 
 cocaine results in a mandatory 5-year prison 
 term, only 5 grams of crack cocaine is required to 
 trigger the same mandatory penalty. Since crack 
 cocaine is manufactured from powder cocaine 
 these sentencing pohcies create a set of odd con- 
 sequences. For example, a major dealer in pow- 
 der cocaine who is apprehended with 499 grams 
 of the drug will receive at most 1 year in federal 
 prison. But when those 499 grams are converted 
 to crack and distributed at the street level, 
 someone possessing just 5 grams will receive a 
 mandatory 5 years in prison. 
 
 The racial disparities created by these poli- 
 cies have been dramatic, and have resulted both 
 from the sentencing legislation and law en- 
 forcement practices. In 1995-96, for example, 86 
 percent of persons charged with crack trafficking 
 offenses in the federal system were African 
 American, while blacks represented just 30 per- 
 cent of persons charged with powder cocaine of- 
 fenses.''* Federal prosecutors have often con- 
 tended that the high numbers of black crack 
 
 ''' United States Sentencing Commission, 1996 Sourcebook 
 of Federal Sentencing Statistics, tab. 29. 
 
 48
 
 prosecutions reflect the proportions of large- 
 scale traffickers in crack, who quaHfy for federal 
 prosecution because of their substantial role in 
 the drug trade. Data analyzed by the U.S. Sen- 
 tencing Commission, though, cast doubt on this 
 contention. In the commission's analysis of crack 
 defendants in 1992, only 5.5 percent of the de- 
 fendants were classified as high-level dealers, 
 while 63.7 percent were considered street-level 
 dealers or couriers, and 30.8 percent were mid- 
 level dealers. 15 
 
 The ways in which the racial disparities in 
 the prosecution of drug offenses come about are 
 complex. Overall drug use by African Americans 
 is not substantially different than for other 
 demographic groups. Household surveys con- 
 ducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental 
 Health Services Administration have found that 
 blacks represent 15 percent of monthly drug us- 
 ers, roughly comparable to their 13 percent 
 share of the national population. For drug sell- 
 ing, there is no means of estimating precisely 
 whether African Americans are more engaged in 
 these activities than other groups, although a 
 National Institute of Justice analysis of drug 
 transactions in six cities found that respondents 
 were most Likely to report using a main source 
 who was of their own racial or ethnic back- 
 ground.'^ 
 
 A report issued by the Wisconsin Policy Re- 
 search Institute, for example, assessed differ- 
 ences in the white suburban drug markets and 
 inner-city black and Hispanic neighborhoods of 
 Milwaukee. I'' While drug dealing was prevalent 
 in each of the communities, the inner-city sales 
 tended to be neighborhood based, often taking 
 place on street corners. In contrast, the subur- 
 ban distribution of cocaine and other drugs took 
 place by word of mouth through contacts at 
 work, bars, athletic leagues, and alternative cul- 
 tural events such as "raves." Suburban sales lo- 
 cations were more hidden from law enforcement 
 than were those in the inner-city neighborhoods, 
 but they were "not very difficult to locate," in the 
 words of the author. 
 
 '5 United States Sentencing Commission, Cocaine and Fed- 
 eral Sentencing Policy. February 1995, tab. 18. 
 
 '8 K. Jack Riley, Crack, Powder Cocaine, and Heroin: Drug 
 Purchase and Use Patterns in Six U.S. Cities, National In- 
 stitute of Justice, December 1997, p. 1. 
 
 ''' John M. Hagedorn, The Business of Drug Dealing in Mil- 
 waukee, Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, June 1998. 
 
 Most criminal justice observers believe that 
 these disparities have emerged as a result of the 
 underlying assumptions behind the "war on 
 drugs." Unlike crimes such as murder or armed 
 robbery where it is clear that a strong law en- 
 forcement response is immediately necessary, 
 drug crimes offer a range of pohcy options by 
 which to respond, with increased law enforce- 
 ment representing just one choice. 
 
 A justification that is often presented for the 
 heavy law enforcement presence in low-income 
 communities is that these communities have dis- 
 tinguishing characteristics in regard to drug 
 sales. In many such communities drug sales are 
 more Likely to take place in open air drug mar- 
 kets, in contrast to middle-income communities 
 where they are more commonly conducted be- 
 hind closed doors. Thus, in the low-income com- 
 munities, drug use is both more disruptive to 
 community life and provides an easier target for 
 law enforcement. 
 
 From this point of view, the disproportionate 
 impact of the "war on drugs" on minority com- 
 munities might appear somewhat reasonable. 
 The problem with this assumption, though, is 
 that the available policy options are not to just 
 make drug arrests or to do nothing. Rather, a 
 whole range of family and community interven- 
 tions could plausibly address substance abuse 
 problems. These would include support for pre- 
 school families, job creation, community-based 
 pohcing, expanded treatment options, and other 
 services. A consistent body of research has dem- 
 onstrated that treatment interventions for sub- 
 stance abuse are far more cost effective than 
 continued reliance on an expanded prison sys- 
 tem. The Rand Corporation, for example, has 
 estimated that investing an additional $1 million 
 in drug treatment programs would reduce 15 
 times more serious crime than expanding the 
 use of mandatory prison sentences for drug of- 
 fenders. '^ 
 
 Despite these and similar findings, federal 
 drug spending through both RepubUcan and 
 Democratic administrations since the early 
 1980s has emphasized the back-end responses of 
 law enforcement and incarceration over the 
 front-end approaches of prevention and treat- 
 ment. Approximately two-thirds of the current 
 
 '* Jonathan P. Caulkins, et al., Mandatory Minimum Drug 
 Sentences: Throwing Away the Key or the Taxpayers' Money? 
 (Santa Monica: Rand, 1997), p. xxiv. 
 
 49
 
 $16 billion federal allocation for antidrug 
 spending is designated for law enforcement pur- 
 poses, a proportion that has held steady for 15 
 years. 
 
 By choosing to focus primarily on law en- 
 forcement and incarceration, therefore, policy- 
 makers have implicitly chosen an approach that 
 both worsens racial disparities in the criminal 
 justice system, and is demonstrably less effective 
 in responding to the problem of drug abuse than 
 other options. This approach has not necessarily 
 been consciously adopted with the intent of 
 locking up more black males, but in the failure 
 to anticipate its hkely consequences, policymak- 
 ers have contributed to such an outcome. 
 
 Intended and Unintended Consequences 
 
 The stated intent of pohcies that result in 
 large-scale incarceration is to respond to and 
 control crime. While the dechne of crime in re- 
 cent years has been cited by some as due in part 
 to the rising number of people in prison, the evi- 
 dence in this regard is ambiguous at best. Pro- 
 ponents of greater incarceration point to the 17 
 percent dechne in crime since 1992, a time when 
 the prison population rose by 51 percent, as evi- 
 dence that prisons reduce crime. But in the 7 
 years just preceding this, the prison population 
 rose by 79 percent, yet crime rates increased by 
 17 percent. Looking over a broader timeframe, 
 the nearly six-fold increase in the prison popula- 
 tion from 200,000 in 1973, to 1.2 million in 1997, 
 has not had any dramatic impact on crime over- 
 all. In a 1993 analysis, the National Research 
 Council asked what impact the triphng of time 
 served for violent crime had between 1975 and 
 1989, and answered, "Apparently, very httle."'^ 
 Other factors in recent years that have been co- 
 incident with the increased prison population — a 
 dechne in the drug trade, efforts to remove guns 
 from juveniles, the expansion of community po- 
 hcing, a growing economy — are much more 
 likely explanations for recent drops in crime. 
 
 While much attention has been focused on 
 the relationship between incarceration and 
 crime, comparatively httle analysis has been 
 conducted on what might be termed the unin- 
 tended consequences of large-scale incarceration 
 of the sort that is now quite prevalent in many 
 
 African American communities. That is, are 
 there family and community dynamics that come 
 into play once the scale of incarceration reaches 
 a certain threshold? 
 
 One area of inquiry relates to the effect of 
 imprisonment on deterring crime. It is generally 
 assumed that since people fear the prospect of 
 going to prison, some may refrain from crime as 
 a result. But what happens to that deterrent ef- 
 fect as the experience of prison becomes quite 
 pervasive in a community? Since going to prison 
 is now a commonplace event in some neighbor- 
 hoods, the prison experience may come to be 
 seen almost as an inevitable part of growing up 
 for many black males, and one over which many 
 individuals beheve they have little control. 
 
 While the impact of imprisonment on indi- 
 vidual offenders is direct, there are also a set of 
 consequences for the families and communities 
 of offenders. These will vary significantly de- 
 pending on the individual and the offense. Re- 
 moval of a violent offender who is terrorizing a 
 neighborhood brings some level of public safety 
 to a community. But what about removing large 
 numbers of property or drug offenders? Some 
 modest reductions in crime may be achieved, but 
 negative consequences may ensue as well. 
 
 One effect of the high rate of incarceration of 
 African American males has been to contribute 
 to the declining number of marriageable men in 
 the African American community. Along with 
 high rates of homicide, AIDS-related deaths, and 
 other factors, this has created a substantial im- 
 balance in the male-female ratio among adult 
 African Americans. Whereas gender ratios for 
 African Americans at birth are about 102-103 
 males for every 100 females, by the age range 
 40-44, this declines to 86 males per 100 females, 
 whereas white rates are 100:100 for this group. 2" 
 Further, men who have been imprisoned or are 
 likely to be so are hardly strong marriage pros- 
 pects. 
 
 The large-scale reach of the criminal justice 
 system also may interfere with the informal 
 mechanisms of crime control that exist in vary- 
 ing degrees in all communities. This dynamic 
 involves the influence of families, schools, relig- 
 ious bodies, and other institutions to transmit 
 values and promote positive role models. Neigh- 
 borhoods with high levels of joblessness and so- 
 
 '8 National Research Council. Understanding and Prevent- 
 ing Violence (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 
 1993), p. 6. 
 
 ^0 David T. Courtwright, "The Drug War's Hidden Toll," 
 Issues in Science and Technology (winter 1996-97), p. 73. 
 
 50
 
 cial disorganization may be less able to have 
 parents and neighborhood leaders assert the 
 type of influence that would bring greater social 
 cohesion in more well-off neighborhoods. 
 
 The negative consequences of high rates of 
 incarceration may well extend to the next gen- 
 eration of children. Children whose parents are 
 imprisoned may develop feeUngs of shame, hu- 
 miliation, and a loss of social status. This may 
 lead to acting out in school and a distrust of 
 authority figures. The changing economic cir- 
 cumstances of famihes experiencing imprison- 
 ment may also lead to greater housing relocation 
 and transitory populations, resulting in less co- 
 hesive neighborhoods. In far too many cases, 
 these children may come to represent the next 
 generation of offenders. 
 
 The impact of the criminal justice system on 
 communities goes beyond issues of well-being 
 and family stabihzation to issues of political in- 
 fluence, as well. One of the most significant ar- 
 eas in which this emerges is voting rights. As a 
 result of laws that disenfranchise felons and ex- 
 felons in various states, an estimated 1.4 miUion 
 African American males, or 13 percent of the 
 black male adult population, is either currently 
 or permanently disenfranchised as a result of a 
 felony conviction. 2' In 14 states, a felony convic- 
 tion can result in lifetime disenfranchisement, 
 and in 7 of these states, an estimated one in four 
 black males is permanently disenfranchised. 
 Thus, not only are criminal justice policies con- 
 tributing to the disproportionate incarceration of 
 African Americans, but imprisonment itself then 
 reduces the collective poUtical abihty to influ- 
 ence these policies. 
 
 Projections for the Future 
 
 With crime rates having decHned for the past 
 6 years, one might have thought that prison 
 populations also would have begun to dechne. 
 Common sense would suggest that with fewer 
 crimes being committed, there would be fewer 
 offenders to be locked up. In fact, though, noth- 
 ing of the sort has happened. Both the total na- 
 tional prison population, as well as the number 
 of incarcerated African American males have 
 
 risen by about 40 percent during this 6-year pe- 
 riod. 
 
 The primary reason why these institutional 
 populations have continued to increase is in- 
 creasingly harsh federal and state sentencing 
 pohcies. The estabhshment of these policies also 
 suggests that absent any change, the number 
 and proportion of African American males under 
 the supervision of the criminal justice system is 
 Likely to increase over the next 10 years, and 
 racial disparities will grow even wider. These 
 increases can be anticipated for several reasons. 
 
 First, it is Likely that the prison population 
 overall will continue to grow in coming years. A 
 survey of state corrections agencies found that 
 state officials projected that the 1994 prison 
 population would rise by 51 percent by the year 
 2000.22 Despite faUing crime rates, a variety of 
 sentencing pohcies adopted in the past 15 years 
 are contributing to the burgeoning of the prison 
 population. These include the mandatory sen- 
 tencing laws now in effect in aU 50 states and 
 the federal system, the "three strikes and you're 
 out" laws in nearly half the states, and newly 
 adopted "truth in sentencing" pohcies that will 
 increase the time served in prison for many of- 
 fenders by requiring that they serve 85 percent 
 of their sentence. Prehminary indications of this 
 trend are already evident in research by the Bu- 
 reau of Justice Statistics, which show that the 
 percentage of sentence served prior to release 
 increased from 38 percent in 1990 to 44 percent 
 in 1996.23 
 
 With African Americans representing half the 
 national prison population, any increase will 
 clearly affect them in a substantial way. It is 
 likely, though, that the racial disparities we ob- 
 serve today will actually worsen as prison 
 populations rise, primarily due to the impact of 
 drug pohcies. As we have seen, drug arrests and 
 prosecutions represent the most significant 
 change in the criminal justice system since the 
 early 1980s. These pohcies have disproportion- 
 ately affected minorities. To the extent that drug 
 offenders continue to comprise a substantial por- 
 tion of the inmate popvdation, it is likely that the 
 
 2' Jamie Fellner and Marc Mauer, "Losing the Vote: The 
 Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United 
 States," Human Rights Watch and The Sentencing Project, 
 October 1998. 
 
 22 Amanda Wunder, "Prison Population Projections," Correc- 
 tions Compendium, March 1995. 
 
 23 Paula M. Ditton and Doris James Wilson, "Truth in Sen- 
 tencing in State Prisons," Bureau of Justice Statistics, 
 January 1999. 
 
 51
 
 African American share of the prison population 
 will grow as well. 
 
 None of these developments are preordained, 
 of course. Most criminal justice officials now rec- 
 ognize that prison populations represent public 
 policy choices as much as they do crime rates. 
 Thus, decisions regarding which types of of- 
 fenses should represent priorities for prosecu- 
 tion, what sentencing options exist for judges, 
 and legislative policies regarding sentencing and 
 time served in prison, will all play a significant 
 role in determining the size and composition of 
 the prison population. 
 
 In assessing future trends in crime and the 
 criminal justice system it is critical to engage in 
 a broad and proactive perspective. As we have 
 seen, the contention that there is a coming wave 
 of "superpredators" on the horizon has httle ba- 
 sis in reaUty. Even if this were true, though, one 
 can consider the pohcy options that it presents. 
 The predicted coming generation of hard-core 
 criminals would be primarily composed of boys 
 who are 5 years old today, but who would be be- 
 Ueved to develop into high rate offenders 10 
 years from now. A society that anticipated these 
 developments has one of two means by which to 
 respond. It could begin a massive prison con- 
 struction program designed to have sufficient 
 space to house these high-rate offenders when 
 they unleash their projected crime wave. Or, it 
 could invest in a variety of family, community, 
 and school-based programs designed to reduce 
 the prospects that this crime wave would take 
 place. It would seem that only a society with an 
 extremely bleak view of the future would choose 
 the former course in pubHc policy. 
 
 Approaches to Reducing Racial Disparities 
 in the Criminal Justice System 
 
 Since racial disparities in the criminal justice 
 system arise from a complex set of circum- 
 stances, there are no "quick fix" solutions to the 
 problem. Only a multifaceted approach can re- 
 spond to many of the underlying social and eco- 
 nomic forces that have contributed to the current 
 situation. Nevertheless, within the criminal jus- 
 tice system, there are a variety of policy and 
 programmatic changes that could have a direct 
 impact on the scale of incarceration and the de- 
 gree of racial disparity within the prison system. 
 In order to accompHsh these goals, it is first nec- 
 
 essary to estabhsh a framework for such change. 
 This would include the following: 
 
 • Jurisdictional commitment to reducing dis- 
 parity. Efforts to reduce disparity will only 
 succeed if there is a jurisdictionwide com- 
 mitment to address the problem. Otherwise, 
 efforts to reduce disparity at one point in the 
 system may be offset by countervailing ac- 
 tions within other components of the system. 
 
 • Coordinated efforts by relevant actors. Ap- 
 proaches to reducing disparity require a co- 
 ordinated effort by all the relevant actors in 
 the system, including law enforcement, 
 prosecution, defense, judiciary, corrections, 
 probation, and parole. 
 
 • Public safety focus. Approaches to reducing 
 racial disparity should not be inconsistent 
 with improving pubhc safety and, in fact, 
 generally represent rational pubhc policy on 
 crime control. Thus, any proposals to reduce 
 disparities should also assess the crime con- 
 trol impact of the proposed changes. 
 
 Specific recommendations for change can be 
 considered in the areas of legislative change, 
 criminal justice officials' initiatives, and criminal 
 justice/community partnerships. The following 
 are suggested means of promoting efforts to re- 
 duce racial disparities. 
 
 1. Legislative Actions 
 
 • Reconsider Mandatory Sentencing Policies 
 
 Mandatory sentencing policies, particularly 
 for drug offenses, have contributed to the esca- 
 lating number of minorities in prison. While 
 these poUcies have proved to be politically 
 popular, they have also resulted in the incar- 
 ceration of many low-level offenders at great ex- 
 pense. A vast body of research, as well as practi- 
 tioner perspectives, suggest that mandatory sen- 
 tences are unnecessary for crime control pur- 
 poses, and have a variety of negative conse- 
 quences. Repeal of mandatory sentencing laws 
 would thus provide one of the most significant 
 steps that could be immediately undertaken in 
 this regard. 
 
 In Hght of the current absence of political wUl 
 to repeal mandatory sentencing, several interim 
 reforms can be considered by poUcymakers to 
 lessen the negative impact of these policies: 
 
 52
 
 • "Safety valve" provisions. Recognizing the 
 impact of mandatory sentencing on low-level 
 federal offenders, in 1994 Congress adopted 
 a "safety valve" that grants judges wider dis- 
 cretion for offenders who have hmited crimi- 
 nal history and no involvement with vio- 
 lence. This has resulted in 4,000 offenders a 
 year being sentenced to a shorter prison 
 term than would otherwise have been possi- 
 ble. Congress and state legislatures could 
 now consider an expansion of the "safety 
 valve" to a broader category of offenders. 
 
 • Restore practitioner discretion. Criminal jus- 
 tice leaders in a number of jurisdictions have 
 utilized their discretion to avoid some of the 
 excesses of mandatory sentencing, while 
 providing effective responses to offenders. 
 "The Drug Treatment Alternative" to Prison 
 program developed by Brooklyn, New York, 
 District Attorney Charles Hynes, for exam- 
 ple, diverts drug offenders facing mandatory 
 prison terms into long-term residential 
 treatment programs. Recidivism rates for of- 
 fenders completing the program are consid- 
 erably below those of comparable offenders 
 sentenced to prison. 
 
 • Sunset legislation. Given the controversy 
 regarding the effectiveness of mandatory 
 sentencing, legislatures could adopt sunset 
 provisions that would result in the laws ex- 
 piring after a set period of time unless re- 
 newed. Such a provision would thus require 
 a legislative review of the effectiveness of 
 any legislation, and would permit appropri- 
 ate modrBcations. 
 
 • Equalize Penalties for Crack and Powder 
 Cocaine 
 
 The racial disparities that have resulted from 
 the federal sentencing distinctions for crack and 
 powder cocaine offenses have been well docu- 
 mented. The 100:1 quantity disparity has con- 
 tributed to the disproportionate number of Afri- 
 can Americans in prison, as weU as causing 
 great resentment in the black community. 
 Equahzing penalties for offenses involving the 
 two forms of cocaine would reduce some of the 
 racial disparities in incarceration, as well as 
 some of the inappropriately lengthy sentences 
 for lower-level offenders. 
 
 • Develop Racial/Ethnic Impact Statements 
 for Sentencing Policy 
 
 In recent years some jurisdictions have re- 
 quired that fiscal impact statements be prepared 
 for any proposed legislative changes in sentenc- 
 ing poUcy. Similarly, legislatures could require 
 that projections be developed to estimate the 
 racial/ethnic impact of sentencing legislation 
 prior to its adoption. Such a policy would not 
 prohibit legislatures from adopting new sen- 
 tencing legislation, but would allow policymak- 
 ers to assess whether any unwarranted dispari- 
 ties might result. This would aid in considera- 
 tion of alternative crime control measures that 
 could produce effective results without undue 
 disparities. 
 
 • Establish a Goal of Reducing the Non- 
 violent Offender Population by 50 Percent 
 Over 10 Years 
 
 Nonviolent property and drug offenders now 
 constitute 53 percent of state prison inmates, an 
 increase from 45.5 percent of the total in 1986. 
 Nationally, this represents more than a half 
 milhon inmates and a total cost of incarceration 
 of more than $10 bilUon. Legislatures could 
 adopt a poUcy goal of reducing this population by 
 5 percent a year for 10 years, using the funds 
 saved on imprisonment for community-based 
 supervision and treatment programs. 
 
 • Increase Funding for Indigent Defense 
 and Sentencing Advocacy 
 
 To the extent that minorities in the criminal 
 justice system are disproportionately low in- 
 come, they do not obtain the advantages that 
 wealthier defendants bring to the system. These 
 advantages include access to attorneys with rea- 
 sonable caseloads, sentencing consultants, and 
 diagnostic services. Greater provision of these 
 services would aid courts in fashioning more ap- 
 propriate sentencing options for many low- 
 income offenders, and would likely result in di- 
 version from prison for some minority offenders. 
 
 2. Criminal Justice Officials' Initiatives 
 
 • Expand Drug Policy Options 
 
 Criminal justice officials are increasingly rec- 
 ognizing the importance of providing drug 
 treatment as a component of effective sentencing 
 and corrections policy. Drug treatment might 
 reduce the number of minorities, and others, in 
 
 53
 
 prison in one of two ways: by diverting offenders 
 to treatment programs rather than incarcera- 
 tion, and by reducing drug addiction and there- 
 fore recidivism. Options in this area include 
 drug courts, prosecutorial diversion programs, 
 in-prison residential treatment, and other ap- 
 proaches. 
 
 • Expand the Use of Alternative Sentencing 
 
 A variety of alternative sentencing programs 
 have been developed in recent years. These pro- 
 grams include community service, day reporting 
 centers, victim-offender mediation, and a variety 
 of substance abuse treatment programs. While 
 these programs' prison reduction results are 
 mixed, they have the potential to both divert 
 offenders from a prison sentence, and to address 
 the issues and needs of offenders and victims. 
 
 • Monitor Alternative Sentencing Programs 
 to Assess Racial Balance 
 
 In many jurisdictions, white offenders are 
 more likely to be sentenced to probation and al- 
 ternative sanctions than are minority offenders. 
 This may be due to relevant factors such as 
 crime severity and criminal record, or to system 
 bias. Jurisdictions can attempt to monitor the 
 racial/ethnic composition of offenders sentenced 
 to alternatives, in order to determine whether 
 minority offenders are appropriately repre- 
 sented, and if not, to conduct an analysis of the 
 reasons for disparity. 
 
 3. Criminal Justice/Community Partnerships 
 
 • Increase Community-based Diversion from 
 the CriminalJustice System 
 
 Many young and first-time offenders are 
 stigmatized by their contact with the criminal 
 justice system, without necessarily receiving ei- 
 ther appropriate supervision or support. Oppor- 
 tunities exist to divert many of these offenders to 
 individuals and organizations which can better 
 focus on problems that are most effectively han- 
 dled in a community setting. These could include 
 
 mentoring programs, counseling, tutorial sup- 
 port, and other options. 
 
 • Strengthen the Link between Communities 
 and the Justice System 
 
 The experience of community pohcing in re- 
 cent years has demonstrated that a "problem- 
 solving" approach to crime can be effective in 
 increasing pubhc safety, while also building 
 valuable Unks to the community. Variations on 
 this model are now being explored by prosecu- 
 tors, probation departments, and other compo- 
 nents of the system. These approaches hold the 
 potential of both increasing minority confidence 
 in the justice system, and building on commu- 
 nity strengths to promote pubhc safety. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 The origins of the crisis of African American 
 males as it regards the criminal justice system 
 extend far back in the nation's history. Unfortu- 
 nately, despite admirable progress in reducing 
 racial bias in many areas of society during the 
 past several decades, the overrepresentation of 
 black males in the justice system has clearly 
 worsened. 
 
 While the situation is vtrgent in many re- 
 gards, there is some reason for cautious opti- 
 mism. Support for change in criminal justice 
 pohcies and programs has been growing in re- 
 cent years. The introduction of drug courts, 
 prison-based treatment programs, and commu- 
 nity poUcing are all indications of pubhc and 
 pohcymaker support for problem-solving re- 
 sponses to individual and community crises. In 
 addition, many communities are now engaged in 
 locally based programs that provide support to 
 young people. These include mentoring pro- 
 grams, recreational activities, and personal 
 skills development. The challenge for the com- 
 munity at large is to engage in broad discussions 
 of the mix of family, community, and govern- 
 ment initiatives that can begin to reverse the 
 cycle that has been set in motion in recent years. 
 
 54
 
 Bibliography 
 
 Blumstein, Alfred. "Racial Disproportionality of 
 U.S. Prison Populations Revisited," University of 
 Colorado Law Review, vol. 64, no. 3, 1993. 
 
 Cole, David. No Equal Justice: Race and Class in 
 the American Criminal Justice System, the New 
 Press, New York, 1999. 
 
 Kennedy, RandaU. Race, Crime, and the Law, 
 Pantheon, New York, 1997. 
 
 Mann, Coramae Richey. Unequal Justice, Indiana 
 University Press, Bloomington, 1993. 
 
 Mauer, Marc. Race to Incarcerate, the New Press, 
 New York, 1999, forthcoming. 
 
 Mauer, Marc and Tracy Ruling. 'Toung Black 
 Americans and the Criminal Justice System: Five 
 Years Later," The Sentencing Project, Washington, 
 1995. 
 
 Miller, Jerome. Search and Destroy: African- 
 American Males in the Criminal Justice System, 
 Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1996. 
 
 Tonry, Michael. Malign Neglect — Race, Crime, and 
 Punishment in America, Oxford University Press, 
 New York, 1995. 
 
 Walker, Samuel, Cassia Spohn, and Miriam De- 
 Lone. 77ie Color of Justice, Wadsworth, Belmont, CA, 
 1996. 
 
 55
 
 Panel 
 
 Education 
 
 57
 
 Improving the Educational Achievement of African American Males 
 in the Third Millennium 
 
 Antoine M. Garibaldi, Ph.D.* 
 
 The perplexing questions about African 
 American males' academic performance in the 
 nation's elementary and secondary schools, as 
 weU as their small and dechning representation 
 at the coUegiate, graduate, and first-professional 
 degree levels, continue to remain unanswered as 
 we approach the next mUIennium. Even though 
 much factual data and anecdotal evidence exist 
 to confirm the gravity of this situation and the 
 identification of some of the reasons for this un- 
 fortunate circumstance, a variety of educational 
 and community-based organizations have made 
 serious efforts to improve this situation. How- 
 ever, having investigated this issue from a vari- 
 ety of vantage points in a major metropoUtan 
 school district more than 10 years ago 
 (Garibaldi, 1988), and having had some of those 
 findings rephcated in two other school districts 
 (Garibaldi, 1992), my perspectives and philoso- 
 phy on the reasons for the poor academic per- 
 formance of many of these young men, as well as 
 their notable absence in the higher education 
 sector and their minimal educational attainment 
 at all levels of the educational continuum, have 
 not changed significantly since that report was 
 released in 1988. Interventions and strategies 
 that have been designed specifically to improve 
 the performance of African American males in 
 America over the last 10 years show signs that 
 some progress has indeed been made. Thus, it is 
 important to improve upon, rephcate, and pro- 
 mote those initiatives that have been developed 
 to expand the pool of academically successful 
 African American males. The majority of the 
 second half of this paper, therefore, focuses on a 
 variety of realistic educational prescriptions and 
 
 * Provost and chief academic officer, Howard University. 
 The author wfishes to acknowledge Steven J. Brooks for his 
 assistance with the preparation of the manuscript. 
 
 strategies that can reduce the severity of this 
 situation at the beginning of the 21st century. 
 
 Before presenting some of the data on the 
 status of African Americans in education, it is 
 necessary to state again that some African 
 American males are indeed succeeding in educa- 
 tion. However, the numbers and the percentage 
 of African American males' enrollment and at- 
 tainment of educational goals indicate that more 
 must be done to expand this group's opportuni- 
 ties for obtaining a first-rate education in our 
 nation's schools, colleges, and universities. These 
 successful African American males have per- 
 formed well because they have worked hard, 
 have been encouraged and motivated to aspire to 
 and reach high goals, and have been supported 
 by a variety of individuals and organizations 
 that believe in their academic potential. As one 
 example, this paper highhghts the work of Uni- 
 versity of Maryland Baltimore County president 
 Freeman Hrabowski HI, who began in 1988 a 
 special program known as the Meyerhoff Schol- 
 ars to increase the numbers of high-achieving 
 African American males pursuing graduate and 
 professional degrees (Hrabowski, Maton, and 
 Grief, 1998). The results from this program and 
 others similar to it confirm strongly the possi- 
 bihty that much larger numbers of African 
 American males can perform well and compete 
 in challenging educational settings. 
 
 To accomphsh this ambitious yet reaUstic 
 goal, however, our society must address the fun- 
 damental reasons for the less than satisfactory 
 performance of African American males in ele- 
 mentary and secondary schools, and their low 
 undergraduate numbers and percentages in col- 
 leges and universities, as well as their represen- 
 tation in graduate and professional schools. 
 These reasons are: 
 
 59
 
 • low expectations of African American males' 
 achievement potential; 
 
 • low teacher expectations of male, particu- 
 larly minority, students; 
 
 • insufficient reinforcement of academic suc- 
 cess at the lower grades; 
 
 • declining levels of achievement growth be- 
 yond the elementary school grades; 
 
 • limited male role models and individuals 
 who can mentor these young men in the up- 
 per elementary grades; 
 
 • limited attention to the financial rewards 
 that can be gained by the pursuit of higher 
 educational attainment; and 
 
 • lack of social support systems in the commu- 
 nity and society in general. 
 
 While the majority of the aforementioned 
 reasons postulated by this author can be con- 
 firmed with empirical research, they evolve more 
 confidently fi-om a 25-year career in education 
 working as a teacher and administrator with 
 students, particularly African American males, 
 in elementary and secondary schools, colleges, 
 and universities in different parts of the country. 
 In the next two sections of the paper, several of 
 the above explanations for African American 
 males' low academic performance are supported 
 by two sources: (1) data from an action-oriented 
 research study conducted by the author 10 years 
 ago, and (2) by data comparing the enrollment 
 and educational attainment of African American 
 males and females at the high school, college, 
 graduate, and professional levels. 
 
 The 1987-1988 Study on the Status of Black 
 Males in New Orleans Public Schools 
 
 In this author's 1987-1988 study on the 
 status of African American males in the New 
 Orleans public schools, the results indicated that 
 the majority of students, most of whom were Af- 
 rican American in this school district, did want 
 to achieve, but the standards established for 
 them by teachers appeared to be much lower 
 than the expectations of the students. For exam- 
 ple, in a survey of more than 2,250 African 
 American males in the New Orleans school dis- 
 trict, 95 percent reported that they expected to 
 graduate from high school. However, 40 percent 
 responded that they beheved their teachers did 
 not set high enough goals for them, and 60 per- 
 cent suggested that their teachers should push 
 
 them harder. (Black females in the study re- 
 sponded similarly to the boys on these items.) 
 However, when a random sample of 500 teachers 
 were surveyed, almost 6 out of every 10 of the 
 318 who responded indicated that they did not 
 believe their black male students would go to 
 college. This finding became even more signifi- 
 cant when the analysis of the backgrounds of 
 teachers revealed that 60 percent of those who 
 responded taught in elementary schools, 70 per- 
 cent had 10 or more years of experience, and 65 
 percent of them were black! Thus, the opinions, 
 perceptions, and expectations of teachers impact 
 strongly students' potential academic perform- 
 ance and influence what is taught and what 
 standards are used to gauge students' success. 
 The latter viewpoint is more popularly known in 
 the Uterature as the "self-fulfilhng prophecy the- 
 ory," and it is particularly relevant when at- 
 tempts are made to explain why students, and 
 minority males specifically, do not perform as 
 well as other students (Irvine, 1985, 1990). But 
 because this is an attitudinal factor, it is one 
 that can be changed to produce more positive 
 academic results for all students. 
 
 The New Orleans study also pointed out that 
 there was a major gap between the perceptions 
 of parents and teachers with respect to students' 
 aspirations and academic expectations. This was 
 especially true for African American males. 
 Eight out of every 10 of the 3,523 parents sur- 
 veyed, for example, indicated that they beheved 
 their sons expected to go to college, compared to 
 the fact that only 4 out of every 10 teachers be- 
 heved that they had aspirations of attending 
 college. However, the survey also showed that 
 one-fourth of those parents responded that they 
 had never gone to their child's school for paren- 
 tal conferences during which report cards are 
 usually given out and children's performance in 
 classes is discussed. The importance of this 
 finding must not be overlooked. For, as I stated 
 in 1992, 
 
 Because some parents do not (or cannot) attend pa- 
 rental conferences, it is very likely that some teachers 
 may misinterpret parental absenteeism as a sign that 
 the children of these parents are not interested in 
 finishing school or do not have positive educational 
 aspirations. This may further confirm teachers' skep- 
 ticism regarding Afirican American male children's 
 futures in particular. Given the latter possibUity as 
 well as the large perception gap that apparently ex- 
 
 60
 
 ists between parents' and teachers' appraisals of A&i- 
 can American males' educational expectations and 
 aspirations, more must be done to increase the 
 amount and quality of communications between par- 
 ents and teachers to minimize incorrect interpreta- 
 tions about these students' motivation and desire to 
 succeed academically (Garibaldi, 1992, p. 7). 
 
 Educational Attainment of African American 
 IVIales 
 
 High School Completion Rates of African 
 American Males and Females: 1976 and 1996 
 
 Over the last 20 years, the high school com- 
 pletion rate for 18- to 24-year-old African Ameri- 
 can males has increased from 62.3 percent 
 (936,000) in 1976 to 71.3 percent (1,199,000) in 
 1996. The corresponding figures for African 
 American females, however, were 71.8 percent 
 (1,302,000) in 1976 and 78.7 percent (1,539,000) 
 in 1996 (Wilds and Wilson, 1998, p. 77). Diiring 
 this period, African American 18- to 24-year-old 
 males had their highest graduation rates in 1990 
 (75.9 percent), 1994 (73.7 percent), and in 1995 
 (75.1 percent). Even though African Americans' 
 1996 high school graduation rates are not equal 
 to the national average for all Americans in this 
 age group (i.e., 81.6 percent — a 1.5 percent in- 
 crease since 1976), these high school graduation 
 rates for both groups are favorable and encour- 
 aging.' However, if a larger number and per- 
 centage of African American males had com- 
 pleted high school, the overall rate for African 
 Americans would be almost equal to the national 
 average. This is an attainable goal if more of the 
 strategies, which I will describe later, are em- 
 ployed in many of the nation's public schools, 
 where 94 percent of African Americans attend 
 school (Frederick D. Patterson Institute, 1997). 
 
 College Participation Rates of African American 
 Males and Females: 1976 and 1996 
 
 Using 1976 high school graduation data as a 
 basehne, the annual percentage of African 
 American males attending college in 1996 is al- 
 most the same when comparing these two time 
 periods. In 1976, 35.4 percent (331,000) of 18- to 
 24-year-old high school graduates were enrolled 
 in college. In 1996, the percentage of African 
 American males attending college was 35.2 per- 
 
 ' For purposes of comparison, the overall graduation rates 
 for whites in 1976 and 1996 were 82.4 percent and 82.3 per- 
 cent, respectively. 
 
 cent, but the total number was 91,000 more than 
 in 1976, or 422,000 (Wilds and Wilson, 1998, p. 
 77). The comparable numbers for African Ameri- 
 can female high school graduates were 32 per- 
 cent (417,000) in 1976 and 36.4 percent (561,000) 
 in 1996. Thus, the percentages of college-going 
 African American males and females are about 
 the same and have not changed appreciably over 
 the last 20 years. However, the overall gap of 
 African American males and females in college 
 has grown wider each year despite this almost 
 equal percentage of high school graduates. 
 
 In 1996, almost VA miUion (1,499,000) Afri- 
 can Americans were enrolled in higher education 
 institutions. While African Americans accounted 
 for about 10 percent of the 14,300,000 students 
 in college, the number of African American fe- 
 males exceeded the number of African American 
 males by 372,000, i.e., 936,000 compared to 
 564,000! Of this total enrollment, 241,000 more 
 African American students attended four-year 
 institutions compared to two-year institutions: 
 870,000 versus 629,000. This total indicates that 
 42 percent of African Americans in 1996 were 
 enrolled in two-year institutions, which is almost 
 the same proportion as 1976 when 41 percent 
 were enrolled in those colleges. However, when 
 analyzing the entire data, it is important to note 
 that African American male enrollment in 
 higher education increased 29.3 percent between 
 1986 and 1996, and by 44.9 percent for African 
 American females between this same period. 
 Such growth must be enhanced to obtain a 
 higher number of undergraduate degrees for 
 both groups, but particularly African American 
 males. 
 
 Bachelor's Degrees Conferred to African 
 American Males and Females: 1976 and 1995 
 
 Mirroring the growing gap with respect to en- 
 rollment between African Ajnerican males and 
 females, a similar chasm is occurring with re- 
 spect to each group's share of baccalaureate de- 
 grees. In 1976, African American females re- 
 ceived 33,489 baccalaureate degrees compared to 
 25,026 that were awarded to African American 
 males — or a difference of almost 8,463. By 1993 
 the difference had grown to 20,000 (48,989 com- 
 pared to 28,883); and in 1995, the gap had grown 
 to almost 24,000 more baccalaureate degrees 
 awarded to black females, i.e., 55,428 versus 
 31,775. (Note, however, that this total figure is 
 
 61
 
 almost 30,000 more than in 1976.) Even though 
 the number of baccalaureates awarded to Afri- 
 can American females and males has increased 
 by 61 percent and 31 percent, respectively, be- 
 tween 1985 and 1995, significantly more work 
 must be done to close the growing gap with re- 
 spect to undergraduate degree production be- 
 tween these two groups. While academic support 
 at the institutional level is extremely important 
 to increasing these numbers, an even more criti- 
 cal solution is to assure that these students have 
 adequate financial aid to improve their retention 
 and graduation rates. 
 
 The aforementioned increases in the numbers 
 of black baccalaureate recipients are partly due 
 to the rising number of undergraduate awards 
 made by historically black colleges and universi- 
 ties, or HBCUs. In 1985, for example, HBCUs 
 awarded 16,326 bachelor's degrees; between 
 1991 and 1994, they awarded an average of al- 
 most 21,000 degrees to African Americans 
 (Hoffman, Snyder & Sonneberg, 1996). The an- 
 nual number of bachelor's degrees awarded to 
 African Americans by HBCUs for 1991, 1992, 
 1993, and 1994 were 17,930, 19,693, 22,020, and 
 23,434, respectively. HBCUs annually accounted 
 for approximately 28 percent of all undergradu- 
 ate degrees to African Americans between 1985 
 and 1994, compared to the late 1970s and early 
 1980s when they accounted for between 35 per- 
 cent and 32 percent of all black bachelor's de- 
 grees. Nevertheless, this is still a favorable sign 
 that HBCUs, which represent barely 3 percent of 
 all American colleges and universities, continue 
 to enroll and graduate a significant number of 
 students, even though African American stu- 
 dents have much more access to other institu- 
 tions of higher education than they did previ- 
 ously (Garibaldi, 1997). 
 
 Graduate and First-Professional Degree Rates for 
 African American Males and Females: 1976-95 
 
 At the graduate level, the number of Afi-ican 
 American females receiving master's degrees has 
 almost doubled when comparing 1985 and 1995 
 statistics (from 8,739 to 16,068); and more Afri- 
 can American females than males receive doc- 
 torates today. In 1976, for example, black fe- 
 males received 488 doctorates compared to 766 
 that were awarded to African American males. 
 By 1986, however, African American males re- 
 ceived 325 doctorates for that year compared to 
 
 505 for African American females. As was the 
 case in 1986, females received 59 percent of the 
 total doctorates in 1996, i.e., 780 compared to 
 535 for males. Thus, where African American 
 males accounted for three-fifths of all doctorates 
 in the 1970s, females now hold that edge as this 
 century comes to a close. 
 
 Finally, with respect to first-professional de- 
 grees, African American females have also over- 
 taken males in this degree category over the last 
 10 years (Carter and Wilson, 1997, p. 83). In 
 1985, African American males received 1,623 
 first-professional degrees compared to 1,406 that 
 were awarded to African American females. By 
 1991, however, females had received 1,903 com- 
 pared to black males' 1,672; and in 1994, African 
 American women received 2,542 first- 
 professional degrees compared to 1,902. Thus, 
 between 1985 and 1994, African American 
 women had increased their share of doctorates 
 by 80 percent, compared to black males' increase 
 of only 17.2 percent for this same period. Thus, 
 African American females receive more under- 
 graduate, graduate, and first-professional de- 
 grees than African American males in the late 
 1990s compared to their lower share of these 
 degrees in the 1970s. However, we must not lose 
 sight of the fact that positive gains have been 
 achieved in each of the enrollment and degree 
 categories over both the last 20- and 10-year pe- 
 riods for African American males and females 
 combined. 
 
 Proven Strategies to Improve the Academic 
 Achievement of African American IVIales 
 
 Improving the educational attainment of Af- 
 rican American males will require the imple- 
 mentation of a variety of strategies in the home, 
 at the school level, in colleges and universities, 
 in the community, and at the national level. As 
 was stated earher, this is not an impossible task. 
 But more attention must be placed on those in- 
 terventions that are proving to be successful in 
 communities across this country, rather than 
 focusing on the negative statistics that too often 
 precede the discussion of this serious issue. In 
 this section, a few national and regional initia- 
 tives that have been successful in improving the 
 academic performance, aspirations, and motiva- 
 tional levels of African American males are 
 summarized. As the reader wiU see, the value of 
 reinforcement, mentoring and support systems 
 
 62
 
 are critical ingredients of these programs and all 
 play essential roles in reversing the substandard 
 performance that typically, but unfairly, charac- 
 terizes the ability levels of these young men. 
 
 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' 
 Family and Community Violence Prevention 
 Program 
 
 The Family and Community Violence Preven- 
 tion Program was estabhshed in 1994 through a 
 cooperative agreement between the U.S. De- 
 partment of Health and Human Services/Office 
 of Minority Health and Central State University 
 to develop and sustain programmatic models for 
 reducing and preventing family and community 
 violence. The original agreement included sup- 
 port for 16 historically black colleges and univer- 
 sities/minority institutions (HBCUs/MIs) to es- 
 tabUsh family and community violence preven- 
 tion programs. Each of these institutions, collec- 
 tively known as the Minority Males Consortium, 
 estabhshed a Family and Community Life Cen- 
 ter, the mechanism through which violence pre- 
 vention initiatives were and still are conducted 
 to impact the academic and personal develop- 
 ment of African American youth. This national 
 program currently includes 19 institutions: Al- 
 corn State University, Central State University, 
 Chicago State University, Clark-Atlanta Univer- 
 sity, Howard University, Knoxville College, 
 Morehouse College, Morgan State University, 
 North Carohna A&T State University, Philan- 
 der-Smith College, Prairie View A&M Univer- 
 sity, Southern University, Talladega College, 
 Texas Southern University, Tougaloo College, 
 University of the District of Columbia, Voorhees 
 College, Wilberforce University, and Xavier Uni- 
 versity of Louisiana. 
 
 A primary goal of this nationwide program 
 was the estabhshment of community partner- 
 ships to address the increasing incidents of vio- 
 lence and socially unacceptable behaviors in low- 
 income communities. Collaborative efforts were 
 undertaken by HBCUs/MIs with local social 
 service agencies, churches, government agencies, 
 schools, and community-based organizations. 
 Through these partnerships, each of the family 
 life centers began, among other interventions, 
 the promotion of increased educational perform- 
 ance by African American male students as an 
 effective violence reduction strategy. 
 
 An important objective for using education as 
 a violence prevention strategy was the provision 
 of direct financial support to educators at local 
 public schools. As an example, this kind of sup- 
 port was incorporated into the Xavier University 
 of Louisiana Family Life Center (FLC), which 
 was developed by this author. Using the findings 
 of the 1988 study on African American males, 
 Xavier's project was conceptually developed as 
 and titled "An African American Males Collabo- 
 rative." The primary intent was to use the entire 
 community and its many organizational compo- 
 nents to join as a "collaborative" to address and 
 solve critical problems affecting young African 
 American men in the New Orleans community, 
 namely, high rates of black male homicides, 
 crimes, incarceration, school suspension and 
 dropouts, and so forth. Thus, city government 
 and its leaders, the school district's entire staff, 
 the local police and the juvenile justice system, 
 community-based organizations, local founda- 
 tions, other colleges and universities, and other 
 groups became an extremely effective and pow- 
 erful force that could systematically address the 
 numerous issues related to African American 
 males. 
 
 One of the reasons for focusing on the devel- 
 opment and enhancement of collaborations in- 
 volving local organizations and agencies that 
 provided services to young African American 
 males was based on the results obtained from a 
 local study prepared for the Joint Center for Po- 
 Htical and Economic Studies by a Xavier faculty 
 member. The study revealed that while there 
 were more than 80 organizations focusing on 
 African American males in the city of New Or- 
 leans, there was a lack of communication and 
 collaboration among these programs (Blanchard, 
 1994). Thus, Xavier's Family Life Center hosted 
 biannual, on-campus miniconferences, during 
 which feasible and productive means of collabo- 
 ration were discussed and planned to address 
 community needs and concerns. Among the 
 many initiatives that evolved, in part, from these 
 meetings was the City Council's Conflict Resolu- 
 tion Task Force, which mandated the implemen- 
 tation of youth conflict resolution curricula in 
 city-funded recreational activities and programs. 
 Also, a partnership between Xavier's FLC and 
 Each One Save One, the regional mentoring 
 program, was estabhshed to support efforts to 
 identify, train, screen, and place mentors in local 
 
 63
 
 schools, recreational programs, etc. Additionally, 
 the project produced one of the city's first com- 
 prehensive directories of the more than 150 
 community-based organizations, social services 
 agencies, church groups, and school-related pro- 
 grams focusing on the needs of African American 
 males and their families. This directory was 
 used by parents, school officials, and community 
 organizers, as well as many other social service 
 agency professionals. 
 
 Recognizing the important role that teachers 
 play in educating and motivating students, 
 Xavier's Family Life Center also developed a 
 competitive minigrants program for teachers in 
 the New Orleans public schools so that they 
 could develop or sustain initiatives focused on 
 the overall academic success of students, par- 
 ticularly young African American males. These 
 grants, which ranged from $750-$l,500, were 
 used as a stimulus to increase and improve the 
 academic performance, attendance, and behavior 
 of students at participating schools. Further- 
 more, recognition awards (i.e., T-shirts, certifi- 
 cates, plaques, etc.) were provided to students 
 who performed academically well in school. Pro- 
 viding reinforcement to students by giving those 
 awards and also holding small ceremonies to 
 recognize the school achievement of African 
 American males was a major recommendation of 
 the New Orleans pubhc schools study, and these 
 teachers and some of their principals were able 
 to implement these supporting activities. 
 
 More than 100 minigrants were awarded to 
 individual teachers, groups of teachers, and 
 schools over a 3-year period. Teachers often used 
 this support to supplement existing efforts de- 
 signed to improve in-class activities, and to de- 
 velop new initiatives such as after-school tuto- 
 rial and homework-assistance projects. All grant 
 recipients were required to conduct an imple- 
 mentation and outcome assessment of their proj- 
 ects. The continued funding of projects was con- 
 tingent on the demonstration of a tangible and 
 measurable impact on a project's proposed objec- 
 tives (e.g., improvement of parental involve- 
 ment, increasing academic performance, etc.), 
 and many teachers were able to document the 
 academic progress of their students as a result of 
 the supplemental programs or activities funded 
 through these minigrants. 
 
 The Family Life Center at Wilberforce Uni- 
 versity also focuses on educational enhancement 
 
 as a method for reducing and preventing vio- 
 lence among youth in the city of Xenia, Ohio. 
 The center sponsored the Partnership in Educa- 
 tion with Parents and Schools (PEPS) Summer 
 Session, a summer residential program for area 
 youth. PEPS, a yearlong program, was designed 
 to assist elementary students in the develop- 
 ment and enhancement of social and academic 
 skills. Additionally, the "Man-to-Man" workshop 
 series was initiated to allow junior and senior 
 students from Wilberforce University to serve as 
 mentors for approximately 60 community youth 
 and students. 
 
 The Howard University Family Life Center 
 (FLC), which was co-developed by this author 
 also, was funded in 1997 through this HHS ini- 
 tiative. Howard's FLC includes several programs 
 that address the problems of violence and crime 
 affecting young people in its surrounding com- 
 munities. Through its Day Program, the FLC is 
 attempting to reduce the rates of absenteeism, 
 tardiness and student expulsions, and increase 
 simultaneously the average student GPA, stan- 
 dardized reading test scores, and levels of self- 
 esteem among students at participating schools. 
 These objectives are accompUshed through the 
 implementation of several initiatives, including 
 an academic incentive program that provides 
 rewards for positive academic performance and 
 appropriate school behavior. Additional compo- 
 nents of Howard University's program include 
 an after-school program that provides tutorial, 
 mentoring, educational, and counsehng services 
 for adolescents and adults; a summer program 
 that includes camping, academic reinforcement, 
 and career and educational development for mi- 
 nority males; and the Family Life Center steer- 
 ing committee, which comprises community 
 members and is responsible for monitoring and, 
 if necessary, revising the center's objectives to 
 ensure that community needs are addressed. 
 The Family Life Center is a component of the 
 Howard University Center for Urban Progress, 
 an interdiscipUnary unit established to assist the 
 university in addressing urban issues through 
 appUed urban research and collaborative com- 
 miuiity outreach activities 
 
 As of this date, the 19 Family Life Center 
 programs at each of the member institutions 
 have participated in three national conferences 
 on Family and Community Violence Prevention 
 to present and assess relevant data on effective 
 
 64
 
 programmatic strategies for reducing incidents 
 of violence among minority youths, particularly 
 African American males. Additionally, public 
 health practitioners and scholars from across the 
 country are invited to discuss and share infor- 
 mation on emerging and innovative violence in- 
 tervention strategies for minority communities. 
 These programs, over a short 5-year span, have 
 made a considerable impact on the educational 
 performance and future aspirations of many 
 young minority men and women in several vu:- 
 ban and rural communities. 
 
 Meyerhoff Scholars Program 
 
 The Meyerhoff Scholars Program at the Uni- 
 versity of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) 
 was estabUshed in 1988 to help college-age Afri- 
 can American students to succeed in the fields of 
 science, mathematics, and engineering and to 
 pursue professional and graduate degrees in 
 these fields. The program was developed as a 
 response to the concerns of Robert A. Meyerhoff, 
 a Baltimore philanthropist, and Freeman 
 Hrabowski, then vice president of UMBC, who 
 noted differences between white and black male 
 students seeking college degrees (particularly 
 those interested in obtaining advanced degrees 
 in the sciences). While the program initially fo- 
 cused on the academic success of young black 
 males, it has included, since 1990, highly moti- 
 vated and talented African American female 
 students and high performing students of other 
 races who demonstrated a commitment to 
 working with minority communities (Hall, 1998). 
 
 An examination of African Americans en- 
 rolled in some of this nation's highly selective 
 academic institutions revealed that many of 
 these students transferred to "less-challenging" 
 schools, dropped out or changed their areas of 
 concentration to nontechnical majors (Hill, 
 1998). Dr. Hrabowski found that some of the 
 main reasons for these occvirrences were: the 
 lack of financial resources among the parents of 
 these students; a feehng of social isolation and 
 an unwillingness of students to establish men- 
 toring relationships with professors; and less 
 academic preparation for college among black 
 students compared with their white counter- 
 parts. Thus, the Meyerhoff Scholars Program 
 attempted to rephcate, on the campus of a pre- 
 dominantly white institution, the kind of close- 
 knit, nurturing environment often found at his- 
 
 torically black colleges and universities where 
 the majority of African American scientists and 
 engineers have received their undergraduate, 
 and in some cases, graduate academic training. 
 
 This program builds upon the Calculus 
 Workshop approach developed at the University 
 of California at Berkeley by Dr. Uri Treisman. 
 The program focuses on 13 key components: re- 
 cruitment; a summer bridge program; scholar- 
 ship support; study groups; program values; a 
 family atmosphere; personal advising and coun- 
 seling; tutoring; summer research internships; 
 faculty involvement; administrative involvement 
 and pubhc support; mentors; and family in- 
 volvement (Hrabowski, Maton and Greif, 1998). 
 By devoting attention to these issues, the Mey- 
 erhoff Scholars Program is able to help produce 
 positive academic outcomes among students by 
 utihzing the influence of five important sources 
 of student contact, namely, peers, faculty, ad- 
 ministrative staff, family, and community mem- 
 bers. A compeUing indication of the program's 
 success is best demonstrated by the finding that 
 92.2 percent of the first four cohorts of students 
 are currently enrolled in graduate or profes- 
 sional school. Additionally, Meyerhoff Scholars 
 are more hkely to maintain majors in the sci- 
 ences and achieve a grade point average of at 
 least a 3.0 in their science courses compared 
 with other groups of equally talented students 
 (Hrabowski, Maton and Greif, 1998). 
 
 In a 1995—96 study of program participants, 
 60 African American male students from UMBC 
 and their famiUes were interviewed. Approxi- 
 mately 40 percent of the young men were raised 
 in single-parent households, while about 50 per- 
 cent of the households included college-educated 
 parents. The study identified five common char- 
 acteristics that helped these famihes to produce 
 academically successful students: a strong com- 
 mitment to education that began during the stu- 
 dents' early ages; a strong focus on self- 
 determination; spiritual beUefs; a support sys- 
 tem that included extended famihes; and a focus 
 on service to others. 
 
 The young men in the Meyerhoff Scholars 
 Program credited much of their success to the 
 support provided by their parents. In particular, 
 parental support and the internaUzation of pa- 
 rental values served as an important buffer 
 against peer pressure. As one Meyerhoff Scholar 
 indicated, "If you are black and inteUigent, you 
 
 65
 
 have to be better than the stereot3rpe of a regular 
 black person" (Hall, 1998). Furthermore, the 
 program provided strong support that students 
 believed was vital to their academic success. For 
 example, approximately 90 percent of program 
 participants received scholarships. Because 
 Meyerhoff Scholars had a smaller amount of 
 debt after their 4 years, compared to the finan- 
 cial burden of most students, Meyerhoff Scholars 
 were able to concentrate on their studies. Stu- 
 dents received encouragement from fellow pro- 
 gram participants and felt a part of a group of 
 intelhgent and committed black male students. 
 Also, regularly scheduled "family meetings" were 
 held to discuss individual and group academic 
 progress, and program-sponsored social and cul- 
 tural events were coordinated to create an at- 
 mosphere of a large, supportive community of 
 young scholars. Thus, it is not surprising that 92 
 percent of program participants indicated that 
 the program's staff and their peers in the pro- 
 gram contributed moderately or significantly to 
 their academic success. 
 
 Sankofa Mentoring and Rites of Passage Program 
 
 One additional successful program worth 
 mentioning here is the Sankofa Mentoring and 
 Rites of Passage Program. With the support of a 
 $400,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Founda- 
 tion, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity has estabUshed 
 mentoring centers across the nation to provide 
 individual and group mentoring to hundreds of 
 African American males. The Sankofa Mentoring 
 and Rites of Passage Program addresses the 
 physical, intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and 
 social development of African American males 
 from ages 3 to 18. 
 
 The daily program begins with a meal and is 
 followed by school homework. It ends with indi- 
 vidual and group dialogue during 1-hour ses- 
 sions. All of the participants are required to par- 
 ticipate in community service. The program also 
 includes field trips to historically black colleges 
 and universities and cultural centers, and a 
 yearly conference on issues facing African 
 American males. 
 
 In addition to time spent with students at the 
 Alpha Community Mentoring Centers, mentors 
 are available to give proteges guidance in their 
 family and social hves. Mentoring centers are 
 estabhshed in each of the Fraternity's five re- 
 gions: Eastern, Midwestern, Southern, South- 
 
 western, and Western. Each of the centers pro- 
 vides mentoring to at least 100 African Ameri- 
 can males. Student participants are recom- 
 mended to local centers by area churches, 
 schools, and community agencies. The frater- 
 nity's mentoring centers are open 5 days a week 
 during after-school hours. Mentors are screened 
 to ensure their suitabUity for assigned tasks. 
 Mentoring takes place in four specific phases, 
 starting with matching between protege and 
 mentor, and continuing with estabhshing rela- 
 tionships, hving the relationships, and the ter- 
 mination (or transition) phase. This program, 
 like the others described previously, takes full 
 advantage of college-age and adult males who 
 spend valuable time with young African Ameri- 
 can males as they encourage them to focus on 
 their education so they can achieve their career 
 aspirations. Other fraternities and sororities 
 have estabhshed similar types of programs, in 
 addition to providing scholarship support, and it 
 is important that more collaborations are devel- 
 oped to maximize these effective efforts across 
 the country. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 The preceding analysis of the educational 
 status of African American males and the subse- 
 quent discussion of a selected group of programs 
 that have been implemented to improve this 
 group's educational performance indicate clearly 
 that progress is being made to address this 
 situation in local communities and across this 
 nation. But the number of males who are suc- 
 ceeding must be increased significantly. Through 
 the implementation of more collaborative pro- 
 grams where schools, community-based organi- 
 zations, and concerned individuals are involved 
 in mentoring and related programmatic activi- 
 ties, the educational performance and attain- 
 ment of these youth can be enhanced. 
 
 The findings of the New Orleans pubhc 
 schools study demonstrate convincingly that Af- 
 rican American males, especially in the early 
 grades, want to succeed in school and have aspi- 
 rations to finish high school and pursue a coUege 
 education. Because those results are in direct 
 opposition to prevailing pubhc opinions that im- 
 ply that these youth have low abihty levels and 
 low self-concepts, it is our civic responsibility to 
 ensure that aU African American males, as well 
 as other minority youth who are not obtaining 
 
 66
 
 the full benefits of a quality education, have the 
 opportunity to learn and reach their fuU aca- 
 demic potential. But these goals will not be 
 achieved if we do not actively counter the inac- 
 curate and prevaihng assumptions that too 
 many in our society accept as fact. 
 
 In addition to some of the initiatives that 
 have been cited thus far, other nationwide pro- 
 grams such as the National Urban League's 
 recently established Campaign for African 
 American Achievement and an almost com- 
 pleted College Board Task Force on Minority 
 High Achievement must also be noted because 
 of their emphasis on proactive educational so- 
 lutions that can raise the levels of academic 
 excellence and achievement of all students in 
 the nation's schools. Sharply stated, local and 
 national efforts must focus attention on "what's 
 working in schools and communities" rather 
 than on "what's wrong in our educational set- 
 tings and communities." By placing the empha- 
 sis on solutions and meaningful intervention 
 strategies that can reduce the rates of unsatis- 
 factory academic performance, dropouts, sus- 
 pensions, and expulsions of African American 
 males, these youth no longer become the 
 "victims" in our society, but rather the benefici- 
 aries of a free and open educational system. 
 Thus, parents have a special role to play in re- 
 inforcing the aspirations of their children while 
 schools and community organizations comple- 
 ment the teaching and learning in classrooms 
 with supplementary educational programs. Si- 
 multaneously, the above-average performance 
 of the many talented and highly motivated 
 black male students who are succeeding in 
 elementary and secondary schools, and also at 
 the college and graduate and professional lev- 
 els must be recognized so that these young men 
 will fuUy appreciate the fact that education is 
 an not only an investment in their future hves 
 but also the most important factor that will de- 
 termine their long-term earnings. 
 
 At a time when educational standards are 
 becoming the norm for caUbrating levels of in- 
 dividual student achievement in most school 
 districts, minority students' high expectations, 
 as the New Orleans public schools study con- 
 firmed, must be reinforced by all teachers irre- 
 spective of what they beheve most students 
 want to or can achieve in classroom settings. 
 The importance of these factors is confirmed 
 
 further by a recently published study on the 
 characteristics of African American high 
 achievers. Using a cross-sectional analysis of 
 5,000 African males and females who scored 
 1200 or higher on the SAT in 1996 and who 
 comprised only 5 percent of all black students 
 who took the SAT, this study indicates that 
 these successful students have a high desire to 
 succeed academically, have higher academic 
 aspirations than their peers who do not per- 
 form as well in the classroom or on the SAT, 
 take more challenging courses such as calculus 
 and honors EngUsh, have higher grade point 
 averages and class rankings than their black 
 peers, and participate in more "intellectually 
 stimulating" extracurricular academic clubs in 
 their schools (Bell-Rose, 1999). Thus, the chal- 
 lenge is to increase these numbers by encour- 
 aging all African American students to meet 
 higher and rigorous standards and by develop- 
 ing more programs that can help these students 
 to attain their educational goals and career as- 
 pirations. 
 
 In summary, we must work diligently to in- 
 crease the numbers and percentage of African 
 American males who complete high school, who 
 enroll and graduate from institutions of higher 
 education, and who pursue graduate and pro- 
 fessional school. To accomplish these goals, we 
 must expand existing programs designed to 
 further and improve black male students' edu- 
 cational success with the assistance and sup- 
 port of the federal government, foundations, 
 schools, community-based organizations, and 
 concerned members of the community. Single 
 entities or temporary programs cannot address 
 these multifaceted problems; but collaborative 
 ventures, as have been highhghted earher, can. 
 Legislative bodies in states as well as state and 
 local school boards can also do their fair share 
 by reducing class sizes, expanding the avail- 
 abihty of more challenging curricula, and rais- 
 ing student performance levels on various 
 standardized and subject-specific tests. 
 
 As this author has indicated in a recent dis- 
 cussion of issues related to African American 
 education, "Change and real growth are possi- 
 ble, but hope must be supported by a commit- 
 ment to standards, carefully designed educa- 
 tional programs, systematic action, and the re- 
 alization that success is within reach" 
 (Garibaldi, 1997). With continued emphasis on 
 
 67
 
 the numerous obstacles affecting African tion's youth, especially African American males, 
 
 American males' educational achievement and can move forward with the necessary tools and 
 
 a sustained commitment to ensuring the provi- resources to become productive citizens in the 
 
 sion of a quality education for everyone, our na- 21st century. 
 
 68
 
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 Bell-Rose, Stephanie (1999). What it takes: A look 
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 1998-1999 (Winter), 8-19. 
 
 Blanchard, Loren J. (1994). Community-based re- 
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 Carter, Deborah J. and Wilson, Reginald (1997). 
 Minorities in higher education 1996-97: Fifteenth 
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 Council on Education. 
 
 Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute of The 
 College Fund/UNCF (1997). The African American 
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 Garibaldi, Antoine M. (1988). Educating black 
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 (1996). Historically black colleges and universities 
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 Hrabowski III, Freeman A., Maton, Kenneth I., 
 and Grief Geoffrey L. (1998). Beating the odds: 
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 Irvine, Jacqueline J. (1990). Black students and 
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 Irvine, Jacqueline J. (1985). The accuracy and 
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 69
 
 Continuing the Dialogue: The Overrepresentation of African American 
 Males in Special Education 
 
 Carolyn Talbert-Johnson, Ph.D.* 
 
 As a consequence of structural inequalities in 
 access to knowledge and resources, students 
 from racial and ethnic minority groups in the 
 United States face persistent and profound bar- 
 riers to educational opportunity.' Thus consid- 
 eration must be given to these ongoing inequah- 
 ties in the improvement of the quality and out- 
 comes of education for all students. Reform ini- 
 tiatives have been designed to improve educa- 
 tional outcomes for all children, however for 
 many culturally diverse and poor children, edu- 
 cational practices have proven inequitable, re- 
 sulting in the overrepresentation in special pro- 
 grams. By the year 2000 demographers estimate 
 that a minimum of one-third of the school popu- 
 lation will consist of minority, special needs, and 
 economically disadvantaged students. 2 Whereas 
 in contrast, the population of preservice and in- 
 service P— 12 educators remains primarily Euro- 
 pean American female, which will not change in 
 the next millennium. Apparently children of 
 color have already reached majority status in the 
 25 largest school districts^ with increasing num- 
 bers of children hving under impoverished con- 
 ditions.'' These changes have impacted upon the 
 educational experiences of minority students. 
 
 Associate professor. Department of Education and Allied 
 Professions, University of Dayton (Ohio). 
 
 ' Linda Darhng-Hammond, "Inequality and access to knowl- 
 edge." In Handbook of research on multicultural education, 
 edited by James Banks (New York: Macmillan, 1995). 
 
 2 H. Hodkinson, "What's ahead for education?" Principal, 65, 
 3(1986), pp. 6-11. 
 
 3 G. Gay, "Building cultural bridges: A bold proposal for 
 teacher education." Education and Urban Society, 25, 3 
 (1993), pp. 285-99. 
 
 ■* H. Grossman, Special education in a diverse society 
 (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1995). 
 
 In addressing the disproportionate placement 
 of African American students in special educa- 
 tion, this paper applies the definition offered by 
 Chinn and Hughes^ as plus or minus 10 percent 
 of the total percentage of children, based on the 
 overall population of school-age children. The 
 argument was relevant in 1968 when Dunn^ 
 pointed out the phenomenal increase in special 
 day classes for retarded students which con- 
 sisted of 60 to 80 percent of students that were 
 minority children, and the argument is still rele- 
 vant in 1999. 
 
 In 39 states, according to a U.S. News'' analy- 
 sis of Department of Education data, African 
 American students are overrepresented in spe- 
 cial education programs, compared with their 
 percentage of the overall student population. 
 Significantly, the analysis found that African 
 American students are most likely to be over- 
 represented in special education classes when 
 they are students in predominantly white school 
 districts. In some school districts, neither the 
 number of African American students nor 
 household demographics accounted for the high 
 percentage of African American students. These 
 findings tend to support arguments by critics of 
 the special education system who attribute the 
 overrepresentation of African American students 
 in the system to cultural bias in testing and 
 placement procedures, not to any inherently 
 high level of disability. 
 
 5 Philip Chinn & Selma Hughes, "Representation of minority 
 students in special education classes." Remedial and Special 
 Education, 8, 4 (1987), pp. 41-46. 
 
 ^ L. Dunn, "Special education for the mildly retarded: Is 
 much of it justifiable?" Exceptional Children, 1 (1968), pp. 5- 
 24. 
 
 ^ See "Separate and unequal." U.S. News and World Report 
 (December 1993), pp. 41-60. 
 
 70
 
 Educational experiences for minority stu- 
 dents continue to be substantially separate and 
 unequal. A 5-month examination of the nation's 
 special education system by U.S. News has 
 documented a network of programs that regu- 
 larly use subjective testing criteria, that rely on 
 funding formulas and identification procedures 
 that funnel ever greater numbers of children 
 into special programs each year and that, in 
 state after state, include disproportionately high 
 numbers of African American schoolchildren. 
 More troubling, nearly 40 years after Brown v. 
 Board of Education,^ the U.S. Supreme Court's 
 landmark school desegregation ruling, Ameri- 
 cans continue to pay for and send their children 
 to classrooms that are often separate and une- 
 qual. 
 
 The federal statute that has had the greatest 
 impact on the education of American children in 
 urban settings over the past 30 years is the Indi- 
 viduals with DisabUities Education Act (IDEA).^ 
 IDEA expanded the definition of special educa- 
 tion to include instruction in aU settings. How- 
 ever despite almost 30 years of data that have 
 demonstrated that African American children, 
 especially males, i" are disproportionately, ^i and 
 inappropriately, 12 placed in special education, 
 this unfortunate trend continues. ^^ 
 
 However, the most significant ruling in 
 American history on the battle for equal educa- 
 tional opportunity is Brown v. Board of Educa- 
 tion of Topeka. In Brown, a case involving racial 
 segregation in public schools, the United States 
 Supreme Court recognized the great importance 
 of providing all children with an appropriate 
 
 8 347 U.S. 483 (1954). 
 
 9 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 20 U.S.C. § 
 1401 et seq. (1996). 
 
 '" B. Harry & M. Anderson, "The disproportionate place- 
 ment of African American males in special education pro- 
 grams: A critique of the process." Journal of Negro Educa- 
 tion, 63, 4 (1994), pp. 602-19. 
 
 " Alfredo Artiles & Stanley Trent, "Overrepresentation of 
 minority students in special education; A continuing de- 
 bate." The Journal of Special Education, 27, 4 (1994), pp. 
 410-37. See also Chinn & Hughes (1987), Dunn (1968), and 
 Maheady, Towne, & Algozzine (1983), and Smith (1983). 
 '2 K.Heller, W. Holtzman, & S. Messick, "Placing children in 
 special education: A strategy for equity." Washington, DC: 
 National Academy Press (1982). 
 
 '3 Charlie Russo & Carolyn Talbert-Johnson, "The over- 
 representation of African American children in special edu- 
 cation: The resegregation of educational programming?" 
 Education and Urban Society, 29, 2 (1997), pp. 136-48. 
 
 education. The Court relied on the equal protec- 
 tion clause of the 14th Amendment when it held 
 that "it is doubtful that any child may reasona- 
 bly be expected to succeed in Ufe if he is denied 
 the opportunity to an education. Such an oppor- 
 tunity, where the state has undertaken to pro- 
 vide it, is a right which must be made available 
 to all on equal terms."'"' 
 
 Inequitable Practices 
 
 For many culturally diverse and poor chil- 
 dren, educational practices have proven inequi- 
 table. '^ These children are disproportionately 
 overrepresented in classes for children with dis- 
 abilities. Demographic studies repeatedly show 
 that minority students, particularly African 
 American males, are disproportionately referred 
 for behavioral and learning problems, compared 
 to their majority counterparts. It is disturbing to 
 note that African Americans and Native Ameri- 
 cans are overrepresented in classes for students 
 with serious emotional disturbance (SED) and 
 moderate mental retardation (MMR).'^ African 
 Americans tend to be placed in classes for those 
 with retardation twice their numbers in the gen- 
 eral population. The authors further state that 
 "the issues of ethnicity, social class, and gender 
 appear to be intricately intertwined with the 
 issues of exceptionahty."!' It is apparent that 
 significant numbers of children from African 
 American, American Indian, and Latino famUies, 
 many of whom come from lower socioeconomic 
 backgrounds, are systematically excluded from 
 classes for the gifted and talented. 
 
 Other related data indicate that, compared to 
 majority populations, minority youths with dis- 
 abilities are more hkely to be programmed into 
 punishment facilities such as juvenile court 
 rather than treatment, given more pathological 
 labels than warranted, and less likely to have 
 appropriate family involvement in their treat- 
 ment plans. '^ In comparison to their dominant 
 
 1" Page 493. 
 
 '5 F. Obiakor, "Self-concept of African American students: 
 An operational model for special education." Exceptional 
 Children, 59, 2 (1992), pp. 150-59. 
 
 '6 Donna GoUnick & Philip Chinn, Multicultural education 
 in a pluralistic society, 5th ed. (Ohio: Merrill, 1998). 
 
 " See Donna Gollnick & Philip Chinn, p. 162. 
 
 '8 S. Forness, "Planning for the needs of children with seri- 
 ous emotional disturbance: The national special education 
 and mental coalition." Behavioral Disorders, 13, 2 (1988), pp. 
 127-39. 
 
 71
 
 culture peers, they receive remedial instruction, 
 are tracked in low-ability classes, '^ and are re- 
 tained in their grade levels more.^° 
 
 Regarding gender, African American males 
 are placed in SED classes 3% times more often 
 than females, 21 and children of lower socioeco- 
 nomic backgrounds are also overrepresented in 
 SED classes. 22 African American males are also 
 placed in classes for students with mild retarda- 
 tion, moderate retardation, speech impairment, 
 SED, and learning disabilities at higher per- 
 centages than females. Gollnick and Chinn note 
 African American males are placed in classes for 
 students with mild retardation at IVi times, for 
 speech impairment at 1% times, for SED at 3 '/a 
 times, and for learning disabilities at 2Vi times 
 the rate of placement for females. The more 
 subjective the diagnosis, the higher the repre- 
 sentation of males. It is possible that rather than 
 identifying learning problems, school personnel 
 may be mislabehng behavioral problems. The 
 literature supports that teacher attitudes toward 
 culturally diverse students may affect their re- 
 ferral rates for placement in special education of 
 these youths. Males who are enrolled inappro- 
 priately in special education classes face hmited 
 educational opportunities, tend to drop out of 
 school, and carry a lifelong label. 
 
 Arguably the most controversial issue sur- 
 rounding the placement of African American 
 children in special education is test bias. Yet, 
 despite language in the federal regulations on 
 special education that requires that "testing and 
 evaluation materials and procedures used for the 
 purposes of evaluation and placement of children 
 with disabihties must be selected and adminis- 
 tered so as not to be racially or culturally dis- 
 criminatory,"23 the matter is far from satisfacto- 
 rily resolved. The federal regulation on discrimi- 
 nation-free assessment notwithstanding, test 
 bias is an issue that is not likely to go away. 
 
 '8 J. Oakes, Keeping Track (New Haven: Yale University 
 Press, 1985). 
 
 20 S. Meisels & F. Law, "Failure in grade: Do retained stu- 
 dents catch up?" Journal of Educational Research, 87, 2 
 (1993), pp. 69-77. 
 
 2' Office for Civil Rights, 1990 Elementary and secondary 
 schools civil rights survey (Washington, DC: U.S. Depart- 
 ment of Education 1992). 
 
 22 James Kauffinan, Characteristics of emotional and behav- 
 ioral disorders on children and youth, 6th ed. (Upper Saddle 
 River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1997). 
 
 23 34 C.F.R.-300.500(b) (1996). 
 
 However, because the Supreme Court appears to 
 be unlikely to resolve the legal status of test 
 bias, it will continue to be evaluated on a case- 
 by-case basis. It win be left to policy makers and 
 educators to ensure that standardized measures 
 are employed to evaluate students for placement 
 in special education. Even prior to judicial chal- 
 lenges concerning test bias, OCR was created to 
 monitor and enforce compliance with title VI of 
 the Civil Rights Act of 196424 by conducting bi- 
 annual surveys of the schools regarding student 
 enrollment and placement. Maheady, Towne, 
 and Algozzine25 posit that although no single 
 element has been identified as the cause of the 
 imbalance in the placement of African Ameri- 
 cans in special education, there is some evidence 
 that test bias is a substantial factor. 
 
 The majority of teachers in elementary 
 schools are females who have been sociahzed 
 differently from male students and in some in- 
 stances, the teacher tolerance level for assertive 
 or aggressive male students may preclude effec- 
 tive teacher-student relationships and may pre- 
 cipitate special education referrals. Accordingly, 
 Cartledge and Talbert-Johnson26 suggest that 
 the continuing trends of an increasingly greater 
 proportion of minority students in the public 
 school population and a teaching corps of largely 
 white females set the occasion for "cultural dis- 
 continuities" that potentially undermine the 
 learning of students and serve to frustrate 
 teachers. Accordingly, Gilbert and Gay2^ have 
 identified four areas of potential cultural con- 
 flict: learning style, interactional or relational 
 style, communication style, and differing percep- 
 tions of involvement. They suggest that African 
 American students devote a lot of energy to 
 "stage setting" behaviors that precede the per- 
 formance of a task, which are usually inter- 
 preted by teachers as avoidance techniques or 
 noncompHance. The behavioral repertoires of 
 
 2^ 20 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq. (1996). 
 
 25 L. Maheady, R. Towne, & B. Algozzine, "Minority over- 
 representation: A case for alternative practices prior to re- 
 ferral." Learning Disability Quarterly, 6, 4 (1983), pp. 448- 
 56. 
 
 26 Gwendolyn Cartledge & Carolyn Talbert-Johnson, "School 
 violence and cultural sensitivity." In School violence inter- 
 vention: A practical handbook, eds. Arnold P. Goldstein and 
 Jane Conoley (New York: Guilford Press, 1997). 
 
 2' Shirl Gilbert & Geneva Gay, "Improving success in school 
 of poor Black children." Phi Delta Kappan, 67, 2 (1985), pp. 
 133-37. 
 
 72
 
 African American males may be quite challeng- 
 ing for teachers, who often label these individu- 
 als as being "hyperactive," a term that this 
 author believes is abused and overused. 
 
 In her discussion of their culture, Irvine^^ 
 points out that African Americans' arguing style 
 tends to be direct, entering a heated argument 
 without following the turn-taking rule. This en- 
 ergetic, fast-paced, confrontational manner in 
 which many of these youths are socialized may 
 be misunderstood and may be in conflict with 
 the culture of the classroom. Aggression is in- 
 creasingly problematic for African American 
 youths, especially males, who are disproportion- 
 ately singled out for disciplinary actions in 
 schools and punishment for delinquent activities 
 in the community. The tendency to believe in 
 aggressive alternatives is typical of low-income 
 individuals — particularly those from urban, vio- 
 lence-prone areas, where children are often so- 
 cialized to counter-aggress, ostensibly as a 
 means for survival. 
 
 Some researchers contend that general and 
 special educators have failed African American 
 students. 29 Researchers cite the areas of identifi- 
 cation, assessment, placement in the least re- 
 strictive environment, individuahzed education 
 instruction, and adaptation to change and re- 
 form, as adversely impacting the educational 
 needs of minority students.^o The cultural differ- 
 ences exhibited by students result in varying 
 learning styles and preferences that may predis- 
 pose students to fail in classroom settings that 
 do not recognize these differences.^' 
 
 McDermott32 has hypothesized that for many 
 culturally different children, school failure is 
 
 best explained by the cultural makeup of the 
 classroom. He labels schools in which African 
 American children are taught by European 
 American teachers as "parish-host" communities 
 and maintains that children and teachers in 
 these environments produce communication 
 breakdowns simply by being themselves, that is, 
 by behaving in ways their subcultures see as 
 "normal." What actually occurs is a "mis- 
 communication"' between teachers and students, 
 which could result in school failure. 
 
 Teacher Preparation 
 
 Surprisingly, in the United States of America, 
 children who are required by law to attend 
 school are not guaranteed the right to a knowl- 
 edgeable teacher.33 Underprepared teachers con- 
 stitute more than 25 percent of those hired each 
 year, and they are assigned disproportionately to 
 schools and classrooms serving the most educa- 
 tionally vulnerable children. 3'* 
 
 Studies have consistently found that, with lit- 
 tle knowledge of learning or child development 
 to guide them, teachers who lack preparation are 
 more reliant on rote methods of learning, more 
 autocratic in the ways they manage their class- 
 rooms, less skilled at managing complex forms of 
 instruction aimed at deeper levels of under- 
 standing, less capable of identifying children's 
 learning styles and needs, and less likely to see 
 it as their job to do so, blaming students when 
 their teaching is not successful. Because of the 
 capacities of their teachers, most classrooms 
 serving poor and minority children continue to 
 provide students with significantly less engaging 
 and effective learning experiences.^^ 
 
 28 Jacqueline Jordan Irvine, Black students and school fail- 
 ure (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990). 
 
 29 N. Ewing, "Restructured teacher education for inclusive- 
 ness: A dream deferred for African American children." In 
 Effective education of African American educational learn- 
 ers, ed. B.A. Ford (Austin: Pro-Ed, 1995). See also Alfredo 
 Artiles & Stanley Trent's "Overrepresentaiton of minority 
 students in special education: A continuing debate." 
 
 ^ F. Obiakor, "The education of African American learners 
 with behavior disorders: An unresolved issue for general and 
 special educators," unpublished manuscript (1994). 
 
 3' Deborah Voltz, "Learning and cultural diversities in gen- 
 eral and special education classes: Frameworks for success." 
 Multiple Voices for Ethnically Diverse Exceptional Learners, 
 1 (1995), pp. 1-11. 
 
 32 Ray McDermott, "Achieving school failure: An anthropo- 
 logical approach to illiteracy and social stratification." In 
 Education and cultural process: Anthropological approaches 
 
 (2nd ed.), ed. George Spindler (Prospect Heights, IL: Wave- 
 land Press, 1987). 
 
 33 Linda Darhng-Hammond, "The right to learn and the 
 advancement of teaching: Research, policy, and practice for 
 democratic education." Educational Researcher, 23, 6 (1996), 
 pp. 5-17. 
 
 3^ Linda Darling-Hammond, "Teaching and knowledge: Pol- 
 icy issues posed by alternative certification for teachers." 
 Peabody Journal of Education, 67, 3 (1992), pp. 123-54. See 
 also J. Oakes, Multiplying inequalities: The effects of race, 
 social class, and tracking opportunities to learn mathematics 
 and science (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 
 1990). 
 
 •■'5 J. Oakes, Keeping Track (New Haven: Yale University 
 Press, 1985). See also Linda Darhng-Hammond (1992a). 
 
 73
 
 Factors associated with classroom climate in- 
 clude teacher attitudes^^ and the impact that 
 these attitudes have on a student's self-concept 
 and sense of being. Attitudes can impact upon 
 the achievement expectations that teachers have 
 for students in their classes. According to 
 Voltz,37 the notion of the self-fuliiUing prophecy 
 may adversely impede student performance. 
 
 Teachers' perspectives are rooted partially in 
 their prior experience in school. They are also 
 rooted in their general hfe experiences,^^ which 
 provide a basis for generalizations, decisions 
 about what is important, and styles of relating to 
 others. A study by Talbert-Johnson & Cochran^s 
 investigated this very issue in their research of 
 preservice educators' perceptions, experiences, 
 and attitudes relevant to the management of 
 diverse populations and its impact on future 
 employment decisions. The data supported that 
 preservice educators felt more "comfortable" 
 seeking employment in environments similar to 
 the ones in which they were raised. One individ- 
 ual stated, "I grew up in a suburban school dis- 
 trict, not that there is anything wrong with ur- 
 ban schools, but I don't think I would feel very 
 comfortable or safe in these kinds of schools, be- 
 sides my dad said I can't work in them — he won't 
 let me." The findings are consistent with previ- 
 ous research that teacher education programs 
 have done little to alter the prior beliefs of pre- 
 service educators and that these programs 
 should encourage these individuals to recognize 
 and directly confi-ont their biases as they operate 
 in urban settings. 
 
 Jones and Sandidge''" pvirport that teachers 
 in urban settings have problems that are exac- 
 
 ts See N. Ewing, "Restructured teacher education for inclu- 
 siveness: A dream deferred for African American children 
 for Uterature on teacher behaviors and attitudes." 
 
 3' Deborah Voltz, "Cultural diversity and special education 
 teacher preparation: Critical issues confronting the field." 
 Teacher Education and Special Education, 21, 1 (1998), pp. 
 63-70. 
 
 38 Marilynne Boyle-Baise & Christine Sleeter, "Field experi- 
 ences: Planting seeds and pulling weeds." In Making school- 
 ing multicultural: Campus and classroom, ed. Carl Grant 
 (NJ: MerriU, 1996). 
 
 39 Carolyn Talbert-Johnson & Lessie Cochran, "Perceptions, 
 attitudes, and experiences of preservice educators in the 
 management of diverse populations: Implications for em- 
 ployment decisions?" unpublished manuscript. 
 
 40 Deneese Jones & Rosetta Sandidge, "Recruiting and re- 
 taining teachers in urban schools: Implications for policy 
 
 erbated by increasing levels of violence in and 
 around school campuses, funding inequities that 
 exist between urban schools and their more af- 
 fluent suburban counterparts, and inadequate 
 preparation of many teachers to provide cultur- 
 ally relevant curricula for students in urban set- 
 tings. They further suggest that given the reluc- 
 tance of many teachers to teach in urban schools 
 and the excessively high attrition rates of those 
 who do, urban school leaders constantly struggle 
 to maintain a cadre of highly quaUfied teachers 
 who are committed to high academic achieve- 
 ment for all students in the urban school setting. 
 For various reasons, new and returning teachers 
 are not attracted to teaching assignments in ur- 
 ban schools. To further compound the situation, 
 many of the nation's highest teacher attrition 
 rates occur in urban districts.'" To address these 
 problems, urban schools in every state nationally 
 have, at some time, resorted to hiring uncertifi- 
 cated, misassigned, or emergency-credentialed 
 teachers who are unprepared to assume teaching 
 responsibihties in urban city schools. 
 
 The Agenda for the New Millennium 
 
 Unequal access to knowledge, unequal out- 
 comes, and inequity continue to exist because 
 pohcies and legislation have not provided effec- 
 tive resources for schools populated primarily by 
 urban and minority children. ''^ Improved oppor- 
 tunities for minority students will rest in part on 
 pohcies that professionahze teaching by in- 
 creasing the knowledge base for teaching. 
 Teachers must be better prepared to support 
 current education reform initiatives that refuse 
 to compromise on teacher qualifications. As 
 Goals 2000''3 is on the horizon, it is imperative 
 that a teaching corps of qualified individuals is 
 trained to respond to how students learn. They 
 must posses requisite skills to intervene on the 
 unique learning needs of these individuals, re- 
 gardless of the racial or ethnic group, or socio- 
 economic backgrounds. 
 
 and the law." Education and Urban Society, 29, 2 (1997), pp. 
 192-203. 
 
 "" G. Adams & M. Dial, 'Teacher survival: A Cox regression 
 model." Education and Urban Society, 26 (1993), pp. 90-99. 
 
 ■"2 See Deneese Jones & Rosetta Sandidge, "Recruiting and 
 retaining teachers in urban schools: Implications for policy 
 and the law." Education and Urban Society, 29, 2 (1997), pp. 
 192-203. 
 
 « P.L. 103-277 (H.R. 1804), 20 U.S.C. § 5801. 
 
 74
 
 There are no simple solutions to the problems 
 of the disproportionate placement of African 
 American males in special education. Several 
 areas should be addressed to alleviate this 
 problem as the next century approaches, in- 
 cluding recruiting and retaining minority teach- 
 ers, preparing teachers for urban settings, rec- 
 ognizing and valuing all learners, and determin- 
 ing best practices to improve student learning. 
 
 Recruiting and Retaining Minority Teachers 
 
 The recruitment of minority educators con- 
 tinues to be a major crisis in teacher education. 
 Minority faculty should be vigorously recruited, 
 and promotion, tenure, and faculty development 
 pohcies must be reexamined to ensure equity. In 
 an effort to address the recruitment crises the 
 University of Dayton is aggressively recruiting 
 "seasoned" persons from urban public school dis- 
 tricts, some of whom have obtained terminal de- 
 grees, as adjunct instructors.'*'' The mentoring of 
 younger potential students is another strategy 
 utihzed to strengthen the pool of minority teach- 
 ers. Padilla''^ concurs that schools of education 
 need to strengthen their resolve to identify 
 promising minority students and to develop 
 mentoring strategies to ensure their training 
 and success. 
 
 Preparing teachers for cultural diversity has 
 been an often cited weakness in teacher prepara- 
 tion programs. Insofar as most teacher prepara- 
 tion programs — including those in special educa- 
 tion — still function within a framework that is 
 exclusively Eurocentric, few teachers are 
 equipped to deal with cultures, languages, life- 
 styles, and values in their classrooms. The result 
 is that many teachers expect all students to 
 "conform to the norm." The typical student for 
 whom educators' pedagogy and prescriptions are 
 designed is an endangered species. Highly moti- 
 vated, achievement-oriented, white, middle-class 
 students from two-parent families are becoming 
 scarce in most school systems, whether rural, 
 suburban, or virban. By the year 2000, these stu- 
 dents will be even more atypical. 
 
 One of the challenges facing teacher educa- 
 tors is to prepare future teachers who are capa- 
 ble of maximizing the fit between instruction 
 and students' learning, regardless of racial or 
 ethnic groups, gender, or socioeconomic back- 
 ground. A unique feature of urban schools is the 
 diversity of students who are in attendance. 
 
 Teachers must be cognizant of their roles and 
 its impact on African American males and chil- 
 dren of color. Further research should investi- 
 gate the relationships between students and 
 teachers and how these can be either improved 
 or damaged by their interactions. King**^ notes 
 that African Americans serve critical roles as 
 role models and surrogate parents. She asserts 
 that African American teachers are better able 
 to bridge the gap often found between students 
 from low socioeconomic status families and mid- 
 dle-class teachers who tend to have higher ex- 
 pectations than white teachers for students of 
 color. Moreover, according to Irvine,'''' minority 
 faculty should be vigorously recruited, and ac- 
 companying pohcies for promotion, tenure, and 
 faculty development should be reexamined for 
 possible bias and disproportionate impact. Addi- 
 tionally, the American Association of State Col- 
 leges and Universities''^ task force suggests na- 
 tionwide changes in teacher education programs 
 toward increasing their ethnic diversity and the 
 preparation of teachers to educate children from 
 diverse cultures. Even though efforts have been 
 made, the presence of minorities in higher edu- 
 cation remains a problem of critical magnitude. 
 
 To further compound the situation, there is a 
 shortage of males in the teaching force. This is a 
 problem of particular significance regarding 
 young African American males because they 
 generally lack positive male role models in their 
 lives. Ancarrow's^^ analysis showed that 2 to 3 
 
 ■''' Carolyn Talbert-Johnson & Beverly Tillman, "Perspectives 
 on 'color' in teacher education programs: Prominent issues." 
 Journal of Teacher Education (1999). 
 
 ^^ A. Padilla, "Ethnic minority scholars, research, and men- 
 toring: Current and future issues." Educational Research, 
 23, 4 (1995), pp. 24-27. 
 
 ''8 Sabrina Hope King, "The limited presence of African 
 American teachers." Review of Educational Research, 63, 2 
 (1993), pp. 115-49. 
 
 '•'' Jacqueline Jordan Irvine, "Making teacher education 
 culturally responsive." In Diversity in teacher education: 
 New expectations, ed. Mary Dilworth (San Francisco: Jossey- 
 Bass, 1992). 
 
 ''s American Association of State Colleges and Universities, 
 "Colleges suggest ways to improve teacher training." The 
 Columbus Dispatch (1999), p. 3. 
 
 *^ J. Ancarrow, "Characteristics of regular and special edu- 
 cation teachers in public schools, 1987-88: ED. tabs." 
 Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, OSERS, 
 OfBce of Special Education Programs (1991). 
 
 75
 
 times as many general educators were female 
 than male. In light of the rapidly changing shifts 
 in today's population, it is in the best interests of 
 schools and society as a whole to recruit and re- 
 tain a diverse cadre of teachers as it enhances 
 the learning experience of all students. 
 
 It is evident that a restructuring of teacher 
 education is needed if the current school reform 
 efforts are to be successful. The focus must be on 
 preparing preservice educators to teach and 
 manage diverse learners, particularly African 
 American males in urban settings. In addition, 
 these individuals must learn to behave in ways 
 that positively affect interpersonal interactions, 
 and pedagogical strategies should be adapted to 
 reflect the individuaHzed needs of students and 
 their unique learning styles. 
 
 Preparing Teachers for Urban Settings 
 
 Pohcies regarding multicultural education in 
 all institutions of teacher preparation must be 
 expUcit and dominant in all coursework as well 
 as cUnical and field experiences. It is imperative 
 that preservice educators have field experiences 
 in rural, suburban, and urban settings. The lit- 
 erature supports that one-shot workshops have 
 not proven to have a lasting impact on preserv- 
 ice students, therefore curricular changes are 
 required. Curriculum development should be a 
 dynamic process, one in which culturally rele- 
 vant pedagogies are adopted. Strategies such as 
 cooperative learning, working towards full inclu- 
 sion, opportunities to learn, and experimental 
 learning are beneficial in the educational proc- 
 ess. Accordingly, Artiles and Trent^" also suggest 
 a reform in professional preparation programs. 
 They indicate that a process-oriented component 
 should be included so that teachers can deal 
 with issues of diversity at the personal level 
 (e.g., reflect about individual values, perceptions, 
 stereotypes, and expectations of diverse learn- 
 ers). Researchers encourage the examination of 
 the sociocultural climate, including ra- 
 cial/cultural prejudice in the learning environ- 
 ment.51 This is vital if educators are to impact 
 
 upon the lives of individuals in an effective 
 manner. 
 
 To work effectively in urban schools teachers 
 must develop competencies specific to an in- 
 creasingly diverse and challenging student body. 
 Teachers must understand the impact of condi- 
 tions associated with poverty and other influ- 
 ences that place children at risk. Issues such as 
 an examination of teachers' behefs and attitudes 
 focusing on procedural knowledge, classroom 
 control, and "survival" skills should be addressed 
 as an alternative to traditional programs. ^^ 
 
 Recognizing and Valuing All Learners 
 
 Schools should be important, empowering en- 
 vironments for all students, including those from 
 racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds. It is 
 critical to remember that children are first and 
 foremost children, therefore within schools stu- 
 dents need to feel welcomed and valued,^^ and 
 they should be given the opportunity to develop 
 a sense of competence, usefulness, and belong- 
 ing. Schools must focus on adapting either the 
 classroom organization or curriculum and in- 
 struction to meet the instructional needs of stu- 
 dents. This is a vital Hnk in school reform. Cul- 
 tural and ethnic differences should be embraced 
 and valued in all forms and degrees as reflec- 
 tions of the contributions that different groups of 
 Americans have made to our society. To affirm 
 students means that we vahdate them for who 
 they are, individuals who are valuable members 
 of the classroom community. Students should be 
 affirmed not only for the qualities that they have 
 in common, but also for their uniqueness, which 
 can facihtate how they can learn self-respect.^'* 
 
 Determining Best Practices to Improve Student 
 Learning 
 
 Current reform initiatives, such as the oppor- 
 tunity to learn standards (OTL), propose that all 
 students will have access to a high-quality edu- 
 cation in the United States, regardless of their 
 
 5" See Alfredo Artiles & Stanley Trent, "Overrepresentation of 
 minority students in special education: A continuing de- 
 bate." 
 
 5' Judy Wald, "Culturally and linguistically diverse profes- 
 sionals in special education: A demographic analysis." Na- 
 tional Clearinghouse for Professions in Special Education 
 (1996). 
 
 52 See Deneese Jones & Rosetta Sandidge, "Recruiting and 
 retaining teachers in urban schools: Implications for policy 
 and the law." 
 
 53 A. Vargas, "Culture-focused group therapy: Identity issues 
 in gang involved youth." Paper presented at the 102nd an- 
 nual convention of the American Psychological Association, 
 Los Angeles (1994). 
 
 5'' S. Stainback & W. Stainback, Curriculum considerations 
 in inclusive classrooms: Facilitating learning for all students 
 (Baltimore: Paul H. Brooks, 1992). 
 
 76
 
 race, sex, or socioeconomic background. Success- 
 ful outcomes for diverse students become a real- 
 ity when the key stakeholders hold themselves 
 accountable for meeting the diverse needs of 
 students. This accountability includes recruiting 
 and retaining diverse teachers — at every level of 
 the "pipeline," preparing all teachers to work 
 with minorities in urban settings, adopting mul- 
 ticultural curriciola and instruction, providing 
 adequate funding and other resources for urban 
 schools, and examining policies and practices 
 that impede equal access, equal outcomes, and 
 equity in urban schools. Statements of best prac- 
 tice should include, but are not limited to, age- 
 appropriate placements in public schools, inte- 
 grated delivery of services, social integration, 
 transition planning, curricular expectations, 
 home-schools partnerships, and systematic pro- 
 gram evaluation.55 The focus should be that best 
 educational practices are identified for all stu- 
 dents. 
 
 Final Thoughts 
 
 An unwavering commitment to diversity 
 must permeate every level of the educational 
 system. 5^ The professoriate needs to move be- 
 yond lipservice to issues of diversity, to engage 
 in assessment of attitudes among themselves 
 and their students, and to become active partici- 
 pants in the change process, in the development 
 of partnerships with P-12 settings. A major 
 challenge facing teacher education is to help 
 
 candidates begin the process of critical examina- 
 tion of the practices of educators and schools in 
 the teaching and learning process. Thus a 
 pressing national concern is to prevent the high 
 proportions of failure among students from di- 
 verse racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic back- 
 grounds. Young males, especially in the African 
 American community, lack role models and are 
 failing at an alarming rate within the current 
 system. The culture of the school must change to 
 meet the individualized needs of this unique 
 population in learning environments that are 
 positive, affirming, and safe. 
 
 As Darling-Hammond^' asserts, if the inter- 
 action between teachers and students is the 
 most important aspect of effective schoohng, 
 then reducing inequaUty in learning has to rely 
 on pohcies that provide equal access to compe- 
 tent, well-supported teachers. The educational 
 system ought to be able to guarantee that every 
 child who is required by law to go to school is 
 taught by someone who is prepared, knowledge- 
 able, competent, and caring. Schools should em- 
 brace the diversity of the student body, respect- 
 ing and appreciating the rich ethnic and cultural 
 differences in a safe environment conducive to 
 students' learning styles and needs. If schools 
 can accomplish these tasks, then perhaps in the 
 next millennium they can escape the conundrum 
 of the overrepresentation of minority students in 
 special education. 
 
 ^5 J. Thousand & R. Villa, "Strategies for educating learners 
 with severe disabilities within their local schools and com- 
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 79
 
 Assessment and the Educational Progress of African American Males 
 
 Sylvia T. Johnson* and Michael B. Wallace* 
 
 The educational progress and development of 
 urban African American males in the United 
 States, as measured by standardized assess- 
 ments, is a matter of serious national concern. 
 Though there is substantial variabihty among 
 their scores, it has been well documented that 
 African American males, on the average, have 
 performed considerably less well academically 
 than other groups of young Americans. This is 
 particularly true of those residing in urban areas 
 when they also come from low-income famihes. 
 (Garibaldi, 1992). This very observation rests 
 upon the existence and function of a major com- 
 ponent of the educational process, that of as- 
 sessment. It has been the consensus of many 
 educators over the span of several decades that 
 optimum student outcomes of pubhc education 
 result from a good ahgnment of three essential 
 components; curriculum, instruction, and as- 
 sessment. The importance of assessment is un- 
 questionable in the educational enterprise. It is 
 measurement that quantifies and illuminates 
 the unique and alarming predicament that we 
 find too many African American male children 
 in, with respect to faltering academic achieve- 
 ment at the grade school and secondary levels, 
 and later in attempts to qualify for postsecon- 
 dary education. The Governor's Commission 
 (1989) highly pubhcized the finding that African 
 American males score lower than any other 
 group on standardized tests. 
 
 Any student of the educational odyssey of Af- 
 rican Americans in this country is bound to be 
 struck by the many obstacles to educational pro- 
 gress that coexisted with the many attempts to 
 facihtate their progress. At the time that aboh- 
 tionists, rehgious groups, and free blacks strug- 
 gled in the early years of the repubUc to educate 
 
 * Howard University. 
 ** Howard University. 
 
 people of color, it was illegal in slave states to 
 teach an African American to read, and some 
 paid for this knowledge with their hves. Despite 
 the hght years of progress since that time, the 
 coexistence of impediments and facihtators, 
 though very different in expression from that 
 earher time, is still a feature to be considered in 
 understanding educational progress among this 
 group, and performance on testing and assess- 
 ment measures of the performance. 
 
 This paper will review the educational prog- 
 ress of African American males as measured by 
 a variety of widely used assessments. It will ex- 
 amine the relative levels of these measures over 
 time, and their relationships to the same or 
 similar measures among other groups. The pa- 
 per will also explore the meaning of these scores 
 as vahd measures of performance, and as predic- 
 tors of future performance. 
 
 Standardized Test Performance in 
 Elementary and High School 
 
 The National Assessment of Educational Pro- 
 gress (NAEP) reports the progress of American 
 students nationally at the 4th, 8th, and 12th 
 grade levels. A national probabihty sample is 
 selected, and samples of items are administered 
 to them. The base of items measuring achieve- 
 ment is much larger than the number of ques- 
 tions given to each student. Inferences are made 
 to the levels of performance of subgroups based 
 on gender, race and ethnicity, region, geographic 
 density (urban and rural), and parent's level of 
 education. Currently pubhshed NAEP reports do 
 not dehneate gender within ethnicity, so the 
 following summary reports results on African 
 American males and females, combined. 
 
 NAEP results in mathematics show strong 
 improvement, about equal to half of a standard 
 deviation, for black students at ages 9, 13, and 
 17 from 1973 to 1990. At the same time, the pro- 
 
 80
 
 portion of black students in the nation as a 
 whole was increasing from 12 percent (age 17), 
 13 percent (age 13), and 14 percent (age 9) to 16 
 percent at all three age levels in 1990. These are 
 important and statistically significant gains in 
 mathematics performance, coupled with an in- 
 crease in population proportion. They still repre- 
 sent performance weU below that of white stu- 
 dents, and for students as a whole. From 1990 to 
 1996, progress in mathematics has been mixed 
 with a shght decrease in the average perform- 
 ance for 17-year-olds, and the suggestion of a 
 small gain for 9- and 13-year-olds. 
 
 NAEP reports progress in terms of a 500 
 point proficiency scale, and in terms of achieve- 
 ment levels; basic, proficient, and advanced. 
 Figure 1 from the 1996 NAEP trends report 
 shows average scale scores for black and white 
 students; e.g., in 1996, black 9-year-olds on the 
 average achieved a proficiency score of 212, 
 while students of the same age scored 237. 
 
 The achievement level scores are structured 
 to emphasize and direct pohcy action toward 
 progress of students at the highest levels. In 
 1994, the NAEP reported that the achievement 
 level in mathematics for black and white fourth- 
 grade students at the advanced level was per- 
 cent and 1 percent, respectively; among grade 12 
 students, 2 percent of white students and per- 
 cent of black students scored at or above the ad- 
 vanced level; and among grade 8 students, 5 per- 
 cent of white students, and less than 1 percent of 
 black students scored at the advanced level. 
 
 The NAEP reading scores show a similar up- 
 ward trend for black students from 1971 for- 
 ward, but since 1988, scores for ages 13 and 17 
 have tended downward, with scores from 9-year- 
 olds dropping, but finishing in 1996 at a level 
 not significantly above the 1988 level (see figure 
 3). Among black students as a whole, there was a 
 positive trend in reading scores from 1971 to 
 1996. 
 
 NAEP science results on black students show 
 a mixed trend pattern, with 13- and 9-year-olds 
 in 1996 showing significantly higher scores than 
 their counterparts in 1970. Scores for black 17- 
 year-olds showed a trend steadily downward 
 from 1969 to 1982, but they have shown steady 
 upward progress since that time (figure 4). In 
 general, the trend hnes in NAEP results from 
 black students have shown greater gain than the 
 trends for white students, with the resiilt that 
 the gaps between the scores of white and black 
 
 students were smaller in 1996 in most subject 
 areas than they had been in 1971 or 1973. 
 
 The NAEP report (Campbell, Voelkl, and 
 Donahue, 1998) notes the need to consider a 
 number of factors when interpreting achieve- 
 ment differences between subgroups. The 
 authors noted that research indicates that many 
 minority students attend schools with substan- 
 dard physical facihties, fewer academic re- 
 sources, and less challenging curricula, thus 
 their opportunities to learn are hmited (Fine, 
 1991; Maclver and Epstein, 1990; Oakes, 1990). 
 They note that others have argued that dispro- 
 portionate numbers of minority students are 
 placed in low-ability classes and provided with 
 less intensive curricula (King, 1993; Meier, 
 Stewart, and England, 1989). 
 
 Recently, researchers have looked at the 
 NAEP data from the perspective aimed at ex- 
 amining the factors most related to score differ- 
 ences. Using hnear models based on a hierarchy 
 of variables, Raudenbush and his colleagues 
 (1999) have found that when differences be- 
 tween the average scale scores of states in the 
 NAEP Trial State assessment are examined, 
 these differences are found to be strongly related 
 to differences in resource allocation and avail- 
 ability. Minority students and students whose 
 parents had lower levels of education were found 
 to have less access to course-taking opportuni- 
 ties, favorable school climates, highly educated 
 teachers, and cognitively stimulating classrooms. 
 The strength of this relation varied across the 
 states, which could provide an alternate index to 
 the current NAEP Report Card for reporting the 
 relative educational progress of students and 
 subgroups within the various states. Such an 
 approach could be very useful in structuring 
 poUcy to advance educational progress for all 
 groups. 
 
 Using another model, Finn and Achilles 
 (1990) analyzed the Tennessee school size ex- 
 periment data, in which students were randomly 
 assigned to small or medium class sizes in 
 grades 1-3. All students gained more in small 
 classes, but black students gained most nearly a 
 third of a standard deviation. Some effect from 
 these gains carried into the seventh grade, 
 which was the most recent work available on 
 this study. These latter analyses show the im- 
 portance of fuller examination of the data to gain 
 information useful in structuring educational 
 programs and educational pohcy and planning. 
 
 81
 
 Figure 1 
 
 NAEP Mathematics Trends for Black and White Students, 1973-96 
 
 9IIU 
 
 ■ --- 
 
 ---i 
 
 1 
 
 WHITE 
 
 — 1 
 
 ■ ■ 1 
 
 1— 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 320 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 ^m-m' 
 
 300 
 
 
 H 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 — 1 
 
 t— 
 
 — 1 
 
 h— 
 
 -H 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 '--i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 A«f n 
 
 250 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ages 
 
 — p 
 
 
 -— c 
 
 J— 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 '■ 
 
 
 [ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Q"*^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 200 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 170 
 
 : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1973 
 
 1978 
 
 1982 
 
 198S 
 
 1990 
 
 1992 
 
 1994 
 
 1996 
 
 • 
 
 * 
 
 L 
 
 
 
 •^W^^^'l^^HiW!^W*l*^^HT 
 
 31011 II 
 
 30110 91 
 
 i3ini 
 
 304(0 41 
 III! 01 
 
 3011 1 01 
 7110 SI 
 
 3I0II 01 
 73(0 SI 
 
 312(011 
 7SI0SI 
 
 312(1 II 
 71(0 SI 
 
 313(141 
 711011 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 • 
 
 !?,. 49* 13 :^ 
 
 JMIOt) 
 
 ma II 
 
 IWI II 
 
 J74II 01 
 JIIJ II 
 
 274(131 
 771101 
 
 27t(l II 
 73(0 71 
 
 279(0 !l 
 74(0 51 
 
 2III09I 
 7)10 51 
 
 21110 91 
 71(0)1 
 
 * 
 
 
 * 
 
 ♦ 
 
 ?^-^- ■ >»««» 
 
 I2SII0I 
 
 2)410 tl 
 7»|1 41 
 
 ?24ll II 
 '111 SI 
 
 227(111 
 7711 II 
 
 235(011 
 7SII II 
 
 235(011 
 7510(1 
 
 237(101 
 7510 71 
 
 237(101 
 7JII II 
 
 * 
 
 
 * 
 
 ■ 
 
 500 
 
 370(1 31 
 
 261(131 
 17(1 II 
 
 272(1 21 
 1311 71 
 
 279(2 11 
 1410 31 
 
 289(211 
 1610 31 
 
 216(2 21 
 15(0 31 
 
 28611 i 
 1610 3 
 
 286(171 
 1SI0 31 
 
 221(1 91 
 
 2301191 
 13(151 
 
 240(1 kl 
 14(1 II 
 
 249I2.3I 
 
 14(0 91 
 
 249(231 
 1610 31 
 
 25011 91 
 16(0 31 
 
 25213 5 
 ISI0 3 
 
 25211 31 
 ISI0 4I 
 
 19011.11 
 
 192(1 II 
 I4II41 
 
 195(1 tl 
 14(2 01 
 
 202(161 
 
 isiosi 
 
 201(2 21 
 
 1610 71 
 
 201(2 01 
 
 1610 41 
 
 212(16 
 ISIOS 
 
 2121141 
 16(0 51 
 
 B«tow eoch average scale icore, the corresponding percentage of students ts presented 
 Slondard errors of the estimated jcole scores ond percentoges oppear in porentheses 
 
 [ ) Extropolofed from previous NAEP anolyses 
 
 * Indicates that the overage scole score in 1996 is signiHcontly larger (♦) or smaller (-) than that in 1973. 
 
 t Indicotes that the average scale score in 1996 is stgmficantiy larger {+) or smaller {-) thon that in 1994, 
 
 I Indicates that the positive [♦) or negotive l-| lineor trend is signtficont 
 
 Q Indicates thai the positive (+) or negative (-) quadratic trend is significant 
 
 SOURCE: National Ceriler for Education Stotishcs, National Assessment of Educotional Progress INAEP), 1996 Long-Term Trend 
 
 Assessment. 
 
 82
 
 Figure 2 
 
 NAEP Achievement Level in Mathematics, 1994 
 
 100% 
 
 50% 
 
 Grade 4 
 
 Grade 8 
 
 nWhile 
 ■African American 
 
 4% 
 
 0% 
 
 Below 
 
 At or 
 
 At or 
 
 At or 
 
 basic 
 
 above 
 
 above 
 
 above 
 
 level 
 
 basic 
 
 proficient 
 
 advanced 
 
 
 level 
 
 
 level 
 
 100% 
 
 50%- 
 
 66% 
 
 82% 
 
 0%-!- 
 
 18%^H 
 
 rl , I 
 
 34% 
 
 I 
 
 36% 
 
 5% 
 
 5% 
 
 0% 
 
 nWhite 
 ■African American 
 
 Below 
 basic 
 level 
 
 At or 
 above 
 basic 
 level 
 
 At or 
 
 above 
 
 proficient 
 
 At or 
 
 above 
 
 advanced 
 
 level 
 
 Grade 12 
 
 100% 
 
 50% 
 
 At or 
 
 above 
 
 advanced 
 
 level 
 
 Source: NAEP 1994 Geography Report Card for the Nation and the States. May 1996. 
 
 83
 
 Figure 3 
 
 NAEP Reading Trends for Black and White Students, 1971-96 
 
 500 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 WHITE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 320 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 300 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 HI — 
 
 
 -_l 1 
 
 
 . .-m^i^t' 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 ■— 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 -H» — 
 
 — m 
 
 /t«elft 
 
 250 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 -1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 AffC* 
 
 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 
 -f" ^— ^ 
 
 
 
 f^ 
 
 
 
 rH 
 
 
 —CI 
 
 200 
 
 
 c 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 — L 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 170 
 
 ; 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1971 
 
 1975 
 
 1980 
 
 19S* 
 
 i9ea 
 
 1990 
 
 1992 
 
 1994 
 
 i99e 
 
 
 » 
 
 L 
 
 Q 
 
 
 :9iiig) 
 
 793(0 »1 
 
 till 01 
 
 ?H(0 91 
 
 asiui 
 
 79i(0;i 
 
 /IlOil 
 
 79SI11I 
 
 f;i0 4i 
 
 97IIJI 
 
 ;<io SI 
 
 797(1 41 
 
 ni0 6i 
 
 29MISI 
 
 ;!ioii 
 
 294(1 7) 
 
 77(0 ;i 
 
 
 
 + 
 
 
 ^P^ii^SI^ 
 
 
 Hl(07) 
 
 Mil <l 
 
 uvtn 
 
 till ?i 
 
 UW 7) 
 
 son 11 
 
 I»3IOil 
 
 "10 ») 
 
 7tl|l U 
 
 )6I0'I 
 
 (71091 
 
 7<I0|I 
 
 7t«(l7l 
 
 '310)1 
 
 7iSII1l 
 
 ;<ios) 
 
 ?t;(ioi 
 
 nio/) 
 
 + 
 
 
 ♦ 
 
 
 4|K» 
 
 
 JI4(»»I 
 
 ?i7(i);i 
 
 721101) 
 
 71110 1) 
 
 IIKI 4) 
 
 1711 31 
 
 711(101 
 
 710(131 
 
 720(1 21 
 
 i 
 
 
 ♦ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 Mil II 
 
 ion !i 
 
 ?9I13I 
 
 'ill 71 
 
 ;sii 01 
 
 7«II0I 
 
 MI0 9] 
 
 ;sio ;i 
 
 ;ii0!) 
 
 
 g 
 
 ■ 
 
 , 
 
 Aft 9 
 
 219(17) 
 
 nil 71 
 
 74)(2 0) 
 
 IIIOII 
 
 7430 11 
 
 I7II4I 
 
 7«4(1 01 
 
 1410 71 
 
 274(7 4) 
 
 ISI0 3I 
 
 7k7(7 3) 
 
 1110 31 
 
 74117I1 
 
 ISI0 3I 
 
 2«(3 91 
 
 ISIOJI 
 
 765(7 7) 
 
 ISI0 3I 
 
 112(1.1) 
 
 )S(14) 
 
 77K)2) 
 
 1310(1 
 
 233(1 S) 
 
 1411 31 
 
 73tll.OI 
 1(10 71 
 
 74317 4) 
 
 ISI0 31 
 
 242(771 
 
 ISIOJ) 
 
 731(7 31 
 
 1610 <l 
 
 234(741 
 ISIOSl 
 
 731(711 
 
 ISI0 6I 
 
 170(17) 
 
 Mil 31 
 
 101(171 
 
 1310 II 
 
 11911 11 
 
 I4!l 01 
 
 lltlUI 
 
 1610 SI 
 
 II9I2 4I 
 
 Hon 
 
 II7I7 91 
 
 IKDt 
 
 HSI7 7I 
 
 '610*1 
 
 115(7 31 
 
 ISI0 6. 
 
 190(7 71 
 
 KIOS) 
 
 Below each average icole score, the corresponding percentage o( students is presented 
 Standard errors of the estimated scale scores and percentages oppeor in parentheses. 
 
 ( 1 Extrapolated from previous NAEP analyses 
 
 • Indicates that the average scole score in 1996 is signihcantly larger (+] or jmaller (-) than thot in 1973. 
 
 X Indicates thot the average scale score in 1996 is significantly larger 1+) or smaller (-} than thai in 1994. 
 
 I Indicates that the positive (+) or negotive |-1 linear trend is significont. 
 
 Q Indicates that the positive |+| or negative (-) quadratic trend is significant 
 
 SOURCE Notional Center for Education Statistics, Nationol Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). 1996 long-Term Trend 
 
 Assessment 
 
 84
 
 Figure 4 
 
 NAEP Science Trends for Black and White Students, 1969-96 
 
 500 
 
 Below eoch average scale score, the corresponding percenloge of students is presented 
 Stondord errors of the estimated scale scores ond percentages appear in porentheses 
 
 [ ] Extrapololed from previous NAEP analyses 
 
 • Indicates that the overage scale score in 1996 is significontly larger |+) or smaller (-) than thot in 1973. 
 
 t Indicates that (he average scole score in 1996 is significantly larger (+) or smaller {-) than that in 1994, 
 
 L Indicates that the positive |+) or negative (~) linear trend is significant. 
 
 Q Indicates that the positive (+) or negative (-) quadratic trend is significant, 
 
 SOURCE: Notional Center for Education Statistics, National Assessment of Educotional Progress (NAEP), 1996 longTerm Trend 
 
 85
 
 A number of studies conducted in relatively 
 large school systems in major urban areas show 
 varying performance levels. Based on 1986—87 
 data, the public schools of New Orleans, Louisi- 
 ana, with 87 percent of its students African 
 American, had one-third of them scoring in the 
 lowest quartile on the reading and mathematics 
 subscales of the California Test of Basic Skills 
 (CTBS). Of concern is that only 18 percent of the 
 males in that school system scored in the highest 
 quartile on the mathematics subscale and only 
 13 percent scored in that quartile on the reading 
 subscale of the CTBS. Similar findings have 
 been reported by other jurisdictions serving pre- 
 dominantly African American communities 
 (Garibaldi, 1992). School systems such as Prince 
 George's County (MD) Public Schools indicated 
 comparable performance of African American 
 males and African American females in both 
 mathematics and reading on criterion-referenced 
 tests up to third grade. At grade four, however, 
 the performance of black males in both key in- 
 structional areas evidenced a sharp downturn. 
 This finding appears to be consistent across a 
 number of studies and has been observed re- 
 peatedly by Kunjufu (1985). Likewise, in Mil- 
 waukee (WI) PubUc Schools during the 1988-89 
 school year, the percentage of African American 
 males scoring at or above the national average 
 on the norm-referenced test in reading dropped 
 from 28 percent in second grade to 24 percent in 
 grades five and seven. On the norm-referenced 
 mathematics test, 45 percent of the African 
 American males scored at or above the national 
 norm in second grade, with that proportion fal- 
 ling to about 33 percent in grade five, and falling 
 again to 22 percent in grade seven (Garibaldi, 
 1992). 
 
 Academic outcomes for African American 
 males are not only influenced by assessment in 
 the form of standardized measures. Assessment 
 in education encompasses much more and in- 
 volves a variety of types of measurement in- 
 struments, procedures, and practices. Some of 
 these assessments can be as basic and informal 
 as when a teacher observes a student's behavior 
 over his/her shoulder, perhaps during or after a 
 lesson when activities are being completed by 
 the learner, merely acknowledging in an evalua- 
 tive way with a spoken or unspoken response. 
 The response, at times may be as minimal as an 
 "uh-huh" or a more positive reinforcing "good" or 
 "great." This type of assessment is apparently 
 
 influenced considerably by teacher attitude to- 
 ward the student, affecting his performance and 
 in turn the teacher's (assessor's) perception of 
 what the learner knows and can do at that mo- 
 ment. HoUiday (1985) observed that young Afri- 
 can American male students received more 
 negative teacher attitudes and negative behav- 
 iors, when compared to African American female 
 students. This result is consistent with that of an 
 earlier study by Maehr and Rubovits (1973). It is 
 reasonable to infer that this tj^je of teacher atti- 
 tude contributes considerably to the explanation 
 of the striking and persistent variance in as- 
 sessment outcomes across groups. Other as- 
 sessment activity in classrooms will surely in- 
 clude teacher-made tests and quizzes (some of 
 which may or may not be of the paper-pencil va- 
 riety). These instruments are most closely 
 ahgned (or should be) with the specific instruc- 
 tion that has taken place with the particular in- 
 dividual or group of test/quiz taker(s). Differ- 
 ences in performance on these items, between 
 gender groups of the same racial origin within 
 the same class, might be expected to the extent 
 that there are differences in the way that in- 
 struction may have been deUvered to the groups 
 or in the different way in which that instruction 
 was received or interpreted by those groups. 
 
 The complex relationship between test scores, 
 race, and instruction is examined in a study by 
 Lomax and colleagues (Lomax, Maxwell, Har- 
 mon, Viator, and Madaus, 1995). They surveyed 
 the six most widely used test batteries for 
 school-age children and found that the tests 
 failed to examine higher order thinking, high- 
 level conceptual, or high-level procedural knowl- 
 edge in mathematics or science. In a survey of 
 2,229 mathematics and science teachers of high- 
 and low-minority classes, teachers of high- 
 minority classes were found more likely to report 
 negative impacts of standardized testing on 
 teacher practice and minority student achieve- 
 ment in mathematics and science. 
 
 Using Tests for Placement in Special 
 Education and Gifted Programs 
 
 Opportunity to learn suitable content at ap- 
 propriate rates, by virtue of having access to 
 particular special and other programs, such as 
 those targeted for "gifted and talented" students, 
 is often out of reach of many African American 
 students who do not qualify, based on criteria 
 
 86
 
 that relies heavily on a test score. To the extent 
 that the measures and procedures used for this 
 screening or sorting purpose are valid, reliable, 
 and unbiased, we can have some degree of confi- 
 dence in the proper inclusion of program partici- 
 pants. Johnson (1979) stated in her description 
 of test bias that it occurs when a test does not 
 measure the same dimensions across groups, 
 resulting in unfair selection (or labeling) and 
 ultimately resulting in unfair access or hmita- 
 tion in relation to educational and other types of 
 opportunities. Muthen, Khoo, and Golf (1994) 
 found multidimensionaUty in NAEP 1992 
 mathematics items, and noted that this had an 
 impact on the description of subgroup differ- 
 ences. They stated that studying subgroup dif- 
 ferences with respect to specific factors may lead 
 to a more "instructionally sensitive" way to ana- 
 lyze achievement data. 
 
 Not only are African Americans (especially 
 males) not proportionately represented in pro- 
 grams aimed at the highly academically able and 
 for enrichment, but are disproportionately 
 placed in special education and remedial classes 
 (USDOE, OCR, 1993; ArtUes and Trent, 1994). 
 That is, a relatively smaller proportion of Afri- 
 can American children are provided access to 
 gifted and talented services and programs when 
 compared to the proportion of African Americans 
 in the population. Conversely, as Harry and An- 
 derson (1994) point out in their study of the 
 process of special education placement of African 
 American males, racial, gender, cultural, and 
 hnguistic biases continue to be integral aspects 
 of the special education process, particularly for 
 this subgroup. The entire process is seen as 
 "seriously biased against African American male 
 students," from their earhest experiences in 
 regular education through their disproportionate 
 referral to, assessment for, and subsequent 
 placement in special education programs. This 
 placement can, in fact, be misplacement, having 
 profound and devastating impHcations for the 
 futures of those affected. Beyond placement or 
 misplacement in special education is the classifi- 
 cation of students into a variety of categories, 
 essentially of various levels of severity. This as- 
 pect of the process, in which labels such as edu- 
 cable mentally retarded (EMR) and severely 
 learning disabled (SLD) are attached to individ- 
 ual students, will be described a bit more. Part of 
 the focus of the present discussion includes the 
 function and consequences of assessment as it is 
 
 used in the process of special education place- 
 ment, particularly as it affects the great and 
 growing numbers of African American males. 
 African American males, as pointed out by 
 Harry and Anderson (1994), continue to be pres- 
 ent in the most stigmatizing and limiting catego- 
 ries, such as that of mentally retarded (EMR), at 
 nearly 2'/2 times the rate that would be expected. 
 
 A brief look at several of the disabilitj' classi- 
 fications, in terms of issues of assessment and 
 implications for American male students may be 
 helpful. The official definition of mental retarda- 
 tion, the term used to refer to it (formerly 
 termed "mental deficiency"), and the IQ score 
 cut-off point have aU changed over time. The IQ 
 score cut-off point for this category moved from 
 85 to 70 (Ysseldyke, Algozzine, and Thurbow, 
 1992), thus declassifying many with the stroke of 
 the American Association on Mental Retardation 
 (AAMR) pen. This "categorical drift" or shift re- 
 sulted in the number of students placed in the 
 EMR category being reduced by approximately 
 half between the years of 1977 and 1992. Conse- 
 quently the number of students in the learning 
 disabled (LD) category doubled (USDOE, 1993). 
 It is important to note that despite the reduction 
 in numbers in the former category, African 
 American males continue to have a presence in 
 the EMR category at a rate nearly 214 times that 
 which would be expected (Harry and Anderson, 
 1995). 
 
 Focus on the issue of bias or potential bias in 
 IQ tests used to determine placement in special 
 education programs has been part of an ongoing 
 controversy, as well as a focus in early Utigation. 
 While one camp of researchers contends that the 
 tests are not biased (Jensen, 1974; Sandoval, 
 1979), based primarily on highly technical statis- 
 tical methods of item analysis, numerous other 
 researchers maintain that the more technical 
 approaches aimed at determining test validity 
 are too narrowly focused on the process and miss 
 an inherently biased foundation of standardized 
 testing (Hilliard, 1991; Jones, 1988). Other work 
 has questioned the vahdity of Jensen's method- 
 ology (Johnson, 1981). The critics of IQ test use 
 in placement of special education students, 
 which we have recognized as disproportionately 
 inclusive of African American males, argue that 
 the premise of the process of test construction 
 that holds that a test invariably reflects the cul- 
 tural knowledge base and cognitive orientation 
 of its developer(s) and of the sample on which its 
 
 87
 
 items have been standardized. Tests then, that 
 are standardized or normed on the European- 
 American majority and that include primarily 
 test items constructed using the cultural experi- 
 ences and standard language of that majority 
 group, are biased in favor of that group and 
 therefore biased against minorities (Taylor and 
 Lee, 1991), particularly subgroups such as Afri- 
 can American males. 
 
 Many of those African American males who 
 are low-achieving academically find themselves 
 labeled as SLD, the acronym for "specific learn- 
 ing disabUity," and representing a classification 
 that Ysseldyke et al. (1992) describe as ill- 
 defined, poorly conceptualized, and popular. The 
 important aspect of this classification, with re- 
 gard to the focus of the present discussion, is the 
 manner in which assessments are employed in 
 the categorization. We have already observed 
 the occurrence of disproportionate effects with 
 regard to our African American male subgroup 
 of interest. 
 
 In order to be classified as SLD, students are 
 required to score in the normal range on an IQ 
 test, but score significantly lower on academic 
 achievement measures. Recognizing that African 
 American students have been found to routinely 
 score at least 1 standard deviation below whites 
 on IQ tests and using the "discrepancy criterion," 
 the African American child is less likely to rec- 
 ord the level of discrepancy required for LD clas- 
 sification (CoIHns and Cambhn, 1983; Samuda 
 and Kong, 1989). African American males, then, 
 who demonstrate learning difficulties and whose 
 home environments are considered disadvanta- 
 geous to academic learning and success, are 
 hkely to receive the more stigmatizing and hm- 
 iting label of mentally retarded rather than 
 learning disabled. 
 
 The Effects of High Stakes Tests 
 
 Although the aim of NAEP achievement lev- 
 els and similar score systems may be the in- 
 crease of student scores, Madaus (1998) has 
 noted, in appraising the Massachusetts Compre- 
 hensive Assessment System, that the classifica- 
 tion of such large number of students as low 
 achievers provides information of questionable 
 validity to parents and schools, provides a mis- 
 leading view of changes, and forces school sys- 
 tems and teachers into goals for change that are 
 
 not legitimately possible (Koretz and Barron, 
 1998). 
 
 The style of response that some school sys- 
 tems turn to when faced with low test scores can 
 put stress on teachers, and since scores tend to 
 be lower for low-income and minority students, 
 it is here that pressures may be greatest. With- 
 out appropriate support, capacity, and profes- 
 sional development, these pressures have the 
 potential to be most harmful to students by cre- 
 ating a climate that pushes for narrow, specific 
 performance, and does not really support learn- 
 ing. 
 
 Some cities are moving toward using tests to 
 retain children in grades, and to create entire 
 classes, and even to group these classes within 
 separate schools. House (1998) has suggested 
 that this situation indicates a lack of concern 
 when African American children are involved, 
 and that the choice of retention as a strategy for 
 effective change is poor, given the negative 
 findings when it has been used. He questions 
 whether such solutions would receive any con- 
 sideration in a setting that served white middle- 
 class children. 
 
 House's conjecture, along with the views ex- 
 pressed by African American parents, and 
 Madaus' findings suggest that the negative im- 
 pacts of testing fall more heavily on African 
 American and Hispanic children. This is espe- 
 cially tragic, given that well-designed and con- 
 ducted educational experiences offer the most 
 promising path for successful transition to col- 
 lege and career development, and considering 
 the responsibilities of the society for pubhc edu- 
 cation. 
 
 There is evidence of some positive impact of 
 test data on teaching and learning. The Equity 
 2000 program of the College Board is aimed at 
 creating systemic change in entire school dis- 
 tricts by an initially narrow-appearing goal: 
 having all students take and successfully com- 
 plete algebra by the ninth grade (CB, 1990). This 
 goal grew out of correlational findings that stu- 
 dents who took the SAT, and had at least alge- 
 bra and geometry in high school, did signifi- 
 cantly better, made subsequent progress, and 
 had more options for college major and career 
 choices than those without this mathematics 
 background. They also tended to have taken 
 more college preparatory courses in high school 
 in sciences, social studies, and foreign languages 
 than students with weaker math backgi'ounds. 
 
 88
 
 These students probably also tended to have 
 parents with college backgrounds, to have made 
 more plans for college themselves than less pre- 
 pared students, and to have a system of supports 
 aimed at planning for higher education. How- 
 ever, the College Board used the algebra connec- 
 tion finding to build a strong, substantive pro- 
 gram which was piloted in six urban school dis- 
 tricts spaced across the country. Findings indi- 
 cate outstanding success in increasing the pro- 
 portion of students taking algebra and success- 
 fully completing it early enough in high school to 
 have the option to go on to strong mathematics 
 preparation. These findings were for entire 
 school systems, not for simply a single school in 
 a district (Everson, 1998). The program includes 
 a range of "safety net" strategies, such as Satur- 
 day academies and tutoring, and extensive pro- 
 fessional development for elementary and high 
 school teachers, guidance counselors, and ad- 
 ministrators. The challenge will be for the dis- 
 tricts to maintain those gains without the sub- 
 stantial financial support that the experimental 
 years provided. A second program for the College 
 Board is Pacesetter, designed to be the "pull" to 
 match the "push" of Equity 2000. With strong 
 professional development and use of perform- 
 ance assessments, this program includes a col- 
 lege preparatory mathematics class in elemen- 
 tary functions, and similar demanding level 
 classes in other academic subjects. The courses 
 are designed with interesting features to make 
 them attractive to students who might not yet be 
 aimed at college. Pacesetter is at a relatively 
 early but promising stage of development. 
 
 A program developed in a Washington, D.C., 
 Maryland suburban county with sizable African 
 American and Hispanic populations used exist- 
 ing test data and created new tests to identify 
 children with creative and intellectual strengths 
 that had not been identified by traditional test 
 measures (Johnson, Stearnes, Gregory, and 
 Blaylock, 1985). The program used professional 
 development to create a cadre of teachers to con- 
 duct classes for these children in the early ele- 
 mentary grades. Some children moved into the 
 gifted and talented program and others contin- 
 ued to be successful in standard classes in the 
 upper elementary grades (Foster, 1992). 
 
 These findings on the impact of testing on the 
 classroom show the extent and scope of negative 
 effects on minority children from testing, par- 
 ticularly high stakes testing. The potential for 
 
 positive use, when positive use is an initial goal 
 do offer some promise. The weight of the evi- 
 dence is clearly on negative effects, and supports 
 the finding that emphasis on testing is not the 
 effective route toward positive school reform, 
 and that negative impact falls heavily on African 
 American and Hispanic children. The intention 
 of the National Assessment for Educational Pro- 
 gress (NAEP) was not to effect a competition be- 
 tween states. It was designed to provide a low- 
 key, nonintrusive estimate of student progress 
 nationally. With its current visibility, more work 
 should be done with professional development in 
 school systems to make NAEP more under- 
 standable and accessible to teachers. 
 
 At the transition from high school to college, 
 many students take the Scholastic Assessment 
 Test (SAT) or American CoUege Testing Program 
 (ACT) tests as admission requirements for col- 
 lege. They also seem to function as one element 
 to use in self-appraisal of coUege readiness. 
 
 The number and proportion of African Ameri- 
 can students taking the SAT and the ACT ex- 
 aminations has increased from 1980 to 1998. 
 There were about 1,250,000 1998 college-bound 
 seniors of all races who took the SAT I or 11 test. 
 Among these, African Americans constituted 
 about 10 percent, an increase from 9 percent in 
 1980, and a numerical increase from 83,000 to 
 over 120,000. Among the 950,000 ACT test tak- 
 ers in 1995, there were about 89,000 African 
 Americans, an increase from about 58,000 in 
 1986, which then represented 8 percent of the 
 total. Many students take both SAT and ACT 
 tests. The total number tested is uncertain, due 
 to this overlap. There are about 14.3 percent 
 among the national population who are at col- 
 lege entrance age. 
 
 Among all groups, there are more female 
 than male test takers. This fact also speaks to 
 the effect of earher educational outcomes for 
 males that contribute to their removal from the 
 pool of students pursuing higher education. 
 Among African Americans, about 41 percent 
 were male. All males nationally received average 
 scores of 509 and 531 on the verbal and quanti- 
 tative SAT 1 tests, respectively, while black 
 males received average scores of 432 and 436 on 
 the same tests. There were black males scoring 
 at the highest levels, but in smaller proportions. 
 About 10 percent of this group scored above the 
 overall mean. 
 
 89
 
 In terms of academic preparation, the Eng- 
 lish course work for African American males was 
 less concentrated in grammar and composition 
 than for students in general. The amount of 
 mathematics taken has increased over time, but 
 fewer black students indicate that they have 
 taken trigonometry and calculus than students 
 in general. 
 
 Higher scores are found among black males 
 taking SAT II, which are achievement tests in 
 specific academic areas. Black male SAT II test 
 takers received average scores of 546 and 557 on 
 the verbal and math SAT I tests, respectively. 
 Black students with higher academic aspira- 
 tions, e.g., a graduate or professional degree, 
 tended to score higher. Family income among 
 African American males was much lower than 
 for the test takers as a whole. In fact, 27 percent 
 of black males reported a family income below 
 $20,000, while only 14 percent of the total group 
 fell into this category. At one upper end, 9 per- 
 cent of black male students had family income 
 above $80,000, while 22 percent of the total 
 group did. There is a strong relationship be- 
 tween income level and test score, with each in- 
 creasing level of income having a higher SAT 
 mean score, than the next lower income level. 
 
 Taking the PSAT prior to taking the SAT was 
 also related to higher scores. Black males who 
 did so scored about 50 points higher on both ver- 
 bal and math tests than those who did not. 
 
 Higher income, well-academically prepared 
 black males earned SAT scores higher or compa- 
 rable to other groups. This included students 
 who took 20 or more years of academic subjects 
 in high school, which would mean five subjects 
 during each year of high school, such as EngUsh, 
 mathematics, laboratory science, foreign lan- 
 guage, and social studies. The stronger the aca- 
 demic background, in general, the higher the 
 mean SAT score. Higher level of parent educa- 
 tion was also accompanied by higher test scores. 
 Among all groups, average scores increased, re- 
 lated to increasing parent education from "no 
 high school diploma" through "graduate degree." 
 
 The many factors that correlated with test 
 scores illustrate the importance of considering 
 multiple factors when interpreting test scores. 
 The correlates of ACT scores are not reported 
 here, but there are similar relationships in those 
 data. 
 
 The Test, the Tested, and Test Taking: 
 Context and Motivation in Test Perfomance 
 
 Test item content can present a source of 
 bias, particularly for young African American 
 males from urban and low-income regions. Due 
 to their lack of exposure to and unfamiliarity 
 with prerequisite material or because of the dif- 
 ferent meanings that are conveyed across cul- 
 tural groups and socioeconomic classes, items on 
 assessments may be inappropriate, invalid, or 
 unrehable (Johnson, 1979). As mentioned ear- 
 lier, many members of this subgroup have rela- 
 tively fewer opportunities for exposure to a wide 
 range of concepts, objects, places, and experi- 
 ences that are afforded other subgroups mainly 
 due to socioeconomic status. Certainly, test item 
 developers largely draw from these sources in 
 construction of their instruments. Early work by 
 Hess and Shipman (1965), Bernstein (1961, 
 1972), and others has supported the conclusion 
 that low-income parents often have sparse, 
 rather unclear verbal interactions with their 
 children that lack generaUty. Scott-Jones (1984), 
 however, in a study that shed light on possible 
 methodological and interpretational weaknesses 
 of earUer work, noted that much research on ma- 
 ternal language and teaching styles gives Umited 
 attention to actual outcomes that follow from the 
 teaching strategy employed. 
 
 It should be noted that poor parents, many of 
 whom are single mothers today, generally have 
 even less time for more involved, thoughtful, 
 nurturing, growth-promoting interactions with 
 their children, due in many cases to a number of 
 stressors and demands related to day-to-day 
 struggles to survive. Poverty is a precarious po- 
 sition, and seemingly insignificant changes in 
 financial status can wreak havoc. Male children, 
 in particular, may suffer in these instances more 
 than females, with httle or no interaction with 
 male role models to model academically related 
 behaviors such as reading, watching (and dis- 
 cussing) televised educational programming, and 
 taking field trips and excursions to stimulating 
 and interesting places. 
 
 Clark (1983) through intensive ethnographic 
 methodology conducted in African American 
 homes, concluded that what parents actually do 
 in the home in terms of language and achieve- 
 ment modeling — rather than the status of the 
 parents in terms of education and occupation — 
 influences their children's academic achievement 
 
 90
 
 and intelligence test scores. He reported that in 
 families of low-income, high-achieving high 
 school seniors, psychosocial orientations and 
 home activity patterns were directed toward 
 achievement. In those homes, parents were ob- 
 served to be warm and nurturing, to take charge 
 in the home, to set clear Umits for a wide range 
 of behaviors, to provide strong encouragement in 
 academic pursuits, and to carefully monitor how 
 time was spent in and out of the home. Opti- 
 mism and faith in the child's ability to do well 
 and an interest in assessment tasks as a funda- 
 mental academic activity were transmitted from 
 parent(s) to child. 
 
 The psychological characteristics of the per- 
 son being tested, in this case the African Ameri- 
 can male, are factors to consider in understand- 
 ing a test score. There is a general acceptance 
 that school-related achievement is a function of 
 direct and interactional effects of many factors. 
 The mediating and attenuating factors related to 
 student academic achievement stem from school 
 and extra-school factors (Johnson, 1992). Aca- 
 demic achievement refers to the traditional indi- 
 ces of the degree to which a student has encoun- 
 tered success in learning in school. These indices 
 include scores and other summaries of perform- 
 ance, based on the administration of a variety of 
 assessment tools (Johnson, 1992). 
 
 A considerable amount of research has indi- 
 cated the great influence that the factor of ex- 
 pectancy wields on achievement (Atkinson, 1964; 
 Slavin, 1977). The sources of expectancy, as ap- 
 plied or related to the learner, are seen as both 
 school based which include expectancy of teach- 
 ers, of administrators, of other school staff, of 
 peers, and of the students themselves — and ex- 
 tra-school (or beyond school)-based factors which 
 include the expectancy of parents, of siblings, of 
 significant others in the home, and of significant 
 others in the broader community (such as church 
 members). 
 
 The expectancies of students and their par- 
 ents were important variables identified in a 
 study by Johnson and Prom-Jackson (1986). 
 They surveyed all graduates of col- 
 lege-preparatory high schools who were chents 
 of A Better Chance, Inc. (ABC), a nonprofit edu- 
 cational organization. In one of their programs, 
 they identify talented children from low-income 
 backgrounds as possible candidates in such 
 schools. The sample was 76 percent African 
 American, 1 1 percent Hispanic American, 6 per- 
 
 cent white American, 3.5 percent each Asian 
 American and American Indian. The complete 
 survey reports information on elementary 
 school, high school, and college experiences; ca- 
 reer choice and progression; family background; 
 parental attitudes and values; and personal 
 skills, abihties, and attitudes. The authors found 
 that self-perceived abihty was the best predictor 
 of academic performance, and also the best pre- 
 dictor of the choice of a career in mathematics or 
 science. Self-perceived abihty can be considered 
 as personal expectancy. In a subsequent report 
 of the relationship between family characteris- 
 tics and high school academic achievement, us- 
 ing the average of Enghsh and mathematics 
 grades of the above sample as the achievement 
 measure, Prom-Jackson, Johnson, and Wallace' 
 (1986) noted that maternal attitudes and values 
 were the most significant predictors of success 
 from a set of family variables. School success 
 was not related to family configuration (one- or 
 two-parent family), and the findings for family 
 size were small and inconsistent. However, as 
 the sample was selected from achievers rather 
 than from a general population of individuals 
 from one- and two-parent families, the study 
 provides stronger information on the character- 
 istics of achievers, but weaker information on 
 the relationship between family configuration 
 and achievement. That is, it is difficult to com- 
 pare the incidence of high achievement among 
 both family configurations from such a study. 
 
 The 1984 survey also identified parental edu- 
 cation and personal values as significant predic- 
 tors of career aspirations and career attainment. 
 Students whose parents viewed education as a 
 means of improving their economic condition 
 and whose mothers encouraged them to study 
 science and mathematics were more likely to 
 aspire to and attain careers in mathematics and 
 science. Notably, among this entire sample, the 
 proportion (25 percent) choosing careers requir- 
 ing emphasis in mathematics and science was 
 about the same as that among students in high 
 school and college in general. This finding shows 
 that when minority students have adequate op- 
 portunity and access to an adequate instruc- 
 tional program in mathematics and science in 
 the high school years, along with high parental 
 expectation, they are as likely to aspire to and 
 enter careers with this emphasis as are white 
 youth. 
 
 91
 
 The effects of parents' expectations and val- 
 ues are also shown in a study of black high 
 school students who, while they had relatively 
 low Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores, held 
 aspirations of college and beyond (Johnson and 
 Prom-Jackson, 1986). Through this study, the 
 education department of the National Associa- 
 tion for the Advancement of Colored People 
 (NAACP) sought to determine whether an inter- 
 vention program would be useful in improving 
 the SAT scores of black students from 
 low-income backgrounds in New York, Atlanta, 
 and San Francisco. The program design called 
 for the program to be replicated in each city such 
 that students enrolled in the second session 
 would serve as a control group for first session 
 participants. StatisticaUy significant and impor- 
 tant gains were reported for the sample of 184 
 students, with the largest gains being made in 
 mathematics and smaller gains made on a test of 
 verbal abihty. Gains for low-scoring subjects 
 were greatest, as would be expected; but these 
 gains were much larger than those which could 
 be explained by regression effects. For all sub- 
 jects, parental expectations and parental ratings 
 of student achievement were significant predic- 
 tors of SAT scores. 
 
 In a later review of the literature, Slaughter 
 and Epps (1987) examined the role of African 
 American parents in student achievement. They 
 documented four approaches to parental impact 
 on the achievement of black children and youth 
 which identify the parent as (1) decision maker, 
 (2) supporter, (3) mediator, and (4) teacher. They 
 also synthesized current knowledge about how 
 social class and race influence academic 
 achievement through their impact on childhood 
 and adolescent sociahzation. They pointed out 
 that the extensive evidence on the impact of par- 
 ents on school achievement among famihes with 
 limited resources emphasizes the need for cru- 
 cial, yet relatively low-cost, interventions to help 
 parents provide better educational environments 
 for their children. They noted the work of McA- 
 doo (1982) on the important functions of ex- 
 tended famihes and fathers as part of the sup- 
 port structure in single- and two-parent families. 
 Slaughter and Epps concluded by noting that 
 when the struggle to survive is a daily one, the 
 amount invested in enriching family life is 
 minimized; therefore, efforts to reheve the pov- 
 erty and marginaUty under which so many black 
 famihes presently function must be renewed if 
 
 these families are to fulfill their functions as the 
 major source for the development of academic 
 motivation. As additional support for their rec- 
 ommendations, they also noted the Coleman 
 (1966) finding that family background and asso- 
 ciated parental influences were identified as the 
 major factors affecting student achievement. It 
 follows that if increasing numbers of black males 
 are locked out of educational and vocational op- 
 portunities, then relatively fewer family forma- 
 tions will occur, thus maintaining a vicious and 
 continuous cycle of underachievement. Simulta- 
 neously, we can observe a proliferation of correc- 
 tional facilities, which offer no substantive edu- 
 cational programs to those incarcerated. It is 
 well documented that these institutions hold 
 African American men in grossly disproportion- 
 ate numbers. 
 
 Other motivational factors have been exten- 
 sively represented in the research hterature 
 from a variety of theoretical approaches. About 
 two decades ago. Banks (1978) gained ground in 
 making more coherent previously conflicting 
 findings in this area of inquiry. His conclusions, 
 very common sensical and fundamental, and 
 supported by a series of empirical studies, were 
 that the interest in a task that is facing African 
 American and white students strongly affects 
 intrinsic achievement orientation toward the 
 task. The consideration and inclusion of motiva- 
 tional factors in analyses focusing on African 
 American males, from several perspectives seem 
 quite reasonable. One direction for such inquiry 
 will logically come from investigating the impact 
 of motivation related to the nature, structure, 
 and content of the test item or assessment task. 
 Another direction of inquiry comes from the ex- 
 amination of the effect of motivation as produced 
 by interactions with those in the learner's envi- 
 ronment, including school-based sources (i.e., 
 teachers, administrators, peers, etc.), home 
 sources (parents, sibhngs, extended family 
 members, etc.), and significant others from the 
 broader community (i.e., involved people from 
 community institutions, agencies, etc.) All of 
 these factors, we are reminded, operate within 
 the societal context, with its many messages 
 transmitted from media of many sorts, including 
 the immensely powerful television broadcasts, 
 radio broadcasts, video and telecommunication 
 technology, the Internet (perhaps most powerful, 
 or will soon be), hve gatherings of people of 
 many sizes and configurations, etc. 
 
 92
 
 Banks' findings infer that African American 
 males are in many cases not motivated to per- 
 form well in assessment tasks or situations that 
 are perceived as having little or no relevance to 
 them and to hold less interest for them. It is a 
 challenge to all stakeholders in the miheu of the 
 African American male child to foster, nurture, 
 and generate higher motivation for learning 
 generally that will carry over into performance 
 on assessment tasks associated with educational 
 objectives. Parents of African American males, 
 in addition to transmitting high expectations for 
 academic performance to their sons, should be 
 encouraged to recognize the effect of the model- 
 ing of academically related behaviors (such as 
 reading) and the expression of enthusiasm and 
 interest in the pursuit of intellectual growth 
 overall. 
 
 Other findings from studies of achievement 
 among African American students who have had 
 access to academic preparation and have re- 
 ceived adequate support are more likely to follow 
 motivational models developed for other popula- 
 tions. Problems in the interpretation of research 
 findings arise when African American young 
 people with inadequate home support and 
 minimal academic preparation are measured 
 and some conclusion regarding the overall com- 
 petence of African American youth is drawn 
 from achievement test scores. Such results ulti- 
 mately mean Uttle, and efforts to make them 
 appear meaningful are misguided at best and 
 harmful at worst. 
 
 The Testing Environment 
 
 The testing or assessment condition (envi- 
 ronment) likely poses a differential challenge to 
 African American males, particularly in light of 
 research results indicating the unique predispo- 
 sitions of this subgroup behaviorally and in 
 terms of learning styles. The high level of physi- 
 cal activity characteristic of African American 
 boys, as compared to girls, has been documented 
 by many researchers (Hale-Benson, 1982; Kun- 
 jufu, 1985). This characteristic has been referred 
 to by Boy kin (1982) as the African American 
 boys having increased or greater "verve," greater 
 propensity for movement. He suggests that in- 
 structional approaches should build on, rather 
 than attempt to extinguish this tendency (Allen 
 and Boykin, 1991). It follows that the design of 
 assessment activities and the environment in 
 which they are conducted should be congruent 
 
 with such instructional concerns, in order to best 
 serve the interests of African American boys. It 
 is possible that the newer performance-based 
 assessments may in some positive ways influ- 
 ence achievement measiorements for this group. 
 However, this fine of inquiry is presently in its 
 infancy. 
 
 When we consider the typical and traditional 
 testing situation or scenario, we see a setting of 
 a certain quaUty in which test takers uniformly 
 will sit in a somewhat restricted manner (i.e., in 
 a limited amount of space) for a prescribed 
 amount of time, under the control or direction 
 (and watchful eye) of the tester. How does the 
 African American male see and completely per- 
 ceive this setting, this condition, based on his 
 prior experiences, as he enters it and must in- 
 stantaneously perform in a certain purposeful, 
 focused, and efficient manner? This young man 
 brings with him to this testing situation a cer- 
 tain level of anxiety (a level of which promotes 
 optimal performance), a certain degree of prepa- 
 ration, the culmination or interaction of expecta- 
 tions from a number of sources (including that of 
 the tester), and a certain level and tjT^e of moti- 
 vation to perform. 
 
 With regard to physical setting, Johnson 
 (1979) points out that physical surroundings can 
 be very crucial because they provide cues to the 
 person being tested. If then, the environment in 
 which the testing takes place is threatening, is 
 scary, is uncomfortable, depressing, or perhaps 
 reminds this young test taker of another place 
 with which he associates negative emotions — his 
 performance on the measure may too be nega- 
 tively affected. Thus, the results of the assess- 
 ment may have less validity. That is, the score 
 arrived at as a result of the assessment, in this 
 case, may not represent what he knows and can 
 do. The potential of expectation as a "powerful 
 motivator," as it is related to setting, is empha- 
 sized. 
 
 It seems reasonable to conclude that, at a 
 minimum, a particular type of care and suffi- 
 cient time should be taken to ensure that young 
 African American male students understand the 
 importance of doing their best, with particular 
 emphasis placed on the testing condition. It 
 should be conveyed to them clearly that they 
 have the potential to do well and are expected to 
 do so by their parents, teachers, siblings, peers, 
 extended family members, and significant others 
 from the broader community. It is true that all 
 
 93
 
 students should have this testing condition. 
 However, many students have received these 
 positive messages already, and the preponder- 
 ance of data suggests that this may not be the 
 case for the urban African American male. They 
 should be informed of the general nature of the 
 tasks and the physical requirements of testing at 
 an early age. They should be at least just as in- 
 formed as other test takers of the specific nature 
 (i.e., format, types of content etc.) of the tjT)es of 
 items and tasks they will face in the assessment 
 process (e.g., review and completion of sample 
 materials, usually provided by test developers). 
 Clark (1983) observed that such supportive be- 
 haviors as those mentioned here are difficult, if 
 not impossible, to provide by many parents in a 
 stressed state. The challenge for parents, teach- 
 ers, and other stakeholders involved with Afri- 
 can American males is to accompUsh all of the 
 above without increasing test anxiety to a coun- 
 terproductive level, in the face of their anxious- 
 ness for these youth to succeed. 
 
 Access to Educational and Employment 
 Opportunities 
 
 This area is probably seen by many as one of 
 the most important areas of test impact, because 
 it is the most pubUcly visible. Who gets into col- 
 lege, and into which ones? What about graduate 
 and professional schools, and presumably the 
 major goal of employment, whether just out of 
 high school or after many years of postgraduate 
 study? 
 
 Campbell and Ramey (1995) have found in an 
 extensive review that schooling and measured 
 intelligence have a bidirectional relationship, 
 with each variable influencing variations in the 
 other, and both influencing economic outcomes. 
 Each increase in school attendance seems to 
 convey returns in psychometric inteUigence, and 
 in economic and social areas, including the like- 
 lihood of college attendance. 
 
 Access to opportunities has been influenced 
 by the finding that African Americans and His- 
 panics as groups have average scores systemati- 
 cally lower than whites and Asians on a broad 
 range of standardized tests, often .5 to 1 stan- 
 dard deviation below (Nettles, 1977). Therefore, 
 when these tests are used alone for selection, an 
 arbitrary score point will exclude proportionally 
 more of these groups from selection. The within 
 
 group variability for all groups is much greater 
 than any of the mean differences. 
 
 Many selection systems for college admis- 
 sions and employment have used procedures de- 
 signed to more fully access the broad range of 
 abilities necessary for success and recognize the 
 extent of inadequacy in predicting solely from a 
 test score. These procedures involve the consid- 
 eration for a variety of other factors in evidence 
 of talent (ORE, 1995), and the treating of ob- 
 served test scores that do not differ significantly 
 from one another as reasonable estimates of the 
 same true score (banding). These procedures are 
 also recommended by developers of test selection 
 instruments. Wagner (1997) supports these and 
 similar procedures on the basis that average cri- 
 teria performances of groups will be closer to- 
 gether than their average performances on the 
 predictor, given typical or even optimal levels of 
 the vahdity coefficient. The use of banding has 
 been attacked by others because it causes differ- 
 ent scores to be treated as if they were the same 
 score (Gottfredson, 1994). Yet each score has a 
 standard error of measurement that provides an 
 estimate of the hkely range of the true score, and 
 substantial overlap of these distributions would 
 seem to support this procedure. 
 
 Personal financing for higher education may 
 be affected by test scores, and thus they become 
 an indirect factor in the process of higher educa- 
 tion selection. Prospective students may choose 
 the military as an alternative after finishing 
 high school, with the anticipation that the mili- 
 tary college plan will finance subsequent college 
 attendance. The level of funding provided is re- 
 lated to the scores on the Armed Forces QuaH- 
 fying Test as well as time spent in the service, a 
 factor not always recognized in enlistment plan- 
 ning. Test scores are also a factor in the selection 
 of students for a broad group of merit financial 
 awards, including National Merit Scholarships, 
 and scholarships awarded by states, corpora- 
 tions, universities, and other organizations. 
 
 The opposition to affirmative action practices 
 which has grown during recent yesirs is now a 
 major factor in access to higher education. A 
 study by the American Association for the Ad- 
 vancement of Science (1998) examined entering 
 classes of graduate science and engineering pro- 
 grams at 93 major research universities from 
 1994 to 1997. Between 1996 and 1997, a time 
 when affirmative action programs were being 
 curtailed, they found that the number of black 
 
 94
 
 students fell 20 percent, and Hispanic enroll- 
 ment fell 18.2 percent. A study by two former Ivy 
 League presidents, using a large database of 
 students entering 28 highly selective colleges 
 and universities in 1976 and in 1989, found that 
 black students entered schools such as Yale and 
 Stanford with test scores which on the average 
 were lower than means of white students, al- 
 though some scored at the highest levels, and 
 some white students were admitted with scores 
 at the lower end of the distribution of black stu- 
 dents. Graduation rates and mean grade point 
 averages were lower for black students. Yet 
 black students earned advanced degrees at rates 
 equal to or higher than white classmates, and 
 then went on to become community leaders and 
 enjoy remarkably successful careers. When this 
 occurs, they become "the Backbone of the 
 emerging black and Hispanic middle class" (Bok 
 and Bowen, 1998). 
 
 White students were asked about race-sensitive 
 admission poHcies. Regardless of whether they 
 had been admitted to their first choice school, 
 about 80 percent indicated that they favored 
 such policies. Bowen and Bok conclude that if 
 the schools in the study were to adopt policies 
 that were not sensitive to race, white students' 
 chances for entry would increase from the pres- 
 ent 26 percent to 26.5 percent. The proportion of 
 black students admitted would drop by more 
 than one half, from 7 percent to 3 percent. 
 
 The ban on the inclusion of race as a factor in 
 admission policies at the University of Califor- 
 nia, Berkeley in 1998 resulted in 191 black stu- 
 dents being accepted for the fall 1998 freshman 
 class, a 64 percent drop from the 562 black stu- 
 dents accepted in 1997 (Johnston, 1998). Six 
 hundred Hispanic students were accepted, a 
 drop of 53 percent from the 1,266 Hispanic stu- 
 dents enrolled in 1997. Similar figures were re- 
 ported at UCLA where the number of admis- 
 sions for black students in 1998 fell 42.6 percent, 
 from 488 to 280, and among Hispanic students 
 fell 33 percent, from 1,497 to 1,001. A dechne in 
 American Indian admissions at Berkeley re- 
 sulted in the number admitted falling from 69 to 
 27, or 59 percent, and at UCLA the 46 accep- 
 tances were 43 percent below the 1997 total of 81 
 (Johnston, 1998). 
 
 WoLf-Devine (1997) argues against the use of 
 affirmative action in university faculty appoint- 
 ments, except in narrow circumscribed circum- 
 stances on a case-by-case basis. She finds that it 
 
 has bad effects on the preferentially appointed 
 faculty, and is not fair to other apphcants. 
 
 Bergman (1997) finds Uttle evidence for such 
 stigmatizing among either students or facvdty 
 based on the affirmative action practices for stu- 
 dent and faculty selection in Ivy League univer- 
 sities, and many advantages to the university 
 community and to the education of all students. 
 
 Having joined the faculty of the University of 
 Wisconsin during the 70s with the help of 
 then-new affirmative action poHcies, Fennema 
 (1998) reports that the past 25 years have shown 
 the extensive effect of adding the voices of 
 women and minorities to the active practice of 
 educational research. Many questions have been 
 investigated that opposed and explored an im- 
 portant finding which would not have been per- 
 ceived by other researchers. 
 
 College admission test scores tend to have 
 about a .5 correlation with first-year college 
 grades, but few vahdity studies continue beyond 
 that point. Using data from the Baccalaureate 
 and Beyond Longitudinal Study, Nettles (1997) 
 reports test and grade performance for African 
 American bachelor's degree recipients in 
 1992/93. As shown in figures 5 and 6, about 8 
 percent and 12 percent of this group scored in 
 the highest and third quartiles respectively on 
 the SAT or ACT, but their cumulative under- 
 graduate grade point averages placed 11.3 per- 
 cent and 34.4 percent of them in the categories 
 "3.5 and above" and "3.00 to 3.49." Thus, despite 
 relatively low test scores, nearly half of this 
 group received grades at or above the "B" aver- 
 age level. 
 
 When minority student enrollment in higher 
 education rose during the 1970s, many expected 
 that minority groups would now be proportion- 
 ately represented in graduate education. Yet, 
 black enrollment decreased sharply from 1976 to 
 1982 at the time of a sUght downturn for white 
 students. The Hispanic enrollments held steady 
 or rose shghtly (Pruitt, 1985). 
 
 There has been modest progress through 
 1994 for both African American and Hispanic 
 groups in graduate and professional education 
 (Nettles, 1997). Among African Americans, the 
 majority of graduate students are women, with a 
 male/female ratio of 37,700 to 72,900 in 1994. 
 Among first professional degree students, the 
 ratio was 9,000 to 11,500 (Nettles, 1997). Among 
 Hispanics, the gender ratio among graduate stu- 
 dents was 27,000 to 36,900 among males and 
 
 95
 
 Figure 5 
 
 Cumulative Undergraduate Grade Point Average of 1992/93, Bachelor's Degree Recipients by Race 
 
 3.50 and above 
 
 3.00 to 3.49 
 
 Less than 3.0 
 
 DTotal 
 African American 
 
 Source: Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study. First Follow-up (B&B: 93/94). 
 
 Figure 6 
 
 Percentage of Test Score Quartlle of 1992/93 Bachelor's Degree Recipients Who Took SAT or ACT 
 
 69.6% 69.5% 
 
 DTotal 
 
 ■African American 
 
 Took ACT 
 
 Took SAT 
 
 56 9% 
 
 Lowest 
 quaftile 
 
 Second 
 quartlle 
 
 Third 
 quartlle 
 
 Test score quartlle 
 
 Highest 
 quartlle 
 
 Source: Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study. First Follow-up (B&B: 93/94). 
 
 96
 
 females, while among first professional degree 
 students, there were 7,500 men and 5,900 
 women (Nettles, 1997). Yet, these total figures 
 for African Americans represent only 6.4 percent 
 and 7.0 percent of graduate and first profes- 
 sional degree students in American colleges and 
 universities. For comparison, the 1995 popula- 
 tion estimates for the U.S. population between 
 the ages of 25 and 34 were 13 percent for African 
 Americans, and 12.6 percent for persons of His- 
 panic background. 
 
 To what extent is the representation of Afri- 
 can American and Hispanic students in graduate 
 and professional schools influenced by testing? 
 This is difficult to estimate, but the ways in 
 which these figures are impacted can be dis- 
 cussed. Differences on the GRE test and others 
 at the graduate level are related to earher aca- 
 demic experiences. Smaller proportions of Afri- 
 can Americans and Hispanics fall into the upper 
 ranges on graduate and professional school ad- 
 missions tests, despite some score gains. Gener- 
 ally, mean differences are about 1 standard de- 
 viation (Nettles, 1997). The value of the GRE for 
 prediction among minority students has been 
 about the same as for majority students (GRE, 
 1996). Hagedorn and Nora (1997) show that 
 graduate admissions tests and grade point aver- 
 ages fail to consistently and vaUdly predict be- 
 yond the first year. In terms of specific major 
 fields, Sternberg and William (1997) found that 
 the GRE was not a meaningful predictor in the 
 training of psychologists. 
 
 To the extent that academic preparation for 
 coUege during the upper elementary and high 
 school years is formed by test score use in 
 placement, tracking, and the provision of high 
 level academic courses, college performance and 
 the feasibility of graduate school enrollment may 
 be affected. Earher preparation also influences 
 the likehhood of attending a research university 
 
 at the undergraduate level, and such attendance 
 is associated with higher graduate admissions 
 test scores. Attendance at an historically black 
 college or university at the undergraduate level 
 is strongly related to graduate school aspira- 
 tions. For example, about 12 percent of African 
 Americans who took the GRE in 1991—92 were 
 graduates of 13 historically black schools. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 This paper has reported some of the test per- 
 formance of black males on a variety of instru- 
 ments, from elementary school achievement 
 tests through the Graduate Record Examination. 
 More extensive presentations on each of the ex- 
 aminations covered are available from the 
 sources cited. We have also presented informa- 
 tion on test development, motivation, and factors 
 affecting test scores. All of these factors must be 
 considered in interpreting test scores. 
 
 What should we draw from this test informa- 
 tion in terms of the crisis of the urban African 
 American male? It is clear that a total rehance 
 on tests for selection results in greatly limiting 
 the opportunities for this group, from early op- 
 portunities to learn in elementary and high 
 school, to the opportunities that are later contin- 
 gents to these learning experiences. The multi- 
 ple societal forces that affect black males, their 
 families, and their school learning experiences 
 need to be addressed, and the chmate for learn- 
 ing effectively improved in our schools in all of 
 our cities. An approach is needed that is educa- 
 tional, economic, and pohtical, in order to make 
 the massive changes needed. 
 
 The positive side is that nearly aU of these 
 test scores show positive improvement over time, 
 but much, much more is needed to effectively 
 use the important talents of African American 
 men, and to adequately open the upper levels of 
 employment, education, and income to them. 
 
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 of equity for poor and minority students. Washington, 
 DC: National Center for Education Statistics. 
 
 Sternberg, R. and Williams, W.M. (1997). Does the 
 GRE predict meaningful success in the graduate 
 training of psychologists? A case study. American Psy- 
 chologist, 52, 630-41. 
 
 Taylor, O., and Lee, D.L. (1991). Bias in reading 
 tests for black language speakers: A sociolinguistic 
 perspective. In A. G. Hilliard (ed.), Testing African 
 American students: Special re-issue of the Negro 
 Educational Review (pp. 67-80), Morristown, NJ: 
 Aaron Press. 
 
 U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special 
 Education Programs. (1993). Fifteenth annual report 
 to Congress on the implementation of the Individuals 
 with Disabilities Education Act. Washington, DC: U.S. 
 Department of Education, Office of Special Education 
 Programs. 
 
 Wagner, R.K. (1997). Intelligence, training, and 
 employment. American Psychologist, 52(10), 1059-69. 
 
 Wolf-Devine, C. (1997). Which side are the angels 
 on? Academe, 83(1), 24-28. 
 
 Ysseldyke, J., Algozzine, B. and Thurbow, M.L. 
 (1992). Critical Issues in special education (2nd ed.). 
 Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 
 
 100
 
 Panel 
 
 Health Care 
 
 101
 
 Excess Mortality and Causes of Death for African American IVIaies 
 in Urban Areas 
 
 Arline T. Geronimus* 
 
 African American male residents of persis- 
 tently impoverished urban areas appear to suffer 
 the worst health of any African American or 
 white American group studied (McCord and 
 Freeman, 1990; Geronimus et al., 1996; Geroni- 
 mus et al., 1999; Guest et al., 1998). Between 
 1980 and 1990, the overall health of this group of 
 African Americans dechned even further 
 (Geronimus et al., 1999). Popular images portray 
 urban health disadvantages as applying mainly 
 to inner-city youth and highlight the contribu- 
 tions of homicide and HIV/AIDS. Yet, recent sci- 
 entific analyses, discussed below, reveal that 
 important social disparities in morbidity and 
 mortality apply not only to youth but also extend 
 throughout the young adult and middle ages. 
 Moreover, analyses of causes of premature death 
 show that popularized images emphasizing the 
 role of homicide and HIV/AIDS are overly sim- 
 plified. 
 
 Analyses of Excess Mortality among African 
 American Men, Ages 15-64 
 
 The aforementioned social disparities in 
 morbidity and mortahty are starkly illustrated 
 in analyses of excess mortahty among all African 
 
 * Paper prepared for the United States Commission on Civil 
 Rights' project entitled, The Crisis of the Young African 
 American Male in the Inner Cities, 1999. Analyses reported in 
 this paper were supported by grants from the Centers for 
 Disease Control (# U83/CCU51249) and the Wilbam T. Grant 
 Foundation and were completed while Dr. Geronimus was a 
 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation investigator in health pol- 
 icy. The author is grateful to Sylvia Tesh and Sherman James 
 for helpful comments on an earlier draft and to John Bound, 
 James House, Richard Lichtenstein, and J. Philip Thompson 
 for helpful conversations. Address correspondence to Arline T. 
 Geronimus, Department of Health Behavior and Health Edu- 
 cation, University of Michigan School of Public Health, 1420 
 Washington Heights, Ann Arbor, Ml 48109-2029. 
 
 American males, ages 15—64, residing in four 
 persistently impoverished urban areas in 1990: 
 Harlem, Central City Detroit, South Side Chi- 
 cago, and the Watts area of Los Angeles. Na- 
 tional data for white and black men provide a 
 comparison. 
 
 As table 1 shows, there is substantial income 
 inequahty between famihes in the study popula- 
 tions and those in the nation. Mean family in- 
 come for blacks nationwide is about $18,000 
 lower (or 38 percent less) than for whites na- 
 tionwide, and the percentage of black famihes 
 with incomes below the poverty level is almost 4 
 times the rate for whites. 
 
 Mean incomes are lower still for residents of 
 the local urban study populations. Their per- 
 centage of famihes in poverty range from 33 per- 
 cent to 58 percent, compared to only 7 percent 
 for whites nationwide. This suggests that resi- 
 dents of the African American urban locales are 
 subject to material hardships that may contrib- 
 ute to their poor health status. For blacks, na- 
 tionwide, and for each local urban population, 
 several measures of mortahty are computed: 
 
 Excess Mortality Rate (EDR) : This meas- 
 ure shows how many more deaths per year oc- 
 curred to men, ages 15-64, per 100,000 popula- 
 tion in the black or local population than would 
 have occurred if they experienced the same 
 number of deaths per 100,000 population as 
 white men of these ages experienced nationwide. 
 Age Adjusted Rate Ratio (RR) : This measure 
 shows how many times higher the death rate is 
 in the black or local population for men ages 15— 
 64, than it is for white men of these ages in the 
 nation. P (45) and P (65) : These measures show 
 the probabUity a typical 15-year-old boy in a na- 
 tional or local population faces of surviving to 
 
 103
 
 Table 1 
 
 Summary Data on the Study Areas, 1990* 
 
 Area 
 
 Total 
 Whites 
 Blacks 
 Others 
 
 Harlem 
 
 Central city Detroit 
 Southside Chicago 
 Watts 
 
 Number of 
 
 Mean family income 
 
 Families below the 
 
 inhabitants 
 
 (1990$) 
 U.S. population 
 
 poverty 
 
 level 
 
 " (%) 
 
 248,709,873 
 
 43.803 
 
 
 
 10.0 
 
 199,827,064 
 
 46,330 
 
 
 
 7.0 
 
 29,930,524 
 
 28,659 
 
 
 
 26.3 
 
 18,952,285 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 Urban, 
 
 African American populations *** 
 
 
 
 
 101,697 
 
 24.174 
 
 33.1 
 
 98,833 
 
 19,841 
 
 
 
 44.3 
 
 101,895 
 
 16.651 
 
 
 
 58.2 
 
 98,488 
 
 23.743 
 
 
 
 35.4 
 
 • Author's calculations based on the 1990 U.S. Census of the Population. 
 " The poverty levels were those defined by the Bureau of the Census. 
 *** See appendix for fuller description of these geographic areas. 
 
 Table 2 
 
 Measures of Mortality among Black and White Men 15 to 64 Years Old in Selected Populations, 1990 
 
 
 Annual 
 death rate 
 
 Total 
 
 number of 
 
 deaths 
 
 Annual Age adjusted rate 
 
 excess death ratio (95% 
 
 rate confidence interval) 
 
 Total U.S. male population 
 
 P45* 
 
 P65* 
 
 YOLL* 
 
 Blacks 
 Whites 
 
 791 
 
 417 
 
 69.439 
 282.076 
 
 374 1.90(1.88,1.91) 
 1.00(1.00,1.00) 
 
 Urban African American locales 
 
 0.88 
 0.94 
 
 0.62 
 0.77 
 
 5.78 
 3.10 
 
 Harlem 
 CC Detroit 
 SS Chicago 
 Watts 
 
 1.713 
 
 1,163 
 1,713 
 1.216 
 
 1,600 
 1,881 
 1,222 
 1,449 
 
 1,296 4.11(3.91.4.31) 
 746 2.79 (2.66. 2.92) 
 
 1,296 4.11(3.88.4.34) 
 799 2.92 (2.77. 3.07) 
 
 0.71 
 0.81 
 0.73 
 0.77 
 
 0.37 
 0.50 
 0.37 
 0.50 
 
 11.33 
 8.63 
 
 11.71 
 9.69 
 
 *P45 = Probability of survival to age 45; P65 = Probability of survival to age 65; YOLL = Average years of life lost between ages 15 and 65. 
 Source: Author's calculations using vital statistics and census data. See Geronimus et al. (1996; 1999) for details of the estimation 
 procedures. 
 
 104
 
 age 45 or age 65; and Average Number of 
 Years of Life Lost between ages 15 and 65 
 fYOLL) : This measure averages across every 
 man in a specific locale who dies between his 
 15th and 65th birthday. Each man who dies con- 
 tributes to the average the number of years re- 
 maining between his age at death and his 65th 
 birthday. (For example, a man who dies at age 
 20 contributes 45 years to the overall average; a 
 man who dies at age 60 contributes only 5 years 
 to the average.) 
 
 Table 2 shows great inequahties in levels of 
 excess death for men in the prime of life. Na- 
 tionwide, African American men experience an 
 annualized rate of excess deaths relative to 
 whites of almost 400 deaths per year and have 
 an age-adjusted mortahty rate ratio approaching 
 2. This level of social disparity, disturbing as it 
 is, vastly understates the level of excess mortal- 
 ity experienced by young adult through middle- 
 aged African American male residents of central 
 cities. In the study areas, annuahzed excess 
 death rates range from 746 (in Detroit) to 1,296 
 (in Harlem and Chicago). Age-adjusted rate ra- 
 tios range from almost 3 to more than 4 times 
 the white death rate. 
 
 The final 3 columns of table 2 show estimated 
 probabihties of survival to ages 45 or 65 
 (conditional on survival to age 15) and the aver- 
 age number of years of life lost between ages 15 
 and 65 in each population. Social inequahties in 
 these outcomes are evident. Almost every white 
 youth can expect to survive to age 45 and more 
 than three-quarters can expect to survive to age 
 65. For black men, nationwide, the probabihties 
 are reduced. Eighty-eight percent can expect to 
 survive to age 45, but only 62 percent can expect 
 to survive to age 65. Residents of poor African 
 American urban populations fare substantially 
 worse than this. African American youth in 
 the poor urban study areas face lower prob- 
 abilities of survival to age 45 than white 
 youth nationwide face of survival to age 65. 
 Men in the poor African American urban popula- 
 tions face an even chance or less of surviving to 
 age 65. In Harlem and Chicago, a full two-thirds 
 of 15-year-old males cannot expect to survive to 
 age 65. This represents less than half the 
 probability of survival to age 65 of white 
 males nationwide. 
 
 Considering mortahty rates in terms of years 
 of young and middle adult life lost to the com- 
 munity, the findings are equally sobering. All 
 
 four local populations studied experienced sub- 
 stantially larger numbers of years of life lost 
 among men of these ages than among blacks or 
 whites nationwide. In two of the local popula- 
 tions, African American men experienced an av- 
 erage of over 11 years of hfe lost between the 
 ages of 15 and 65, almost twice the number lost 
 for blacks nationwide and almost 4 times the 
 number for whites. 
 
 Causes of Excess Mortality 
 
 Decompositions of excess death rates show 
 that circulatory diseases are important contribu- 
 tors to excess mortality in every poor population 
 studied (see table 3). Circulatory diseases alone 
 constitute about one -fourth of all excess deaths 
 in most locations (range = 16—30 percent). Cir- 
 culatory diseases are the leading cause of excess 
 deaths for black men nationwide and in Detroit 
 and Chicago, and the second leading cause of 
 excess deaths in Harlem and Watts. This is par- 
 ticularly notable because, of all of the causes of 
 death studied, the base rate for white men na- 
 tionwide — against which any excess to black 
 men is measured — is the highest for circulatory 
 disease deaths. For example, in the Chicago 
 population, there are 310 excess deaths to cir- 
 culatory disease and 241 to homicide. If these 
 numbers are added to their respective base 
 rates, there are 433 circulatory disease deaths 
 per year to young adult through middle-aged 
 men in Chicago compared to 253 homicide 
 deaths, or 71 percent more circulatory than 
 homicide deaths. 
 
 Much has been made in the popular media 
 about AIDS and homicide in inner cities. And, 
 indeed, in Harlem, HIV/AIDs is the leading 
 cause of excess death. It alone accounts for al- 
 most 300 excess deaths per year. Elsewhere, 
 however, AIDS deaths are not particularly im- 
 portant contributors to excess mortahty and are 
 usually outpaced by most other causes of death. 
 Homicide contributes a sizeable proportion of 
 excess deaths in each urban population, from 
 about 14 percent in Harlem to almost 32 percent 
 in Watts. In terms of total death rates, it con- 
 tributes about 10-20 percent. Although the 
 number of excess deaths overall to men in Har- 
 lem, Detroit, and Chicago (data are unavailable 
 for Watts) have grown since 1980, the number of 
 deaths attributable to homicide remained stable 
 between 1980 and 1990 (Geronimus et al., 1999). 
 That is, hom.icide, while an important cause 
 
 105
 
 of death among urban African American 
 men, accounts for virtually none of the 
 growth in excess death rates in these popu- 
 lations. Growth in excess death rates over the 
 decade are accounted for instead by increases in 
 deaths due to circulatory disease, cancer, AIDS 
 (in Harlem), and accidents (in Chicago). Some of 
 these increases were dramatic. For example, in 
 Harlem, deaths due to circulatory diseases 
 or to cancer each doubled for men in this 
 time period (Geronimus et al., 1999). 
 
 AIDS or homicide deaths disproportionately 
 kill people earUer in their adult hves than other 
 important causes such as circulatory diseases or 
 cancers. Thus, of aU the summary measures we 
 present, the average years of life lost (YOLL) 
 will emphasize the contribution of AIDS or 
 homicide to total mortahty. This is because those 
 who die at younger ages (i.e., those who are 
 more hkely to die from AIDS or homicide) will 
 contribute more to the average years of life lost 
 than those who die at older ages (i.e., those who 
 are more likely to die from circulatory disease or 
 cancer). For example, a 19-year-old homicide 
 victim will contribute 46 years towards the aver- 
 age years of Ufe lost; while a 49-year-old dying 
 from heart disease contributes only 16. 
 
 However, even with this "magnification" of 
 the importance of deaths due to AIDS or homi- 
 cide, these causes alone explain only a share of 
 the observed mortality differences between Afri- 
 can American men in poor urban areas and 
 white or black men nationwide. Such differences 
 would remain substantial in the absence of AIDS 
 or homicide deaths and continue to reveal im- 
 portant social disparities. In the absence of 
 deaths to AIDS or homicide, the average years of 
 life lost by men between ages 15—65 in each ur- 
 ban population would be: Harlem— 7.25; De- 
 troit— 5.83; Chicago — 8.26; and Watts— 5.65. 
 These are 2 to 3 times the number for U.S. 
 whites (2.71) and 1.4 to 2 times the number for 
 U.S. blacks (4.16). 
 
 Comparison Groups 
 
 How unique is the mortality experience of Af- 
 rican American men in poor urban areas? How 
 does their level of mortahty contrast with sev- 
 eral natural comparison groups: rural poor Afri- 
 can American men? urban poor African Ameri- 
 can women? middle-class black men in metro- 
 poUtan areas? urban poor white men? 
 
 Rural Poor African American Men 
 
 Where they have been estimated, mortahty 
 rates for young adult and middle-aged African 
 American men hving in poor rural areas are 
 higher than for white men nationwide, but are 
 considerably lower than in the urban locales 
 (Geronimus et al., 1996; Geronimus et al., 1999). 
 Despite higher than average poverty rates in the 
 rural areas studied, men's excess mortality expe- 
 rience is generally comparable to that of black 
 men nationwide. So, too, are their probabilities 
 of survival to ages 45 or 65 and their average 
 years of Ufe lost. 
 
 Homicide plays a smaller role in excess 
 deaths to black men in poor rural areas, and 
 AIDS plays virtually none at all. Circulatory dis- 
 ease and cancer deaths are the largest contribu- 
 tors to excess deaths in rural areas, but even 
 these deaths are fewer than in urban areas. 
 (Only excess deaths due to accidents tend to be 
 higher in rural than in urban areas). However, 
 even in the absence of AIDS or homicide deaths, 
 deaths in rural areas would be substantially less 
 than in urban areas. For example, in 1990 the 
 average YOLL for men (excluding homicide or 
 AIDS deaths) in highly impoverished rural areas 
 in the Louisiana Delta and the Black Belt region 
 of Alabama — areas where almost half of aU 
 famihes have incomes below the poverty level — 
 are 4.76 and 4.72, respectively. These are lower 
 than in any of the urban areas studied. In the 
 worst cases, Harlem and Chicago, the average 
 YOLL excluding deaths to homicide or AIDS 
 are 55 and 78 percent higher than in these im- 
 poverished rural areas. 
 
 African American Women in Poor Urban Areas 
 
 African American women, ages 15-64, hving 
 in the same poor areas of Harlem, Detroit, Chi- 
 cago, and Watts experience excess mortahty 
 relative to white or black women nationwide, but 
 their excess mortahty rates are substantially 
 lower than those of men hving in these areas 
 (Geronimus et al., 1996; Geronimus et al., 1999). 
 Their annuahzed excess death rate ranges from 
 355 (in Detroit) to 569 (in Chicago) compared to 
 746 and 1,296 for men in these locales, respec- 
 tively. Their probabiUty of survival to ages 45 or 
 65 is substantially lower than national averages 
 for women. About one out of three 15-year-old 
 girls in these locales will not hve to her 65th 
 birthday, compared to one out of five for white 
 girls nationwide. Still, these are substantially 
 
 106
 
 better odds than faced by 15-year-old boys in 
 these locales. 
 
 Circulatory disease is the leading cause of 
 death and excess death to women in these areas. 
 Cancer is usually the second or third leading 
 cause. AIDS is the second leading cause of excess 
 death among Harlem women, but, as with men, 
 IS relatively unimportant in other locales. Homi- 
 cide is the second or third leading cause of excess 
 death among women in Detroit, Chicago, and 
 Watts, but in absolute numbers trails circulatory 
 disease deaths (among women) or homicide 
 deaths among men by a wide margin. While 
 homicide is certainly an important part of why 
 men in these locales fare worse than women, it 
 does not explain the full disparity. For example, 
 average YOLL for women between ages 15 and 
 65 excluding deaths to AIDS or homicide are 
 4.25, 3.18, 4.66, and 3.47 for Harlem, Detroit, 
 Chicago, and Watts, respectively. These are 
 about two-thirds the numbers of YOLL exclud- 
 ing these causes for men in the same locales. 
 
 Black Men in Middle-Class Metropolitan Areas 
 
 Within the same major metropohtan areas as 
 some of the poor local populations, analyses have 
 been conducted of the mortahty experience of 
 young through middle-aged black men residing 
 in communities with higher mean incomes and 
 lower poverty rates. (Geronimus et al., 1996). 
 These higher income populations are drawn 
 from the Queens and Bronx boroughs of New 
 York City; from Northwest Detroit; and from the 
 Crenshaw-Baldwin Hills area of greater Los An- 
 geles. The mortality experience of black men in 
 these areas is similar to or better than that for 
 black men nationwide and, therefore, notably 
 better than that of their counterparts in poor 
 urban neighborhoods. Comparing mortality 
 rates directly between the urban poor population 
 in a specific metropolitan area and the better-off 
 suburban population shows that male residents 
 of the poor area had age-adjusted mortahty rate 
 ratios ranging from 1.5 to 3.5 the mortahty rate 
 of male residents of the higher-income locahty. 
 In 1990, African American men in the higher- 
 income area in New York City faced a mortahty 
 profile that approximated that of white men na- 
 tionwide. This finding suggests that when a 
 black population enjoys the same level of eco- 
 nomic advantage or municipal services as a 
 
 white population, it also has a favorable mortal- 
 ity rate.' 
 
 Poor Urban White Men 
 
 Studies also have been made of white male 
 residents of poor urban areas in Cleveland, De- 
 troit, and the Lower East Side of New York City. 
 (Geronimus et al., 1996; Geronimus et al., 1999). 
 It should be noted that while these populations 
 all had mean incomes well below — and poverty 
 rates well above — the white national average, 
 they tended to be economically better-off than 
 the poor urban black populations. ^ 
 
 White men living in these poor urban areas 
 experience excess mortahty relative to white 
 men nationwide, with age-adjusted mortahty 
 rate ratios ranging from about 1.5—2.0 times the 
 white rate. Their levels of excess mortahty are 
 comparable to those of poor, rural blacks or 
 blacks nationwide, but are well below those of 
 African American men hving in poor urban ar- 
 eas. Furthermore, their rates of excess mortahty 
 show less evidence of having grown than those 
 for poor urban black populations (Geronimus et 
 al., 1999). 
 
 While HIV in Harlem and homicide in each of 
 the virban poor black locales account for some of 
 the discrepancy in levels of mortahty between 
 urban poor black and white men, they fall far 
 short of explaining it in its entirety. Excess 
 deaths due to diseases of the circulatory system 
 and cancer are also very important. For exam- 
 ple, in Harlem in 1990 there were 205 and 118 
 excess deaths to circulatory diseases and cancer 
 respectively, compared to 15 and in the Lower 
 East Side. In Chicago's south side there were 
 310 and 168 excess deaths to circulatory diseases 
 and cancer respectively, compared to 138 and 52 
 in Cleveland's urban white areas. For blacks in 
 Central City Detroit there were 192 and 76 ex- 
 cess deaths to circulatory diseases and cancer 
 respectively, compared to 138 and 56 for Detroit 
 whites. 
 
 ' The higher-income area in New York City included a large 
 number of West Indian immigrants (30 percent), but even 
 when looking only at the mortality experience of native-born 
 African American residents, their mortality rates were com- 
 parable to those for white men nationwide. 
 
 2 This reflects the national distribution of income, where, 
 outside of specific rural areas in Appalachia, poverty among 
 whites tends to be less concentrated or deep than for some 
 African Americans Williams and Collins 1995). 
 
 107
 
 Table 3 
 
 Causes of Excess Mortality among African American Men 15 to 64 Years Old Residing in Urban 
 Poverty, 1990 
 
 Circulatory 
 disease 
 
 123 
 
 Infect/pneu/ 
 HIV influenza 
 
 Cancer Accident Homicide 
 
 National death rate per 100.000 in white men 
 103 54 12 23 
 
 Number of excess deaths per 100.000 
 
 11 
 
 Other 
 
 92 
 
 Total 
 
 418 
 
 Harlem 
 
 205 
 
 118 
 
 20 
 
 175 
 
 296 
 
 150 
 
 332 
 
 1.296 
 
 CO Detroit 
 
 192 
 
 76 
 
 -2 
 
 187 
 
 38 
 
 37 
 
 217 
 
 746 
 
 SS Chicago 
 
 310 
 
 168 
 
 109 
 
 241 
 
 79 
 
 82 
 
 308 
 
 1.296 
 
 Watts 
 
 239 
 
 76 
 
 36 
 
 259 
 
 61 
 
 12 
 
 116 
 
 799 
 
 Source: Author's calculations using vital statistics and census data. See appendix and Geronimus et al (1996: 1999) for details. 
 
 Table 4 
 
 Estimated Percent Disabled, Young and Middle-aged Men in Selected Populations, 1990* 
 
 Age 
 
 25 
 35 
 45 
 55 
 65 
 
 U.S. 
 
 U.S. 
 
 
 Central 
 
 city 
 
 
 
 whites 
 
 blacks 
 
 Harlem 
 
 Detroit 
 
 Chicago 
 
 Watts 
 
 5 
 
 9 
 
 13 
 
 
 15 
 
 14 
 
 18 
 
 7 
 
 14 
 
 21 
 
 
 22 
 
 22 
 
 27 
 
 10 
 
 20 
 
 26 
 
 
 28 
 
 27 
 
 33 
 
 16 
 
 27 
 
 33 
 
 
 36 
 
 35 
 
 42 
 
 28 
 
 39 
 
 46 
 
 
 48 
 
 48 
 
 55 
 
 ' Auttior's calculations using 1990 census data. See Geronimus et al. In press for estimation procedures. 
 
 108
 
 In sum, although members of these compari- 
 son groups experience excess mortaUty in their 
 young adult through middle ages relative to 
 whites nationwide, there appears to be no group 
 which suffers as stark and growing mortality 
 disadvantages as young through middle-aged 
 African American men living in poor urban lo- 
 cales. These men remain uniquely disadvan- 
 taged even after homicide and HIV deaths are 
 eliminated from comparisons. Chronic disease 
 deaths in young through middle age are critical 
 contributors to the remaining disparity. 
 
 Poor Health and Disability among Urban 
 African American Men 
 
 Mortality rates do not tell the whole story. It 
 is important to point out that for adult men, 
 mortality rates due to chronic conditions such as 
 circulatory disease understate the larger number 
 of men who suffer morbidity-induced functional 
 impairment or reduced quaUty of life. Table 4 
 illustrates this point. Using 1990 census data, 
 disability rates by race, age, and sex are calcu- 
 lated using the responses to questions about 
 hmitations in work, mobility, and personal care 
 activities resulting from health conditions of at 
 least 6 months duration. Table 4 shows that 
 those men who survive into middle age in the 
 local populations report disability rates that are 
 as much as 3 times the white rate nationwide for 
 a given age. African American young men 
 aged 25 residing in the poor urban popula- 
 tions experience about the same rate of dis- 
 ability as 55-year-old white men nationwide. 
 Half of the men who survive to age 65 in 
 Harlem, Detroit, Chicago, or Watts are es- 
 timated to be disabled — almost double the 
 rate for white men nationwide. When the 
 probabihties of early death and disabiUty are 
 combined, at least half of the men in each of 
 these local populations can expect to die or 
 become disabled by age SO (Geronimus et al., 
 in press). 
 
 Those community members (other men, 
 women, or children) who depend on these men or 
 who are called on to house or care for them dur- 
 ing prolonged periods of chronic disabiUty are 
 also profoundly affected. 
 
 Children in Urban Areas 
 
 In 1990, black male children under the age of 
 1 were more than twice as likely to die as white 
 
 male children of the same age. Due to small 
 numbers, there are no studies of small local ar- 
 eas that stratify infant mortality rates by sex. 
 However, 1990 infant mortality rates in the local 
 study areas in Harlem, Detroit, Chicago, and 
 Watts for both sexes combined were 2H to 4 
 times the white national average (Geronimus, 
 1997; and additional tabulations by author). In 
 Michigan in 1989, the odds of being low birth- 
 weight for black infants living in local areas with 
 mean incomes in the bottom 20 percent of black 
 communities was approximately 4 times the rate 
 for white infants and 1.5 times that of other 
 blacks (Geronimus, 1996). 
 
 Nationally, in 1990 the overall death rate 
 among black males ages 1 to 14 was about 1.5 
 times the white rate. In major metropohtan ar- 
 eas the differentials were greater. For example, 
 in the Detroit and Chicago metropolitan areas, 
 black/white mortahty rate ratios were 1.7 and 
 2.2, respectively. Fire-related deaths, deaths due 
 to asthma, and homicides are the major causes 
 of excess death among African American males 
 at these ages (Hillemeier, 1998). 
 
 It is in the late teens that the uniquely severe 
 mortahty disadvantage experienced by urban 
 African American males clearly emerges. In in- 
 fancy and early childhood, African American 
 males are more likely to die than females, but 
 they are no more disadvantaged relative to 
 white males than are African American females 
 to white females. By the late teens, excess death 
 rates among males are on an order of magnitude 
 higher than they were for 1- to 14-year-olds. For 
 the late teen group, unlike older men, homicides 
 account for most excess deaths. The number of 
 excess deaths due to homicide doubled in New 
 York City and tripled in the Detroit and Chicago 
 metropohtan areas between 1980 and 1990 
 among males aged 15 to 19 (Hillemeier, 1998). 
 
 Summary and Implications 
 
 African American men residing in poor urban 
 areas face the most disadvantageous mortaUty 
 profiles of any group studied (Geronimus, et al. 
 1996; 1999). In some locales, only two out of 
 every three boys who survive to age 15 will sur- 
 vive to age 45, and only one wiU survive to age 
 65. One study concluded that the chances of sur- 
 vival through middle age faced by some urban 
 African American boys are lower than those 
 faced in Bangladesh (McCord and Freeman, 
 
 109
 
 1990). Initially, homicide is the greatest risk to 
 their survival. But early in adulthood, circula- 
 tory disease and cancer add to and often outpace 
 homicide as important contributors to early 
 death. 
 
 What do we understand about the reasons 
 behind these dismal statistics and the possible 
 solutions? 
 
 Poverty and Health 
 
 Socioeconomic position is strongly associated 
 with the risk of disease and death (Antonovsky, 
 1967; Syme and Berkman, 1976; Marmot, 1987; 
 WiUiams, 1990; Preston and Taubman, 1994). As 
 evidenced in table 1 above, urban African 
 American locales are characterized by extreme 
 poverty. With respect to income, health improves 
 rapidly as one moves from the lowest levels of 
 income to average or median levels. This sug- 
 gests that pohcies that improve the social and 
 economic status of lower income populations can 
 dramatically improve their health. 
 
 Recent empirical evidence also suggests that 
 relative deprivation adds to absolute material 
 deprivation to intensify the health disadvan- 
 tages African Americans experience (Lynch et 
 al., 1998). That is, poor residents of metropohtan 
 areas characterized by high levels of income ine- 
 quality suffer worse health disadvantages than 
 equally low-income individuals residing in met- 
 ropolitan areas with lower degrees of income- 
 inequality. Disturbingly, in the last quarter of 
 the 20th Century, the absolute and relative eco- 
 nomic condition of those in the lower economic 
 strata in the United States has generally stag- 
 nated and deteriorated rather than improved, 
 contributing to growing health inequahties as 
 well. 
 
 Lower socioeconomic position carries with it 
 increased exposure to nearly all health risks, 
 including hunger, homelessness and other mate- 
 rial hardships; acute and chronic stress; un- 
 healthy behaviors, overburdened or absent social 
 supports; and depression (Geronimus, 1992; 
 Williams and House, 1991; Marmot et al., 1987). 
 High levels of racial and economic segregation 
 within populations also appear deleterious to 
 their health (Polednak, 1996). Black residents of 
 segregated low-income areas have lower levels of 
 access to medical care, pubHc services, safe 
 housing, sanitation, recreation, education and 
 training, and good jobs; increased environmental 
 
 exposure to biological, chemical, physical, and 
 social hazards; and reduced opportunities. 
 
 Behavioral Risk Profiles 
 
 A common behef is that by changing the un- 
 healthy behaviors of poor individuals, social dis- 
 parities in health will be importantly reduced. 
 Residents of poor communities often do have 
 worse behavioral health risk profiles than mem- 
 bers of more advantaged populations (North- 
 ridge et al., 1998); yet, socioeconomic differences 
 in mortaUty are due to a wider array of factors 
 and additional measures are necessary (Link 
 and Phelan, 1995; Lantz et al., 1998). Even un- 
 healthy behaviors themselves are best addressed 
 when interactions between behavior and envi- 
 ronment are taken into account. For example, 
 high smoking rates in poor urban African 
 American communities are hkely, in part, to re- 
 flect coping responses to the pervasive psychoso- 
 cial stress residents experience. Short of ad- 
 dressing the stressors, smoking cessation will be 
 hard to achieve. This is especially true in the 
 current context where tobacco companies selec- 
 tively target urban minority groups for adver- 
 tising (Davis, 1987; King, 1997). Such advertis- 
 ing strategies help create demand for cigarettes 
 in these communities, increase the chances that 
 residents use smoking as one way to alleviate 
 stress, or hinder the abihty of current smokers to 
 quit. 
 
 More generally, interventions to reduce the 
 impact of unhealthy behaviors on mortahty may 
 be ill-suited to poor communities because they 
 are (mis)informed by knowledge gleaned from 
 more advantaged populations. For example, un- 
 like among whites, smoking uptake among Afri- 
 can Americans continues weU into adulthood, 
 and quit rates of current adult smokers are 
 lower among African American than white 
 adults (Geronimus, et al. 1993; King et al. 1998). 
 Yet, relatively less effort has been expended in 
 developing anti-tobacco interventions appropri- 
 ate for adults compared to those that target 
 youth or are school based. 
 
 Sometimes stereotypes are substituted for 
 knowledge. This, too, undercuts effective behav- 
 ior change strategies. An example is the wide- 
 spread, but undocumented, belief that poor 
 women of color are the most likely to abuse sub- 
 stances during pregnancy. Chasnoff et al. (1990) 
 collected urine samples from pregnant women in 
 Pinellas County Florida for evidence of sub- 
 
 110
 
 stance abuse during pregnancy. They found the 
 frequency of a positive urine test was similar 
 among white and black women. Yet, during the 
 6-month period in which they collected the sam- 
 ples, black women in Pinellas County were re- 
 ported to health authorities for substance abuse 
 during pregnancy at 10 times the rate of white 
 women, suggesting that something other than 
 objective medical criteria were used to identify 
 substance-abusing women. Such stereotyping 
 can result in counterproductive effects including: 
 mispecifying the problem, and thus the solution; 
 reducing pubhc support for addressing the needs 
 of poor Americans of color; and providing minor- 
 ity Americans with reason to mistrust, or even 
 fear, health care providers. 
 
 Similarly, there is a presumption that excess 
 rates of low birthweight or infant mortahty in 
 poor urban locales would be importantly reduced 
 through the prevention of teenage childbearing. 
 Yet, in the poorest African American communi- 
 ties in Michigan, infants with 15-year-old moth- 
 ers were less (one-half as) likely to be low birth- 
 weight as those whose mothers were 25, and 
 one-third as likely as those whose mothers were 
 35 (Geronimus, 1996). So, too, in Harlem, 1990 
 infant mortality rates for teens were half those 
 for mothers in their 20s (Geronimus, 1997). In 
 poor African American communities, the health 
 of women deteriorates sufficiently rapidly over 
 the young adult ages to present a poignant di- 
 lemma: postponing childbearing increases their 
 infants' risk of preterm birth, low birthweight, or 
 death (Geronimus, 1992, 1996; Geronimus and 
 Korenman, 1993; McCarthy and Hardy, 1993). 
 
 Negative stereotypical characterization of Af- 
 rican Americans, itself, is associated with in- 
 creased mortality. For example, Kennedy et al. 
 (1997) demonstrated that statewide measures of 
 collective disrespect for blacks are associated 
 with mortality levels. A 1 percent increase in the 
 prevalence of state residents who reported in a 
 national survey that they beheved blacks lacked 
 innate abUity was associated with an increase in 
 age-adjusted black mortality rates of 360 deaths 
 per 100,000 population. The dominant American 
 cultural framework provides clear negative 
 stereotypical characterizations of young urban 
 African American men, but few, if any, identity- 
 affirming symbols for this group. This lack might 
 also contribute to the poor health of black men 
 (James, 1996). 
 
 It is essential to encourage poor communities 
 in efforts to empower residents to engage in 
 health-promoting behaviors. However, the suc- 
 cess of such efforts will be limited if we do not 
 also augment the scientific knowledge base 
 about the prevalence and patterns of unhealthy 
 behaviors within poor urban communities, apart 
 from national averages or stereotypes. 
 
 Violence 
 
 Homicide accounts for an important share of 
 excess deaths to African American men in poor 
 urban locales and for the majority of excess 
 deaths to 15- to 19-year-olds. Living with fear of 
 violence or coping with the loss to homicide of a 
 peer or family member might also exacerbate the 
 risk of stress-related disease, including cardio- 
 vascular disease. To be most effective, interven- 
 tions to reduce homicide must extend beyond 
 individual-oriented approaches, such as pro- 
 grams to deal constructively with anger, to also 
 include broader interventions. Gun control 
 measures, improved access to city and hospital 
 services in poor communities, and improved 
 pubhc housing are examples of policies extend- 
 ing beyond individual control that may reduce 
 deaths due to violence. A number of studies sup- 
 port this conclusion (Centerwall, 1984; Wallace 
 and Wallace, 1990; Sampson, et al. 1997; Wilson 
 and Daly, 1997). 
 
 HIV/AIDS 
 
 As of the early 1990s, AIDS appears to have 
 played httle role in excess mortahty in poor 
 populations outside of specific locales. Whether 
 the epidemic remains contained in those areas or 
 whether their experience is a harbinger of things 
 to come in other poor locales cannot be known 
 without continued surveillance. Harlem's expe- 
 rience illustrates how devastating HIV disease 
 can be for a local community. 
 
 In poor communities, HIV is spread, as it is 
 elsewhere, by sexual contact and by injection 
 drug use. In addition to general "safe sex" educa- 
 tion campaigns, interventions to reduce the use 
 of injection drugs or to break the connection be- 
 tween drug use and HIV would reduce infection 
 rates. In urban poor African American communi- 
 ties, such programs should be designed with at- 
 tention to the long history of mistrust some Afri- 
 can Americans have for government initiatives 
 (Dalton, 1989; Thompson, 1998). In addition, 
 programs that reduce the likehhood of infected 
 
 111
 
 mothers passing the virus on to their fetuses 
 would be beneficial, such as making available 
 prenatal drug therapies that have been shown to 
 be efficacious in reducing fetal infection. Consid- 
 eration should also be given to work by Wallace 
 and Wallace (1990), who attribute the AIDS epi- 
 demic in low-income New York City minority 
 neighborhoods to the chain of events emanating 
 from the closing of fire stations in these neigh- 
 borhoods and the subsequent movement of drug 
 users into burnt-out buildings and drug traf- 
 ficking into the neighborhood. This depiction 
 offers the suggestion that maintaining and im- 
 proving city services and revitaUzing urban ar- 
 eas, more generally, may be important strategies 
 for stemming the spread of HIV in urban loca- 
 tions. 
 
 Hometessness 
 
 People who are homeless suffer starkly ele- 
 vated rates of many mental and physical disor- 
 ders (Wright and Weber, 1987; Gelberg, 1997; 
 Wright, 1990), while experiencing particular dif- 
 ficulties in accessing medical care (Kreider and 
 Nicholson, 1997; Gelberg et al., 1997; Redlener 
 and Karich, 1994). Disturbingly, there has been 
 a dramatic upsurge in family homelessness in 
 the last two decades — it has mushroomed in 
 some cities including New York (Bassuk et al., 
 1996; Thompson, 1997). Moreover, the urban 
 homeless are the tip of an iceberg comprising a 
 larger group who are marginally housed. Most of 
 the extremely poor avoid Uteral homelessness by 
 being given housing at httle or no charge by kin 
 (Bassuk et al., 1996; Thompson, 1997). Yet, dou- 
 bled-up households in poor communities can 
 have negative health implications for all resi- 
 dents of the doubled-up household. They suffer 
 increased space pressures and household 
 crowding, lowered privacy, lower food quahty 
 and quantity, increasingly unsanitary or unsafe 
 housing conditions, more concentrated cooking, 
 smoking, and use of electricity (often on over- 
 aged wiring systems), increased wear and tear 
 on household facihties, and increased potential 
 for interpersonal conflict and the spread of infec- 
 tious disease (Sontag, 1996; Bruni, 1996; 
 Thompson, 1997). 
 
 Medical Care 
 
 Given the high rates of disease and prema- 
 ture death, strategies to improve access to qual- 
 ity medical care are also important. There is 
 
 ample evidence of deficiencies in medical care 
 provided to African Americans at every stage of 
 life (Geiger, 1996). This is true even where in- 
 surance is not an issue or when disease type, 
 severity, or co-morbid conditions are taken into 
 account (Whittle et al., 1993; Peterson et al., 
 1994; Lee et al., 1997). Black men receive lower 
 rates of some forms of life-saving treatment, in- 
 cluding organ transplantation and specific high- 
 tech treatments for ischemic heart disease 
 (Whittle et al., 1993; Peterson et al., 1994; Gor- 
 nick et al., 1995; Ford and Cooper, 1995). Such 
 findings suggest the possibility that stereotyping 
 or subtle forms of discrimination result in ra- 
 tioning of health care to the detriment of black 
 men. Given the significant contribution of car- 
 diovascular disease to excess mortahty among 
 urban African American men, these findings are 
 especially disturbing. 
 
 Unfortunately, a variety of secular trends 
 combine to suggest that access to quafity care 
 may have been reduced among the urban poor in 
 recent years. Among these are the closing of 
 many inner-city out-patient departments; staff 
 reductions in public hospitals; reduced incen- 
 tives for hospitals to provide uncompensated 
 care in a managed care environment (Schles- 
 inger, 1987); and, given links between health 
 insurance and employment, macroeconomic re- 
 structuring intensifying black male joblessness 
 in inner cities (Wilson, 1996). Concern has been 
 raised about the possibUity for new forms of dis- 
 crimination as options for Medicaid recipients 
 increasingly favor managed care over fee-for- 
 service arrangements (Rosenbaum et al., 1997; 
 Smith 1998). These should be monitored. 
 
 In addition, few health care providers locate 
 their practices in central cities. In fact, Fossett 
 et al. (1990) suggest that access to care in urban 
 areas is constrained more by the lack of accessi- 
 ble physicians than by the lack of insurance. To 
 improve the situation, concerted efforts are 
 needed to increase physician supply in depressed 
 urban areas (Schlesinger, 1987; Fossett et al., 
 1990; Fossett and Perloff 1995). In addition, 
 variations across impoverished urban locales in 
 causes of excess death provide evidence that 
 available medical care should be responsive to 
 local conditions and mortahty risk profiles. 
 These findings underhne the importance of 
 community representation on the boards of local 
 health care facihties (Schlesinger 1987). 
 
 112
 
 Targeted, locally responsive, and nondis- 
 criminatory medical care practice is critical to- 
 wards reducing social disparities in health, or, at 
 least, to avoid their widening further. However, 
 it will play a role only in secondary and tertiary 
 prevention. To affect important progress in pri- 
 mary prevention other strategies are required. 
 
 Environment 
 
 Characteristics of the social, economic, or 
 physical environment of urban areas also con- 
 tribute to the stark health disadvantages of their 
 residents. Inequities by race in the distribution 
 of environmental hazards in or near communi- 
 ties (Mohai and Bryant 1992) may contribute to 
 increasingly excessive rates of cancer, asthma, 
 and reproductive disorders in urban areas. The 
 disproportionate citing of hazardous wastes in or 
 near low-income minority communities may also 
 indirectly affect health to the extent that it de- 
 preciates the value of housing or undermines 
 private investments in poor communities. Simi- 
 larly, blood-lead concentrations among the in- 
 habitants of inner cities have been found to be 
 higher than those in outer cities, as a result of 
 exposure to dust from lead paint, lead pipes, and 
 soil dust lead (Hasselblad and Nelson 1975; 
 NCHS 1984; Geronimus and Hillemeier 1992). 
 
 High-Effort Coping 
 
 Chronic, stress-related diseases, such as cir- 
 culatory disease and cancer, are major contribu- 
 tors to the premature mortahty of urban African 
 American men. This suggests the potentially 
 important role of the complex interplay between 
 adverse Hfe circumstances, psychosocial stress, 
 and high-effort coping in their etiology. For ex- 
 ample, in the case of hypertensive disease, 
 James (1994) originated and empirically vaU- 
 dated the construct of "John Henryism," a strong 
 behavioral predisposition to engage in persistent 
 high-effort coping with social and economic ad- 
 versity. His ongoing empirical research suggests 
 that high levels of John Henryism interact with 
 low socioeconomic status to increase the risk of 
 hypertensive disease among African American 
 men.^ This is contrary to the stereotype that 
 
 ^ John Henrysim is measured by a 12-item scale. The items 
 reflect the following themes: 1) efficacious mental and physi- 
 cal vigor; 2) a strong commitment to hard work; and 3) a sin- 
 gle-minded determination to succeed. For each item, the re- 
 spondent answers on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 is 
 "completely false" and 5 is "completely true." Examples of the 
 
 young urban poor African American men's fa- 
 tahsm predisposes them to engage in unhealthy 
 behaviors that place them at risk of disease or 
 death. Instead, their persistent active effortful 
 coping with material deprivation, social barri- 
 ers to upward mobility, and other widespread 
 forms of social injustice may exact the physical 
 price of a high risk of early cardiovascular mor- 
 tality. For example, in one study, James and 
 colleagues (1987) found that differences by so- 
 cioeconomic status in hypertension prevalence 
 among young adult and middle-aged blacks were 
 small for those scoring low on John Henryism, 
 but for those with high scores, hypertension 
 prevalence was 3 times greater for those of low 
 socioeconomic status compared to those with 
 higher socioeconomic status (31.4 vs. 11.5 per- 
 cent). 
 
 Geronimus' (1992) "weathering" concept sug- 
 gests that the more rapid decline in health 
 among low-income African Americans compared 
 to the typical American — a decline that, as we 
 have seen, is detectable as early as young to 
 middle adulthood— is the consequence of cumu- 
 lative exposure to the full range of risks asso- 
 ciated with social inequahty. For African Ameri- 
 cans in poverty, there are multiple routes by 
 which the health of young through middle-aged 
 adults might progressively worsen. They include 
 cumulative exposure to hazards in residential 
 and work environments; increased psychosocial 
 stress as obligations to dependents, kin, and 
 work activities multiply; continued temptation to 
 engage in unhealthy behaviors to cope with in- 
 creasing stress and uncertainty; the progression 
 of undiagnosed or unmanaged chronic conditions 
 and diseases; and the increasingly deleterious 
 impact of medical underservice in light of esca- 
 lating health needs. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 This paper documents a poignant dimension 
 of social disparities in health — that young people 
 in some U.S. communities cannot expect to sur- 
 vive through middle adulthood. While highly 
 publicized causes of premature death such as 
 AIDS and homicide do contribute to this tragedy. 
 
 items are: "I've always felt that I could make of my life pretty 
 much what 1 wanted to make of it"; "Once I make up my mind 
 to do something, I stay with it until the job is completely 
 done"; "When things don't go the way I want them to, that 
 just makes me work even harder." 
 
 113
 
 they do so by adding to social disparities in mor- 
 tality experience that are already substantial 
 and result primarily from chronic disease in 
 young and middle adulthood. This evidence that 
 poor urban African American men cannot expect 
 to enjoy a "prime of life" is a major social indict- 
 ment. 
 
 Eliminating the staggering disparities in the 
 probability of survival to or through middle age 
 should be recognized as a high priority policy 
 goal. For example, high levels of health-induced 
 disability among working-age African American 
 men contribute to their relatively low rates of 
 labor force participation (Bound et al. 1995; 
 1996). That is, poor economic conditions can 
 cause or exacerbate health problems that, in 
 turn, will reduce the chances a person can re- 
 main gainfully employed and economically self- 
 sufficient through middle age. Such disabilities 
 also pose practical challenges for the members of 
 family or larger informal social networks who 
 care for the disabled. These challenges also may 
 undermine the caretakers' efforts to fulfill com- 
 peting obligations to family and work. 
 
 To achieve improvements in the health of Af- 
 rican American men in poor urban areas, re- 
 orientation and restructuring of conventional 
 wisdom is required. First, the critical role of 
 pubUc policy in this endeavor, above and beyond 
 efforts to promote individual behavior change, 
 must be acknowledged. PubUc policy can be ap- 
 plied as a tool to regulate the distribution of 
 guns, toxic exposures, and advertising of harm- 
 ful products; to insure equitable dehvery of 
 health services; to improve the supply and qual- 
 ity of housing; to revitaUze urban areas in ways 
 that support rather than disrupt existing com- 
 munities; and, generally, to bolster municipal 
 services, urban infrastructures, and investments 
 in human capital in these locales. 
 
 Monitoring and surveUlance are also neces- 
 sary. Traditionally, a community's infant mor- 
 tahty rate has been used to measure the general 
 social and economic conditions of that commu- 
 
 nity. By this metric alone, poor urban African 
 American communities are inextremis. Excess 
 mortaUty during the prime of life — the reproduc- 
 tive and working ages — should be added to the 
 "report card" for monitoring the success of gov- 
 erning bodies in equitably fulfilUng the mission 
 of pubUc health to assure citizens the conditions 
 in which they can be healthy. In addition, re- 
 quiring health impact statements for proposed 
 economic or social welfare policies would reduce 
 the chances that the health of urban African 
 American males is further eroded and allow for a 
 more complete evaluation of the merits of spe- 
 cific policy proposals. 
 
 While not diminishing the importance of vio- 
 lence or, in some cases, AIDS, the evidence re- 
 viewed reinforces the centraUty of cardiovascu- 
 lar disease as the leading threat to the health 
 and well-being of poor urban African Americans 
 and their communities. As noted above, many of 
 the causes of excess mortaUty are beyond the 
 control of individuals and require pubhc inter- 
 vention. The reviewed evidence also raises the 
 possibility that to the extent that individuals 
 behave in ways that increase their risk of car- 
 diovascular disease, it may be that 1) these be- 
 haviors are encouraged by aspects of their envi- 
 ronments (e.g., prominent cigarette advertising 
 or pervasive pyschosocial stress); and 2) that 
 they can reflect the best in people (e.g., persis- 
 tent high-effort coping), not always the worst. 
 This proposed undermining of stereotypes is sci- 
 entifically supported, humane, and strategic. It 
 may also be key to initiating a cascade of 
 changes in pubUc policy and clinical practice 
 that now emanate, in part, from misunder- 
 standing the motivations of urban youth and the 
 nature of the health risks they face. Re- 
 educating pohcy makers, chnical practitioners, 
 and the broader pubhc will alter the premises on 
 which relevant professional judgments are 
 made, leading to more effective poUcies and 
 services, and increasing pubhc support for them. 
 
 114
 
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 117
 
 Appendix 
 
 Study Populations 
 
 The level of analysis encompasses all AMcan 
 American or non-Hispanic whites in entire aggregates 
 of census tracts, zip codes, counties (for mortality 
 measures) or PUMAs (for disabUity calculations) and 
 all blacks or whites nationwide. 
 
 The impoverished urban Afirican American popu- 
 lations discussed are the residents of: 
 
 Harlem: Central Harlem Health Center District. 
 South Side Chicago: Near South Side, Douglas, Oak- 
 land, Fuller Park, Grand Boulevard, and Washington 
 Park community areas. Central City Detroit: Central, 
 University, Central Business District, Foch, Jeffer- 
 son-Mack, Airport, St. Jean, Chene, and Jeffries sub- 
 communities. Watts: the Watts area of South Central 
 Los Angeles and adjacent areas to the south and west. 
 
 The impoverished rural African American popula- 
 tions discussed are the residents of: 
 
 Delta Louisiana: Caldwell, East CarroU, Franklin, 
 Jackson, Madison, Morehouse, Richland, Tensas, 
 Union, West CarroU, Avoyelles, Catahoula, Concor- 
 dia, Grant, La Salle, Vernon, and Winn parishes,- 
 Black Belt Alabama: Dallas, Fayette, Greene, Bibb, 
 Sumter, Hale, Lamar, Marengo, Marion, Perry, and 
 Pickens Counties; East North Carolina: Pitt, North- 
 ampton, Halifax and Edgecombe Counties. 
 
 The economically better-off African American met- 
 ropolitan populations are the residents of: 
 
 Queens-Bronx: sections of the Jamaica East and 
 Flushing Health Center Districts (eastern Queens) 
 and the Pelham Bay Health Center District (north 
 Bronx, including Woodlawn, Wakefield, Williams- 
 bridge, Baychester, Edenwald, Eastchester, Glen 
 Oaks, New Hyde Park, Floral Park, Bellerose, Bel- 
 laire, and Queens Village. Northwest Detroit: Palmer 
 Park, Pembroke, Bagley, Redford, Rosedale Park, 
 Evergreen, and Greenfield subcommunities. Cren- 
 shaw-Baldwin Hills: areas of suburban Los Angeles, 
 including Crenshaw, Ladera Heights, Leimbert Park, 
 Baldwin Hills, and Windsor Hills. 
 
 The impoverished non-Hispanic white urban 
 populations are the residents of: 
 
 Lower East Side: areas in the southern part of the 
 Lower East Side Health Center District of Manhattan 
 and directly across the East River in the Williams- 
 burg-Greenpoint Health Center Distinct in Brooklyn. 
 Cleveland: the west-central area of Cleveland. Detroit: 
 subcommunities on the northeastern and southern 
 periphery of Detroit, including Defray, Clark Park, 
 Chadsey, Condon, Springwells, Jeffries, State Fafr, 
 Burbank, Denby, Finney, Mt. Olivet, Grant, Davison, 
 Pershing, and Nolan. 
 
 1 
 
 118 
 
 t 
 
 A
 
 An Exploration of Parental Attachment Patterns of Young 
 African American Males Living in the Inner City 
 
 CaMILLE HUGGINS, CSW, ACSW* 
 
 Preface 
 
 Anyone, regardless of their ethnic and/or cul- 
 tural makeup, subjected to live in substandard 
 conditions without the proper support systems 
 will invariably have little to no self-esteem. Even 
 though the task of building or elevating a per- 
 son's self-esteem with httle or no experience of 
 hardship to overcome is formidable in itself, it is 
 surmountable. 
 
 If we can accept that there was a traumatized genera- 
 tion of Depression children in the 1930's, a scared 
 generation of World War II teenagers who gained 
 maturity and found death on battlefields in Asia or 
 Europe, a relatively affluent but anxious post-war 
 generation in the 1950's, an embittered, floundering 
 Vietnam generation in the 1960's and early 1970's, 
 then it should not be difficult to accept the possibility 
 that the 1980's promise to produce a generation of 
 grasping competitors with narrowed horizons in 
 terms of both mobdity and ideals. In a society that 
 can no longer sustain economic growth, the class sys- 
 tem becomes more rigid. Competition increases, espe- 
 cially among the young. The prognosis for people from 
 poor backgrounds is extremely bad. They are prime 
 candidates for depression, chronic unemployment, 
 homicide, crime, and exploitation. We shall see, on 
 the other hand, that despite their disadvantages 
 there is a significant proportion of young people from 
 poverty backgrounds who succeed despite aU the 
 odds.' 
 
 * Coordinating manager, Early Intervention/Infant Health 
 Assessment Program, Woodhull Medical and Mental Health 
 Center, Brooklyn NY; staff psychotherapist. New Hope 
 Guild Centers, Brooklyn, NY. 
 
 ' Williams & Kornblum, Growing Up Poor. Preface. 
 
 Introduction: Low Socioeconomic Status + 
 Parental Attachment = Self-Esteem 
 
 This equation best demonstrates the basis of 
 this paper. It is an exploration of the parental 
 attachment patterns of African American boys 
 living in poor socioeconomic conditions and its 
 impact on their self-esteem. As a social worker 
 working with cHents from some of Brooklyn's 
 poorest neighborhoods in New York City, such as 
 Brownsville, Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and 
 WilUamsburg, I have observed a correlation be- 
 tween African American males between the ages 
 of 6 to 33 years old with behavioral problems, 
 their self-esteem, and their relationship with 
 their parents. 
 
 Self-esteem cannot be fully defined without 
 looking at personality development, which is a 
 very complex and multidimensional topic in na- 
 ture and could not be fully explained in this one 
 paper. For this reason, Attachment Theory was 
 chosen because it has been researched and em- 
 pirically substantiated to be hnked to personal- 
 ity formation, especially in the attachment of the 
 primary caregiver (the mother figure) in child- 
 hood. Attachment Theory, however, does not in 
 any way completely explain the totality of the 
 character.2 It is the positive affirmation and the 
 security from loved ones that help to provide a 
 positive outlook, and eventually elevate self- 
 esteem. 
 
 This paper deUneates African American fam- 
 ily attachment patterns and the contributing 
 stress factors of living in poverty in the inner 
 cities. It will illustrate the impact these factors 
 have on the African American male's self-esteem 
 and the personahty indicators that lead to self- 
 destructive behavior patterns. In conclusion, this 
 
 2 Holmes, p. 9. 
 
 119
 
 paper will offer suggestions for policy makers to 
 help support the African American family in 
 their most wdnerable state. 
 
 Socioeconomic Status and the Poor 
 
 Membership in the lowest socioeconomic class 
 in one's country can be perceived as an impedi- 
 ment in a stagnant economy. A family in this 
 predicament may be one of generations of people 
 in the lowest class structiore with no hope for 
 upward mobihty. Fortunately, this is not the 
 case in the United States, where our vibrant 
 economy provides the opportunity for upward 
 mobihty. However, the economic distribution of 
 these resources is pragmatic for individuals of a 
 particular race or gender, while for others, this 
 may not be the case. 
 
 Poverty is measured in the United States, by 
 the number of members per family unit and the 
 cost of a minimum adequate diet, multiphed by 
 three to allow for other expenses. A family's 
 status is computed by this equation. Their re- 
 sources are defined as cash income before taxes. ^ 
 The Social Security Administration first issued 
 this equation in August 1967, and the United 
 States Office of Management and Budget, as 
 well as other benefit programs have also adapted 
 the calculation. For example, a family unit of 
 two adults and two children who have a thresh- 
 old level of $3,100 in purchasing power in 1963, 
 would subsequently have $16,050 in purchasing 
 power in 1997, if inflation rates were factored 
 into the equation."* In 1997, the average family 
 income for my chents was $11,716.^ 
 
 In the late 1950s, the overall poverty rate for 
 individuals in the United States was 22 percent, 
 which represented 39.5 miUion persons in pov- 
 erty. Presently, when the American economy 
 was at its best in 1996 (the last year for which 
 data was available), the poverty rate was 13.7 
 percent, which represented 36.5 million people. ^ 
 The substantial differences between the overall 
 poverty rate and the poverty rates of individuals 
 in certain demographic groups were also stag- 
 gering. In 1996, 28.4 percent of African Ameri- 
 cans were categorized as poor, which was 26.5 
 percent of the overall poverty population. 
 
 Specifically, my agency serves a racially and 
 ethnically diverse population. Forty-three per- 
 cent of the residents are of African descent, 37 
 percent are Hispanic, 16 percent are white, and 
 3 percent are Asian.'' These famihes and indi- 
 viduals are largely excluded from the American 
 occupational system. They lack training and 
 skills, and either experience long-term unem- 
 ployment or are not members of the labor force. 
 As a result, they may tend to engage in street 
 crime and other forms of antisocial activities. 
 
 Historically, the poor throughout history 
 have been children and the elderly. The demo- 
 graphics of groups in the low socioeconomic 
 bracket have changed throughout history. In 
 1959, over half of the poor hved in nonmetropoh- 
 tan areas, but by the 1970s, urban cities became 
 the new home of a majority of the indigent.^ In 
 the early 20th century, the vast majority of both 
 black and white low-income famihes were intact. 
 One scholar, Herbert Gutman, examined black 
 family structure and found that between 70 to 90 
 percent of black households had a "male- 
 present," with a majority of the famihes repre- 
 sented in a nuclear family structure. This dem- 
 onstrated that neither slavery, nor economic 
 deprivation, nor the migration to urban areas 
 affected black family structure by the first quar- 
 ter of the 20th century. However, persistent pov- 
 erty and degraded conditions in which most 
 blacks hved were not without consequences.* 
 
 Some of these consequences included: higher 
 rates of mortahty among poor men due to im- 
 proper health care, drug use, racism, and violent 
 crimes (i.e., black-on-black and white-on-black). 
 Black men sometimes hved apart from their 
 famihes and in transient residences, due to their 
 search for viable employment. The high incar- 
 ceration rates among black males also contrib- 
 uted to the separation of the black family. These 
 factors contributed to the new trend of the poor. 
 Given their disproportionate concentration 
 among the poor in America, black famihes were 
 more strongly affected by these conditions and 
 therefore were more hkely than white famihes to 
 become female headed.'" 
 
 3 Revising the Poverty Measure (1998). 
 " Ibid. 
 
 5 Claritas, Health & Hospitals Corporation, FY '97. 
 
 6 1998 Green Book (appendix H). 
 
 ' Claritas, Health & Hospitals Corporation, FY '97. 
 8 Current Population Reports, pp. 60-102. 
 3 Gutman, p. 57. 
 10 Wilson, p. 40. 
 
 120
 
 Hence, single-female-headed African Ameri- 
 can households became more at risk of staying in 
 the cycle of poverty. This is primarily because 
 the family's economic well-being depends solely 
 on the woman's salary, which is likely to be less 
 than a male's income with comparable work ex- 
 perience due to existing gender bias. Moreover, 
 single mothers of dependent children often have 
 a difficult time with job retention, as well as se- 
 curing higher salaried jobs, because of the lack 
 of support systems in the family and appropriate 
 child care. 11 For example, approximately 58 per- 
 cent of the community populations that my 
 agency serves are women between the ages of 15 
 to 44 years old. Most of my clients are from sin- 
 gle-parent homes. '2 
 
 Mothers who are faced with spending long 
 periods of time out of the home with Uttle emo- 
 tional and financial support may have a difficult 
 time providing a secure environment for their 
 children. As a result, they have fewer opportuni- 
 ties to estabUsh bonds with their children. In 
 samples of poor African American famihes, fam- 
 ily instability was identified as a potential dis- 
 ruption of the attachment process. '^ Hence, this 
 ultimately affects the parental and child bonding 
 process. 
 
 Secure-based Attachment 
 
 Attachment Theory is defined as the basis of 
 the search for security or a safe haven, through- 
 out life's continuum from infancy to adulthood. 
 This security provides individuals with a sense 
 of autonomy. An intact attachment framework 
 provides a basis of a secure inner world. We can 
 go out on a Hmb, stand our ground, make our 
 own choices, and tolerate loneliness if we can be 
 sure that attachment and intimacy are available 
 when needed. ''' Without this secure base, an in- 
 dividual will feel hesitant or frightened to ven- 
 ture into the environment for fear that he or she 
 will have no one or nothing to protect them. This 
 insecvu-ity wiU then have a negative impact on 
 successive relationships. 
 
 Further, the connection or relationship that 
 develops between the child and his or her care- 
 taker, and the repercussions on the child's 
 
 emerging personality and developing view of the 
 social world become essential. It is generally ac- 
 knowledged among attachment researchers that 
 the nature and quality of an individual's close 
 relationships in adulthood are clearly influenced 
 by affective events, which occurred in childhood, 
 especially within the child-caretaker relation- 
 ship. '^ 
 
 John Bowlby's view of Attachment Theory in 
 Attachment and Loss also illustrates and ex- 
 plains the persuasiveness of human social bonds 
 and reactions to their disruptions. Bowlby con- 
 ceived of attachment as an instinctual drive, the 
 goal of which is to maintain proximity with a 
 discriminated person during childhood. This 
 serves the adaptive function of protecting the 
 person from physical or psychological harm. The 
 attachment drive is present throughout the hfe 
 span, but the attachment behavior is best ob- 
 served when a child is threatened by separation, 
 iUness, harm, etc. Attachment behaviors help 
 maintain proximity, but at the same time, pro- 
 vide security to an attachment figure. This rela- 
 tionship gives the attached child the confidence 
 to explore the environment. The psychological 
 awareness of the attachment figure's respon- 
 siveness and availabihty is sufficient to encour- 
 age healthy independence. '^ 
 
 The Significance of the Father-Child 
 Relationship in the Attachment Process 
 
 Have you ever heard of the adage, "Mothers 
 raise their daughters but they love their sons?" 
 In researching this paper I found this adage to 
 hold true. However, mothers usually cannot re- 
 place the profound contribution of a father's role 
 in the caregiving attachment process. The pa- 
 ternal role in father-child attachment and fa- 
 ther-son relationships has a tremendous impact 
 on a boy's sex identification, sociahzation skills, 
 as well as, understanding the dynamics of the 
 relationship with the opposite sex. The Bron- 
 son^' study found that characteristics of the fa- 
 ther-child relationship have greater formative 
 significance than the father's avowed masculin- 
 ity or punitiveness. A father's warmth and sensi- 
 tivity determine the security of the father-infant 
 bond, and in the case of the mother's secure rela- 
 
 '•0'NeiU(1992). 
 
 '2 Claritas, Health & Hospitals Corporation, FY '97. 
 
 '3 Sims-Standford, B. (1997). 
 
 ''' Holmes (1996). 
 
 '5 Collins & Reid (1990). 
 
 '6 Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1980). 
 
 " Bronson (1959). 
 
 121
 
 tionship, it can foster the ability to relate posi- 
 tively to others. 
 
 Limited research has been done to distin- 
 guish between maternal and paternal parenting 
 styles. Osofsky & O'Connell, 1972; Osofsky & 
 Oldfield'* findings suggest that fathers were 
 consistently more likely to take an action- 
 oriented role, whereas mothers more often pro- 
 vided emotional support and encouragement. 
 Nevertheless, those fathers who are sensitive 
 enough when interacting with their own infants 
 to permit attachment to form have better out- 
 comes. Therefore, both parents contribute to 
 their child's psychological development, and thus 
 the extent of the father's commitment to child 
 rearing is crucial. 
 
 Attachment Theory and the impact of Culture 
 
 Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall used 
 the "Strange Situation" paradigm to study at- 
 tachment bonds. In their investigation, they 
 used a laboratory setting to observe children's 
 reactions when they were separated from a care- 
 taker, and then exposed to a stranger. Their 
 model was located in a laboratory or another set- 
 ting that was unfamihar to the children. Each 
 caretaker was asked to leave the room and a 
 stranger would then appear. The researchers 
 noted that most children would cry, but when 
 their caretakers returned, the children usually 
 would instantly calm down. They found that 
 children used their caretakers as a base of secu- 
 rity, in order to regulate feehngs of distress and 
 anxiety that arose in unfamihar situations, i^ 
 
 Sagi and Lewkowicz^o also made a critical 
 point when using the Strange Situation method 
 to examine attachment patterns. They con- 
 tended that this model may not be a vahd in- 
 strument for measuring attachment quality 
 across various cultures, primarily because care- 
 takers and infants experience the stressful labo- 
 ratory situation in drastically different ways. 
 Thus, the use of the Strange Situation paradigm 
 would result in different interpretations of at- 
 tachment styles, due to cultural variances. How- 
 ever, Sagi reported that although this concept is, 
 right in principle: it has to be realized that during the 
 past two decades the procedure has been widely used 
 
 in investigating the development of individual differ- 
 ences in the quahty of infant-adult attachment and 
 has therefore produced most of the available empiri- 
 cal data in this area.^i 
 
 John Bowlby theorized that the attachment 
 phenomenon was universal. The Strange Situa- 
 tion was mostly used with the traditional nu- 
 clear family formation, and is more typically as- 
 sociated with white, middle-class samples and 
 their concept of secure attachment. For this 
 population, secure attachment is characterized 
 by a child's early age demonstration of inde- 
 pendence, autonomy, and self-maximization. 22 
 African Americans view secure attachment dif- 
 ferently, as demonstrated in the Harwood 
 study.23 This study described security in two 
 perspectives: (1) A child strikes a balance be- 
 tween individuahsm and emotional connected- 
 ness, and (2) A child develops proper demeanor 
 and an emotional closeness that allow him or her 
 to connect to the cultural group. 
 
 The Strange Situation paradigm takes into 
 consideration African American caregiving pat- 
 terns. The Jackson study^'* suggested that many 
 African American families utiUze extended care- 
 giving networks in raising young children. This 
 tendency has been reflected in the African adage 
 that "it takes a village to raise a child." Many 
 African American extended family models in- 
 clude several generations, and siblings and kin 
 from the same generation who are living to- 
 gether. These families may share households or 
 pool their resources across famihes. As a result, 
 they are more likely to utilize extended caregiv- 
 ing networks in raising young children. Hence, 
 these children are more likely to develop a close 
 relationship or an attachment to two primary 
 care givers. 25 
 
 In the Sims-Stanford study, 26 the researchers 
 determined there were three caregiving patterns 
 
 '8 Osofsky & O'Connell, 1972; Osofsky & Oldfield (1971). 
 
 19 Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall (1978). 
 
 20 Sagi and Lewkowicz (1987). 
 
 2' Sagi (1990). 
 
 22 Harwood et al., 1995. 
 
 23 Harwood (1995). 
 
 2'' Jackson (1992). In this study of black infants' attachment 
 patterns, the researchers concluded that African American 
 children were Ukely to form attachments to two primary 
 caregivers. 
 
 25 Scott & Black. 1989; Stack, 1974; Wilson, 1986. 
 
 26 Sims-Standford Study (1997). The researchers examined 
 care-giving patterns among single mothers in low-income 
 communities. They concluded that black families have a 
 variety of patterns in structuring their children's care-giving 
 
 122
 
 of attachment among low-income African Ameri- 
 can families: 
 
 1. "Supported" patterns: In this instance, moth- 
 ers receive help in raising their toddlers, but 
 do not share the primary responsibihty for 
 raising the toddler with another person. 
 
 2. "Shared" patterns: Mothers receive help in 
 raising their toddlers and share this primary 
 responsibility with another person; and 
 
 3. "Unsupported" patterns: Mothers neither 
 receive help in raising, or sharing the pri- 
 mary responsibility for raising their toddlers. 
 
 Low-Income Children and the Importance of 
 Family Involvement 
 
 The low-income African American couple that 
 share household responsibiUties is more hkely to 
 provide positive affirmation and attentiveness to 
 their child's needs. This child will have a secure 
 base and be well adjusted. The major stress this 
 child may encounter will be due to his socioeco- 
 nomic position. As a result, both parents may 
 encourage their son to succeed academically, and 
 have higher expectations for him to help bring 
 himself and the family out of poverty. 
 
 WiUiams and Kornblum coin these children 
 as "superkids," since family involvement is a key 
 factor. In low-income communities, most chil- 
 dren live in homes where parents have struggled 
 for years to provide them with as many of the 
 benefits of stabihty and education as possible, 
 even at great sacrifice to themselves. In the ab- 
 sence of material resources, these youngsters' 
 life chances of achievement are shaped by the 
 influence of family values, the relative security 
 of religious behefs and practices, and fortunate 
 experiences with teachers and schools. They 
 manage to survive adolescence and achieve up- 
 ward social and economic mobihty. These 
 "superkids" have their own drive and motiva- 
 tion. However, if they do not have the support of 
 adults who are concerned about their welfare, 
 adverse circumstances created by a lack of posi- 
 tive and early intervention wUl inhibit their am- 
 bition. 2' One case in point is "Charhe." 
 
 Case Study: "Charlie" 
 
 I do not come across many "superkids" in my patient 
 load, because they usually already have the necessary 
 support at home. But due to unusual circumstances, 
 one "superkid" did become my client. Charlie is a 7- 
 year-old African American boy who was put in kin- 
 ship foster care with his mother's uncle. Charlie and 
 his two sisters were removed from his mother due to 
 neglect when he was only a few months old, and as a 
 result he became selectively mute for 2 years. 
 
 Charlie's Uncle George and his wife Mary were very 
 involved in their family life, and paid close attention 
 to Charlie. Aunt Mary spent a lot of time teaching 
 him, as well as reading and singing to him. Uncle 
 George enrolled Charlie in supportive counseling and 
 ensured that he would attend the sessions. Charlie 
 also attended Sunday school, day care, and speech 
 therapy services with the financial support of a foster 
 care agency, who obtained a private tutor for him. 
 
 Within 2 years, Charhe began to speak and socialize 
 with others. Presently at 7 years old, Charlie can do 
 addition, simple multiplication, and can read on a 
 second-grade level. He now expresses his feelings, and 
 he has also begun to sing in the front row of the 
 church choir. This is evidence of his elevated self- 
 esteem, and the secure attachment that he feels to- 
 wards his aunt and uncle. In Charlie's case, secure 
 attachment is now a success, even though he was first 
 labeled as "mentally retarded." 
 
 PoUcy makers and social service organiza- 
 tions can only help to bolster these children by 
 reinforcing the values of their parents. This can 
 only be done with mentoring programs, organ- 
 ized sports, multiservice organizations, after- 
 school programs, and free and available re- 
 sources in their community. Children greatly 
 benefit from these extracurricular programs, 
 which usually suffer from a lack of consistent 
 funding. As a psychotherapist at a inner-city 
 mental health cUnic, I speak with so many par- 
 ents who want to enroll their children in some 
 sort of constructive extracurricular activity, such 
 as baseball teams. However, many cannot afford 
 team uniforms or equipment fees, or they are not 
 aware of available local activities for their chil- 
 dren. 
 
 environments. As a result, there was relationship between 
 care-giving and attachment patterns. 
 
 2' Williams & Kornblum (1985). 
 
 The Effect of Insecure-based Attachment on 
 African American Boys 
 
 The above-mentioned success of low-income 
 children with adequate family support is par- 
 ticularly difficult for children of single parents or 
 
 123
 
 with no parents at all. In 1996, the United 
 States census estimated that 34.9 percent of 
 people living in poverty were female-headed 
 famihes with children. ^^ Accordingly, African 
 American female-headed families with children 
 face the most obstacles in moving out of poverty, 
 because of the lack of support in child rearing 
 and joblessness. 
 
 Insecure-Avoidant, Insecure-Ambivalent, and 
 Insecure-Disorganized Attachment Behavior 
 
 With these contributing stressors, single par- 
 ents are not always able to provide a secure en- 
 vironment for proper attachment for their chil- 
 dren. Some of the instances of increasing vio- 
 lence in today's society can be attributed to 
 "attachment gone wrong." The angry self- 
 destructiveness of modern youth, seen also in 
 borderline personality disorders as well as psy- 
 chopathic disorders, can be understood, in 
 Bowlby's original formulation, as the protest of 
 children separated from, or deprived of, a secure 
 base. 2^ 
 
 "Insecure" attachment was first recognized by 
 Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall's Strange 
 Situation model. They identified three primary 
 patterns of attachment behavior: "insecure- 
 avoidant," "insecure-ambivalent," and "insecure- 
 disorganized." Secure attachment was displayed 
 by approximately 70 percent of the children 
 studied, who used their caretakers as a base of 
 security to regulate feehngs of distress and anxi- 
 ety that arose in the strange situation. For these 
 children, the caregiver's presence provided a 
 clear source of comfort and support. The secure 
 children displayed little or no anxious attach- 
 ment behavior (i.e., resistance or avoidance). 
 These secure children cried or maintained physi- 
 cal contact after rejoining the caretaker, who 
 was easily able to provide rehef ^o 
 
 Secondly, an insecure avoidance attachment 
 pattern was displayed by approximately 20 per- 
 cent of the children who protested httle on sepa- 
 ration of the caregiver. Upon the caregiver's re- 
 turn, the child actively sought support, but from 
 a distance (i.e., hovered nervously nearby). This 
 illustrated the caregiver's inability to regulate 
 and dissipate negative feehngs when they arose; 
 
 therefore the child manifested a false independ- 
 ence. These children displayed little grief or fear, 
 but when they rejoined the caregiver, the chil- 
 dren avoided him or her either by looking or 
 turning away. According to Ainsworth, et. al, 
 "[t]he avoidant person . . . and this is a pathology 
 particularly of men, is detached but not autono- 
 mous. He longs for intimacy but fears he will be 
 rejected; he hovers on the shores of intimacy, 
 ever fearful to take the plunge."^! 
 
 An insecure-ambivalent pattern was dis- 
 played by approximately 10 percent of the chil- 
 dren whose relationships involved conflicted and 
 ambivalent attempts to derive emotional support 
 from inconsistent caregivers. Upon the care- 
 giver's return, ambivalent children clinged furi- 
 ously to the caregiver and were unsure if they 
 would be left again permanently. Furthermore, 
 these children appeared extremely frightened 
 and sorrowful, and demonstrated a lower 
 threshold for distress. These behaviors seem to 
 indicate an underlying sense of uncertainty 
 about the caregiver's avaUabUity and support. 
 Thus, this pattern is said to stem from caregiv- 
 ing that is inconsistent and unpredictable or 
 from long-term separations from caretakers. 
 
 The insecure-disorganized pattern was dis- 
 played in children who could not easily be classi- 
 fied as avoidant or ambivalent. These children 
 show no pattern of response; they "freeze" or 
 coUapse, or lean vacantly against a wall upon 
 the entrance of their caregiver. ^2 Crittenden 
 cited a large proportion of this attachment pat- 
 tern is mostly seen in at-risk groups, such as the 
 socioeconomically disadvantaged and those 
 mothers who have been abused as children. ^^ 
 
 In general, most of the children that I treat 
 can be categorized as insecure-avoidant or inse- 
 cure-disorganized. They often exhibit attention 
 deficit hyperactivity and oppositional behavior 
 patterns. These children are usually angry with 
 their mothers, due to their fathers' absence. 
 They feel that if their mother could not keep 
 their fathers with them, then how can she take 
 care of them? Typically, my clients refuse to ad- 
 here to house rules. They are aggressive towards 
 authority figures, territorial, possessive of toys, 
 and take objects from other children (only to 
 
 2* Current Population Reports (1995). 
 
 29 de Zulueta (1994). 
 
 30 Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters and Wall (1978). 
 
 " Ainsworth et al., 1978. 
 
 32 Holmes (1996). 
 
 33 Crittenden (1988). 
 
 124
 
 hoard the items). In some cases, young boys ex- 
 hibit disorganized attachment patterns, when 
 they have experienced early traumatic condi- 
 tions (such as, neglect, starvation, or abuse prior 
 to entering foster care or a supportive environ- 
 ment), or if their mothers abuse drugs. These 
 children show behavior patterns of stealing, op- 
 position, clinging to the caretaker, hyperactivity, 
 unresponsiveness, as well as the initial stages of 
 a chronic mental illness. 
 
 Hamilton maintained that insecure attach- 
 ments patterns can be seen as defensive strate- 
 gies that are designed to maintain contact with 
 rejecting or inconsistent parents. Avoidant chil- 
 dren cHng to things because they find people 
 threatening, while ambivalent children cling to 
 people to compensate for their perceived incon- 
 sistency. ^^ Both patterns contrast with the "fluid 
 attentional gaze" of the securely attached child, 
 who can move from things to people and back to 
 himself with confidence and poise. 35 
 
 Paternal insensitivity can also result in inse- 
 cure attachment. The triadic relationship of 
 mother-father-infant also affects the infant's so- 
 cial style in the same way. The paternal influ- 
 ence, or lack thereof, also exists within the 
 child's family structure or social environment via 
 the existing relationship between the mother 
 and father. The paternal figure can reheve or 
 add stress to the mother thus affecting her own 
 attentiveness to the child. In the context of boy- 
 hood, the absence of the father seems to affect 
 boys more than it does girls. Gender identity 
 formation is fostered in the boy child by the fa- 
 ther's presence as well as the mother's love of 
 and affirmation of her husband's maleness; both 
 countervail the son's modehng of his core gender 
 identity towards the mother. ^^ 
 
 Even in the best attachment circumstances, 
 an African American boy of a female-headed 
 household stiU undergoes a great deal of adver- 
 sity in his search for a father figure and sex 
 identification. His perception of manhood and 
 masculinity throughout childhood may become 
 distorted because he does not have a male avail- 
 able to define himself. He may feel dominated by 
 his mother, and since she is not hke him physi- 
 cally, he may become rebeUious to polarize their 
 
 differences. He may also become submissive be- 
 cause he is unable to differentiate himself from 
 his mother.^'' 
 
 Insecure father-child attachment and the 
 failure to achieve same-sex identification may be 
 pathogenic. Some have even suggested that dis- 
 turbed father-child relationships are precursors 
 of homosexuality. 38 "Chucky's" case study pro- 
 vides an example. Chucky is a 33-year-old Afri- 
 can American male who has been diagnosed with 
 paranoid schizophrenia for the past 18 years and 
 who exhibits insecure-avoidant attachment pat- 
 terns. He is also confused about his sexual iden- 
 tity, due to a poor relationship with his father: 
 
 Case Study: "Chucky" 
 
 Chucky has been hospitalized more than 10 times 
 because of poor medication management that often 
 leads to psychotic episodes. His episodes include 
 paranoid aggressive feelings and illusions of gran- 
 deur. When Chucky is stable, he functions quite well. 
 He graduated from college and is currently attending 
 graduate school. His career goal is to work in the ra- 
 dio broadcasting field. Chucky is well read, culturally 
 and politically aware, and always willing to work. 
 However, he often loses jobs when he is hospitalized. 
 Therefore, he is usually employed in job positions that 
 he can easily obtain, but where he is overqualified 
 (such as in grocery or retail stores). 
 
 Chucky is very involved in therapy and can be quite 
 introspective with his feelings. He recalls that his 
 father was never attentive, and as a result, they do 
 not have a close relationship. When Chucky was a 
 teenager, his father and mother began having an un- 
 usual and strained relationship. During that time, his 
 father began bving with another woman, but never 
 dissolved the marriage with Chucky's mother. 
 Chucky's father still had physical access to the home, 
 and he returned at will. Other household members 
 responded as if he had not been absent from the 
 home. 
 
 Chucky indicates that he has a positive relationship 
 with his mother, but does not understand why she 
 allowed her marriage to his father (or his behavior) to 
 continue for all of these years. Due to the confusion in 
 his home life and the strained relationship with his 
 father, Chucky has never had a meaningful intimate 
 relationship. Instead, he engages in anonymous sex- 
 ual encounters with men who remind him of his fa- 
 ther. However, Chucky does not consider himself to be 
 
 M Hamilton (1982). 
 
 35 Main (1985). 
 
 36 Bias (1985). 
 
 " Bias (1985). 
 
 38 Brown, 1957, 1958; Nash, 1965. 
 
 125
 
 a homosexual. He feels awkward around women, but 
 hopes to someday marry and have children. 
 
 He feels that the lack of a positive father-child rela- 
 tionship has tremendously affected his mental health. 
 Because Chucky has a chronic mental illness 
 (schizophrenia), the most that I can do to assist is to 
 help him with his medication management, and pro- 
 vide a supportive environment, where he can speak 
 without fear or repercussion. Although Chucky's fa- 
 ther recently showed some brief interest in Chucky's 
 health condition, this may not last for a consistent 
 period of time. 
 
 As Chucky's therapist, it was my goal to find a more 
 supportive Uving environment to help stabilize him, 
 regardless of his parental involvement. I eventually 
 assisted in helping him obtain medication that can be 
 injected, as well as locating supportive housing for the 
 mentally ill. With these supports in place, Chucky 
 will hopefully function better and be hospitalized less. 
 
 Other examples of insecure-attachment pat- 
 terns are described by one researcher, Wilson, 
 who defines male children with false manhood 
 ideals as misled or misdirected. He indicated 
 that due to the oppressive circumstances that 
 these boys have experienced, when they become 
 adults, they will begin to form a "reactionary 
 masculinity" type personahty. In his book, Un- 
 derstanding Black Adolescent Male Violence, 
 Wilson lists 27 characteristics of the reactionary 
 mascuhnity personahty type. In my experience, I 
 have found five of these characteristics the usu- 
 ally occur in some of my young male chents: 
 
 1. They tend to be opinionated and to view 
 every social encounter as a test to his mas- 
 cuhnity, and as a struggle for power. 
 
 2. They mistakenly identify physicaUty and 
 crudeness, with mascuhnity; view domina- 
 tion, insensitivity, unconcern, wilhngness to 
 injure or kill, seeks revenge, as essentially 
 mascuhne traits. 
 
 3. They are motivated primarily by fear, avoid- 
 ance, escape, retreat from responsibdity, 
 ego-defense, and reactionary frustration; by 
 a deep and ever-present sense of inadequacy; 
 by an inferiority complex; and an obsessive 
 need to appear superior. 
 
 4. They are motivated and defined by self- 
 ahenation, exhibit an absence of self- 
 knowledge, are ignorant of his ethnic- 
 heritage, exhibit unbounded hedonism and 
 
 narcissistic drives, have deep insecurities re- 
 garding the reahty of his masculinity and of 
 his masculine courage. 
 5. They find no deep satisfaction on any level of 
 activity and are forced into continued pur- 
 suit and conquest. Therefore their relation- 
 ships with women tend to be exploitative, 
 fleeting, unstable, disloyal, and unreliable. 39 
 
 For example, one of my cases that best dem- 
 onstrates insecure-avoidant attachment and the 
 reactionary-mascuhnitycharacteristics is "Jessie": 
 
 Case Study: "Jessie" 
 
 Jessie was a 10-year-old Afincan American boy diag- 
 nosed with attention deficient hyperactivity disorder 
 with psychotic features, as well as mental retarda- 
 tion. He was hospitalized once at 5 years old for 
 hearing voices and steabng a gun from a police offi- 
 cer. He was referred to me for supportive counseling 
 and to learn anger management skills. Jessie lived 
 with his mother, who had a boyfriend who lived with 
 them from time to time. Jessie's father rarely came to 
 visit him. During play therapy sessions, Jessie would 
 vigorously bang a male doll on a desk to demonstrate 
 his anger with his father. His mother was also very 
 overwhelmed with caring for Jessie and would often 
 complain about this in firont of him. Sometimes Jes- 
 sie's mother would pick fights with him and hit him 
 for no reason. She refused therapy for herself since 
 she felt she was extremely dedicated to Jessie. Also, 
 because he needed constant attention, she felt that 
 she could not obtain a worthwhile job and make a 
 better Life for them. 
 
 Jessie exhibited a disorganized attachment relation- 
 ship with his mother. He would occasionally not want 
 to be separated from her. However, if she dismissed 
 his affection he would suddenly become very distant 
 towards her, curse, and walk away. I also observed in 
 some instances, role reversal between mother and 
 son. He would become the caregiver and order his 
 mother around as if she were the child. Jessie was 
 preoccupied with wanting to be the "man of the 
 house" and would make constant references to what 
 he thought men should be doing, such as "having t>ex." 
 
 Due to the unpredictability of his mother, Jessie was 
 extremely hyperactive and aggressive with other chil- 
 dren. When the stress of his home fife became too 
 much, Jessie would complain of hearing voices, and 
 become quite abusive towards his mother, peers, and 
 teachers at school. On one occasion I had to have Jes- 
 sie hospitalized in an in-patient mental health set- 
 
 3» Wilson (1991). 
 
 126
 
 ting. It then became clear that Jessie was not my only 
 patient. His mother had some sufficient mental 
 health problems that compounded Jessie's, but she 
 was in denial of the need to seek treatment. Once 
 Jessie became well enough to be discharged, I worked 
 with his mother to put him into a school that is spe- 
 cifically geared to help children like him. The school 
 had a very supportive teaching staff and was open 12 
 months of the year. School authorities involved Jes- 
 sie's mother in various activities, and offered a special 
 sleep-away camp (that Jessie attended for 2 weeks in 
 the summer). I also arranged for a visiting nurse and 
 a home attendant to come to their home after school 
 to provide medication management, and to help re- 
 lieve any stress Jessie's mother was feeling. These 
 support systems were essential for both Jessie and 
 his mother to help them achieve secure foundations. 
 
 Jessie's and Chucky's circumstances differ 
 from Charlie's attachment situation as illus- 
 trated in the "superkids" example. In insecure- 
 avoidant and reactionary-masculinity cases, the 
 role of the psychotherapist and the policy maker 
 must be structured to offer dependable support 
 for those in desperate need of available services. 
 
 Discussion 
 
 Today's policy makers do not have to create 
 new and innovative safety net programs for most 
 of these children. Existing programs, such as 
 mentoring and after-school programs, organized 
 sports, dance and art classes, tutoring, home 
 care services and specialized services (i.e., 
 speech therapy), are quite adequate in address- 
 ing the majority of these children's needs. The 
 primary barrier to helping children in need is 
 the accessibility and quality of local services. 
 Many free services, such as rehable after-school 
 programs are not always located in nearby 
 schools. For example, one parent told me that he 
 attempted to enroll his child in an after-school 
 program, but it was located too far away from 
 the child's school. In most middle-class neigh- 
 borhoods, after-school programs are usually in 
 the child's school or in the vicinity. Another par- 
 ent of four boys told me that she tried to enroll 
 her children into an organized football or base- 
 ball sports team in her East New York neigh- 
 borhood in Brooklyn. However, the nearest 
 baseball team was in Queens, which is in a dif- 
 ferent borough. She also could not beheve the 
 amount of money she would have to pay for aU of 
 their uniforms and equipment. It is not difficult 
 
 to imagine how restless four boys become, if no 
 extracurricular activities are available to them. 
 
 There is also a lack of essential educational 
 services in low-income communities for these 
 children. One exception is the New York City 
 Early Intervention (EI) program, which origi- 
 nates from New York State regulations and 1993 
 Federal laws.**" EI is an entitlement program for 
 at-risk children from birth to 3 years of age who 
 may be suspected of having developmental de- 
 lays or confirmed disabihties. The program of- 
 fers free intervention services and/or therapy 
 (i.e., speech or physical therapy)."*' State agen- 
 cies are authorized to operate this program. ■'^ In 
 New York, the program is regulated by the New 
 York State Department of Health, and on the 
 city level, the Department of Mental Health, 
 Mental Retardation and Alcoholism Services. 
 Evaluations and services are of no cost to the 
 parents and can be provided in the child's home 
 or at a designated Early Intervention center- 
 based location. '*3 
 
 In low-income urban neighborhoods, at least 
 15 percent to 20 percent of the children are emo- 
 tionally at risk and are in need of Early Inter- 
 vention services'*'' One difficixlty is that some of 
 the parents who would like home-based Early 
 Intervention services for their children may not 
 receive it, because Early Intervention providers 
 are usually hesitant to venture into inner-city 
 neighborhoods. As a result, some EI program 
 providers choose not to provide services in these 
 areas. Many young children who have been con- 
 tracted for home-based services tend to be wait- 
 hsted for approximately 4 to 6 weeks, until an EI 
 provider becomes available, or else the children 
 have no alternative but to attend a center-based 
 program. If infants are forced to attend center- 
 based programs, they risk exposure to allergens 
 
 ■"o N.Y. Pub. Health Law § 2540 (Consol. 1998); see also 
 United States Department of Education, OfBce of Special 
 Education and Rehabilitative Services, "Children and Youth 
 with Disabilities — Funding Priorities," 56 Fed. Reg. 51766 
 (1991). This source includes an early education program as a 
 proposed funding priority for fiscal years 1992 and 1993. 
 
 ■" Infant-Child Health Assessment Program Fact Sheet. 
 
 "2 See N.Y. COMP. CODES. R. & REGS. tit. 10, § 69-4. 12(a) 
 (1998). The regulation provides a listing of approved service 
 providers in New York State. 
 
 13 See N. Y. COMP. CODES R. & REGS. tit. 10, § 69-4.30(a) 
 (1998). Eligible providers can receive reimbursement firom 
 Medicaid for their services. 
 '•'' Infant-Child Health Assessment Program Fact Sheet. 
 
 127
 
 and other contaminants that may jeopardize 
 their developing immune systems. Hence, their 
 risk of illness increases. In fact, the lack of EI 
 providers in low-income neighborhoods has be- 
 come such a prevalent problem in New York 
 City, that the New York City Department of 
 Mental Health (Regional Brooklyn) office has 
 assembled a task force to address this issue. 
 
 The Early Intervention program reflects typi- 
 cal poUcies that stipulate that everyone has the 
 right to receive services regardless of his or her 
 race, creed, religion, or residence. However, 
 when these programs are managed by local 
 agencies, oftentimes low-income children do not 
 receive accessible services in an equitable man- 
 ner. It is clear that the federal government must 
 not merely design the ideology for Early Inter- 
 vention programs, but also must supervise the 
 provision of the programs' services. It must be 
 ensured that every child in need, regardless of 
 the neighborhood he or she resides in, receives 
 appropriate intervention services. Moreover, 
 continuous funding for these programs is also 
 needed, since too often a noteworthy program is 
 offered for 1 year, but then it is eliminated the 
 following year due to funding cuts. How can we 
 address the crisis of the young African American 
 male, if we are not consistent in providing se- 
 cure, available, and supportive intervention re- 
 sources for at-risk youth in the community? 
 
 Suggested Innovative Strategies 
 Establish Intervention Opportunities in the 
 Foster Care System 
 
 Foster care can be seen as the ultimate 
 breakdown in the attachment process. It is here 
 where children from poorly attached families 
 require safe placements. Every year, the influx 
 of children who enter the foster care system in- 
 creases. It is estimated that by the end of this 
 century, the AIDS epidemic will result in ap- 
 proximately 80,000 orphaned children in the 
 United States. ''^ This will further tax an ill- 
 prepared foster care system with its existing 
 pohcies for placing children in foster care.''^ I 
 concur with the following pohcy recommendation 
 from the Committee on Pediatrics AIDS, as de- 
 
 scribed in "Children Whose Parents are Dying of 
 HIV/AIDS," who advocates for health care poli- 
 cies that would help to alleviate this upcoming 
 problem: 
 
 Agencies should "develop flexible policies that permit 
 temporary placement of children during parental ill- 
 ness and the return of children if the parent regains 
 sufficient health. . . . Furthermore, poHcies should 
 address the special concerns about the continuity of 
 health care during placement."'" Quite often, children 
 who are placed in the foster care system are removed 
 from their primar>' provider without warning and as a 
 result, the child may not receive proper medical 
 care.''* 
 
 Secondly, supportive counsehng should begin 
 in the foster care placement process, once the 
 child is assigned to a caseworker. So often, I 
 have observed that caseworkers do not have ac- 
 curate perceptions of a child's family dynamics 
 to make helpful assessment of the future place- 
 ment plan. In cases when the child will be re- 
 turning to his or her natural parents, the foster 
 care agency should mandate family counseling 
 for at least 6 months prior to placement. This 
 should help to ease the child's transition process. 
 Specifically, the benefits of this counsehng for 
 displaced children and their famihes include: 
 
 1. Helping children who usually suffer from 
 separation anxiety and depressed moods 
 with their feehngs of isolation and aban- 
 donment. This is an opportunity to prevent 
 children, who may be at-risk to join gangs, 
 runaway, or steal, from becoming involved in 
 additional harm, as well as allowing them 
 the chance to express their feeUngs while 
 staying connected with their natural family. 
 
 2. Helping parents to better organize their lives 
 by improving their coping skills with drug 
 treatment, twelve-step programs, parenting 
 classes, support groups on an as-needed ba- 
 sis. In some cases, parents require assistance 
 with the case management of health care. 
 The foster care system cannot just require 
 parents to help themselves, but should also 
 provide a mechanism for them to do so. 
 
 ■•^ Committee on Pediatrics AIDS, "Planning for Children 
 Whose Parents are Dying of HIV/AIDS," Pediatrics, 1999, 
 vol. 103, pp. 509-10. 
 
 « Ibid. 
 
 47 Ibid. 
 « Ibid. 
 
 128
 
 However, if parents do not comply or accept 
 this assistance, then a time limitation should be 
 estabhshed and enforced for the parent to obtain 
 his or her child from foster care placement. It is 
 necessary for a child to know of his future living 
 arrangements as soon as possible. A Ungering 
 timeframe, during which a child is uncertain of 
 his living arrangements, only heightens his 
 anxiety, and makes him insecure in his current 
 living situation. '•^ 
 
 All-Male Programs 
 
 I think it is absolutely necessary for male 
 children, particularly those who are raised by 
 single mothers, to spend some of their formative 
 years in an all-male environment, such as 
 grammar schools or a boys' camp. This wUl ex- 
 pose them to more male figures and mentors 
 who can guide them and balance the lack of male 
 figures in their family structure. These boys can 
 
 begin to develop the secure male relationships 
 that can help them identify their sexual identity, 
 role orientation, and a quahty relationship with 
 the opposite sex. These suggestions do not fully 
 address an insecure-relationship with their fa- 
 ther or mother, but at least they will be able to 
 have access to more positive male influences. 
 
 African American Male Programs 
 
 Although African American male programs 
 are ideal environments for young black males to 
 learn their history and culture, as well as estab- 
 Ush secure attachment relationships with men, I 
 maintain that they are not the sole mechanisms 
 for these opportunities. Because my cUents hve 
 in ethnically diverse neighborhoods, I maintain 
 that any responsible, sincere, and dedicated man 
 (regardless of his race or ethnicity) can teach a 
 young African American male to become simi- 
 larly responsible and secure with his manhood. 
 
 ■•^ See Case Study; "Sammie." Sammie is currently experi- 
 encing this problem. She is a 10-year-old girl, who was 
 placed in foster care due to neglect, maternal drug use, and 
 poor school attendance. She exhibited a depressed mood, 
 constantly wrung her hands and bit her fingers, and reads 
 below her grade level. She has been in foster care for one 
 year and has expressed her happiness with being placed 
 with her foster parents. Her greatest fear is that she might 
 have to return to her natural mother. This child lives in 
 constant fear and anxiety that she will be unable to return 
 to her foster home, when she has a mandated visit with her 
 natural mother. Her natural mother is verbally abusive 
 towards her children in Sammie's presence. In cases such as 
 this, the children's caseworker should be aware of the fam- 
 ily's situation and make appropriate plans that benefit the 
 children. 
 
 129
 
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 131
 
 The Health Crisis of Young Blacl^ Men in the Inner City 
 
 John A. Rich, M.D., MPH* 
 
 Introduction 
 
 Young black men in the inner city have a 
 health status that is, by most measures, worse 
 than that of their white counterparts. With re- 
 gard to a number of diseases, most of them pre- 
 ventable, young black men are disproportion- 
 ately affected. Because of this fact, black men 
 have a higher death rate at all ages and a lower 
 life expectancy. In 1995, the age-adjusted mor- 
 tahty rate for black males in the United States 
 was 1,107 per 100,000, 80 percent higher than 
 the rate for white males. The hfe expectancy at 
 birth for black males is 66.1, compared with 73.8 
 years for white males. ^ While the hfe expectancy 
 at birth has generally increased over time for the 
 United States population, twice in the past dec- 
 ade, there has been a decrease in the life expec- 
 tancy of black males. Much of the disparity in 
 life expectancy and the higher mortality rate can 
 be accounted for by: deaths due to violence, the 
 higher rate of infant mortahty in blacks, and the 
 climbing rate of deaths due to HIV disease, all of 
 which disproportionately affect black males. 
 Violence and homicide take their worst toll in 
 younger men, especially those who live in cities. 
 But for other nonfatal diseases, young black 
 males also have a higher rate of disease than 
 their white counterparts. 
 
 Why does this population, described by a 
 combination of age, race, and gender, suffer 
 worse health outcomes than other groups? It is 
 worth taking a moment to understand what we 
 know about the way in which each of these 
 demographic characteristics contributes to 
 
 * Chief medical ofBcer, Boston Public Health Commission. 
 ' Anderson R.N., Kochanek K.D., Murphy S.L., Report of 
 Final Mortality Statistics, U.S. Department of Health and 
 Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Preven- 
 tion, 1995. 
 
 health status, as a way to interpret the health 
 statistics of young black men. 
 
 Age 
 
 Young people tend not to be affected by 
 chronic diseases, but rather tend to have a 
 higher burden of acute diseases related to spe- 
 cific behaviors. Adolescence, particularly, is a 
 time when teenagers engage in normal risk- 
 taking behavior in an attempt to explore their 
 unique identity and progress toward the inde- 
 pendence of adulthood. Adolescents also are in a 
 unique stage of cognitive development and are 
 progressing from a time of concrete thinking to 
 greater and greater levels of abstraction. The 
 turbulence of adolescence for all young people 
 cannot be overstated. Young people in this age 
 period experience physical, mental, and emo- 
 tional transformation that does not occur to the 
 same degree at any other time in their hfe 
 spans. It is precisely because of the uniqueness 
 of this period that typical approaches to health 
 care and health promotion may prove to be inef- 
 fective. 
 
 Diseases relating to sexual behavior, sexually 
 transmitted diseases (STDs), and injuries (both 
 intentional and unintentional) predominate as 
 causes of morbidity and mortality. Human im- 
 munodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, contracted 
 in the teenage years, begins to manifest itself in 
 the early 20s as symptomatic HIV disease. Sub- 
 stance abuse related problems are also common, 
 owing to experimentation with tobacco, mari- 
 juana, and more serious drugs like alcohol, co- 
 caine, LSD, and opiates. Mental health prob- 
 lems, including depression and psychoses, may 
 also become apparent here. The relationship be- 
 tween age and health then is manifested by dis- 
 eases that are related to behaviors. Some of 
 these behaviors are a natural outgrowth of the 
 
 132
 
 turbulent stage of life that all young people must 
 traverse. 
 
 Race 
 
 Race is not a biological construct but a social 
 one. It is meaningful only in the context of a so- 
 ciety and while it may be related to culture, it is 
 distinct. Race has a potent association with our 
 health presumably because it proxies for a num- 
 ber of unmeasured factors such as poverty, lack 
 of access to health care, disparate treatment 
 within the health care system, poor housing 
 stock, living in close proximity to environmental 
 hazards, and racism and the stresses that ac- 
 company real and perceived oppression. 2 Each of 
 these factors is documented in literature. Racism 
 decreases the value of a given level of education 
 or set of skills. For example, United States cen- 
 sus data^ clearly demonstrate that black males 
 earn less money than their white counterparts 
 for the same occupation and level of education. 
 
 Social scientist David Wilhams has noted 
 that racism is a critical part of the model of ex- 
 plaining the poorer overall health of black peo- 
 ple.* His model suggests that historical macro- 
 social factors created racism in society by high- 
 lighting certain physical characteristics and geo- 
 graphic origins. These significant conditions, in 
 turn, create social statuses such as race, ethnic- 
 ity, socioeconomic status, and gender roles, some 
 of which negatively affect health through certain 
 risk factors (e.g., health behaviors, stress, medi- 
 cal care) and resources (e.g., social, psychologi- 
 cal, cultural). Consequently, these factors when 
 combined with the lack of essential resources, 
 
 2 Freeman H.P., "Poverty, Race, Racism and Survival," An- 
 nals of Epidemiology, 1993, vol. 3, pp. 14-49; Montgomery 
 L.E., Carter-Pokras O., "Health Status by Social Class 
 and/or Minority Status: Implications for Environmental 
 Equity Research," Toxicology and Industrial Health, 1993, 
 vol. 9, pp. 729-73; Greenberg M., Schneider D., "Violence in 
 American Cities: Young Black Males is the Answer, but 
 What is the Question?" Social Science and Medicine, 1994, 
 vol. 39, pp. 179-«7; Williams DR., Lavizzo-Mourey R., War- 
 ren R.C., "The Concept of Race and Health Status in Amer- 
 ica," Public Health Report, 1994, vol. 109, pp. 26-41; Wil- 
 liams D.R., Collins C, "U.S. Socioeconomic and Racial Dif- 
 ferences in Health: Patterns and Explanations," Annual 
 Review of Sociology, 1995, vol. 21, pp. 349-86. 
 
 3 U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1997. 
 
 * Williams, Lavizzo-Mourey, and Warren, "The Concept of 
 Race," pp. 26-41; Williams and Collins, "U.S. Socioeco- 
 nomic," pp. 349-86. 
 
 impact psychological and biological mechanisms 
 to negatively affect health status. 
 
 Gender 
 
 Biologic and social factors may cause males to 
 be more vulnerable to certain health problems. 
 Testosterone, the hormone responsible for male 
 development, also imparts certain behavioral 
 aggressiveness to males that is a biologic re- 
 sponse. This biologic response is coupled with a 
 societal expectation that males are aggressive, 
 violent, and dominant. In American society, the 
 expectation that manhood must be proven is in- 
 cubated in males from infancy. Media images, 
 military service, organized sports, and school 
 rituals all support an image of males as aggres- 
 sive, reticent to display emotion and fears, self- 
 reliant, and self-sufficient. These expectations 
 affect the health of men of all ages. Men are less 
 hkely to utilize health care services and to take 
 advantage of mental health resources, such as 
 stress reduction therapy. The propensity to 
 avoid physical and mental health care has a pro- 
 found effect upon future disease. Unrestrained 
 stress, for example, has been associated with 
 coronary heart disease, the number one killer of 
 black men. Opportunities for effective early de- 
 tection of fatal disease later in life, such as pros- 
 tate and colorectal cancers, are often lost when 
 men avoid regular medical care. 
 
 The Health Combination: Young + Black + Male 
 
 The foregoing discussion has determined how 
 three factors — age, race, and gender are related 
 to health. However, when combined in this 
 unique and famUiar phrase — "young black 
 men" — the words and their associated risks, 
 somehow become more than the sum of their 
 parts. Young black men have unjustly come to 
 serve as representations of menacing crime, 
 violence, sexual promiscuity, drug addiction, and 
 hopelessness. There is a profound lack of under- 
 standing on the part of health care, social service 
 institutions, and pubhc health about the roles 
 that the urban social environment, racism, and 
 poverty play in the health of young black men. 
 Media depictions and marketing schemes have 
 seized upon the image of young black men as the 
 embodiment of urban cultural "cool." Ambitious 
 pohticians have painted young black men as 
 criminals, drug dealers, and gang members, and 
 promptly constructed larger prisons to hold 
 them. This population is often viewed as mono- 
 
 133
 
 lithic, since it is perceived as being dispropor- 
 tionately affected by poverty, economic and edu- 
 cational deprivation, arrests, and police brutal- 
 ity. Citizens, policy makers, and health care pro- 
 viders who are constantly bombarded with these 
 unilateral images, come to believe that they un- 
 derstand the lives of young black men without 
 stopping to question underlying factors that 
 have led them to their conclusions. Health care 
 providers and health pohcy makers are not im- 
 mune to these stereotypes and, as a result, 
 medical and public health pohcies too often re- 
 flect the biases inherent in the larger society. To 
 the extent that this is true, young black men in 
 urban environments may be relatively invisible 
 to the health care and public health infrastruc- 
 ture, while bearing a major share of the disease 
 morbidity and mortality. 
 
 Overview of the Health Issues that 
 Disproportionately Affect Young Black Men 
 
 Violence 
 
 Young black men are disproportionately the 
 victims of violence. Homicide is the leading 
 cause of death for young black men ages 15 to 34 
 years old.^ In 1996, 5,626 black men in this age 
 group died from homicide in the United States. 
 In 1989, the lifetime chances of a black man dy- 
 ing as a result of homicide was 1 in 27, compared 
 to 1 in 205 for white men. In 1992, despite 
 making up only 1.3 percent of the nation's 
 population, black males ages 16 to 24 years old 
 experienced 17.2 percent of the nation's homi- 
 cides. This is equivalent to a homicide rate of 
 114.9 per 100,000 for this group. Black males in 
 1992 were nearly 14 times more likely to be vic- 
 tims of homicide than the general population.^ 
 
 While the effects of homicide in young black 
 men are weU known, the impact of nonfatal vio- 
 lence is much less appreciated. In 1992, among 
 young black males ages 12 to 24 years old, there 
 was one violent victimization for every eight 
 black males.' Yet, the actuahty of young black 
 men being victims of violence is often overshad- 
 owed by their roles as perpetrators. Most young 
 black men who are injured are hurt by other 
 
 young black males. U.S. Department of Justice 
 statistics show that the vast majority of inter- 
 personal violence for blacks and whites is intra- 
 racial. For example, in 1992, among the victims 
 of violence ages 16 to 24 years old who could de- 
 termine the characteristics of their assailant, 82 
 percent of the assailants of black males and 71 
 percent of the assailants of white males involved 
 an offender or offenders of the same race.^ 
 
 While most have quantified violence in terms 
 of homicide rates or lives lost, nonfatal injury 
 accounts for significant morbidity. It occurs 100 
 times more frequently than fatal violence. Vio- 
 lence is also clearly a recurrent problem. Several 
 studies have demonstrated that among indi- 
 viduals (of all races and genders) who have ex- 
 perienced a penetrating injury, 45 to 50 percent 
 will be injured again in the 5 years, and 20 per- 
 cent will be dead. 3 By some estimates, for each 
 homicide victim, there are 100 victims of nonfa- 
 tal violence. These episodes of nonfatal violence 
 have serious consequences. Some young men are 
 left with cripphng disabilities that remove them 
 from the work force and destroy their chances 
 for future meaningful work. Others are left with 
 significant emotional disabihty, due to post- 
 traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 
 
 PTSD is a trauma-related syndrome, charac- 
 terized by extreme hyperstimulation, night- 
 mares, depression, hyper-vigilence, and flash- 
 backs to the traumatic experience. PTSD has not 
 been studied extensively in young men in the 
 inner city, but overall, the disorder may contrib- 
 ute to significant disability, substance abuse, 
 and possibly recurrent violence.'" Young men 
 who are injured in the inner city may feel vul- 
 
 ^ Anderson, Kochanek and Murphy, Report of Final Mortal- 
 ity. 
 
 ^ Young Black Male Victims, U.S. Department of Justice, 
 1994. 
 
 ' Ibid. 
 
 « Ibid. 
 
 9 Sims D.W., Bivins B.A., Obeid F.N., Horst H.M., Sorensen 
 v. J., Path J.J.. "Urban Trauma: A Chronic Recurrent Dis- 
 ease," Journal of Trauma, 1989, vol. 29, pp. 940-47; Coins 
 W.A., Thompson J, Simpkins C, "Recurrent Internal In- 
 jury," Journal of the National Medical Association, 1992, vol. 
 84, pp. 431-35. 
 
 '0 Breslau N., Davis G.C., Andreski P., Peterson E. 
 "Traumatic Events and Post-Traumatic Stress disorder in 
 an Urban Population of Young Adults," Archives of General 
 Psychiatry, 1991, vol. 48, pp. 216-22; Campbell C, Schwarz 
 D.F., "Prevalence and Impact of Exposure to Interpersonal 
 Violence Among Suburban and Urban Middle School Stu- 
 dents, Pediatrics, 1996, vol. 98, pp. 396-402; Fitzpatrick K., 
 Boldizar J., "The Prevalence and Consequences of Exposure 
 to Violence Among African-American Youth, " JoKr;ia/ of the 
 American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 
 1993, vol., 32, pp. 424-30. 
 
 134
 
 nerable when they return to their neighbor- 
 hoods. Plagued by symptoms of anxiety and hy- 
 perstimulation, even in environments that pre- 
 viously seemed safe to them, some may feel 
 compelled to arm themselves with guns or 
 knives. They may doubt the ability or desire of 
 the police to protect them or to apprehend their 
 assailants. Others may turn to alcohol or other 
 drugs such as marijuana, in an attempt to self- 
 treat their anxiety. The combination of these 
 reactions related to the symptoms of trauma 
 have the potential to increase the young man's 
 risk of violence. 
 
 Several studies confirm the notion that vic- 
 tims of violent injury are more likely to suffer 
 subsequent violent injuries. In a retrospective 
 analysis of victims of violence in Detroit, Sims, 
 et al. found that 44 percent of patients suffered a 
 recurrent injury within a 5-year period. Over 
 that same period, there was a 20 percent mor- 
 tality rate in the cohort study, due to both vio- 
 lence and substance abuse. '^ The authors con- 
 cluded that violence is a chronic disease with a 
 significant mortality. Coins, et al. conducted 
 both retrospective and prospective studies on 
 hospital admissions for abdominal trauma. They 
 detected a recurrence rate of 48 percent in the 
 retrospective study, and 47 percent in the pro- 
 spective study. The researchers also found an 
 association between unemployment and recur- 
 rent violence. They suggested that efforts aimed 
 at reducing the rate of unemployment might 
 help to lower episodes of violent injury. '^ 
 
 Some have suggested that this increased rate 
 of reinjury is due to these young men returning 
 to ilhcit or dangerous activities, or attempting to 
 exact revenge upon their assailants. Some re- 
 searchers have indeed found that young men 
 who are injured, may feel compelled to attempt 
 retribution, not out of anger, but due to a per- 
 ceived need to show their strength and avoid 
 futvire victimization. This reaction to assault in a 
 social environment that is perceived as very hos- 
 tile is common, and may be resistant to tradi- 
 tional conflict resolution approaches. In the lan- 
 guage of these young men, the need to avoid be- 
 ing a "sucker" is deeply rooted in their notions of 
 what it means to be a man, as well as in their 
 
 ideas about the consequences of being perceived 
 as weak or vulnerable. Equivalent slang terms 
 like "punk," "chump," or "buster" have similar 
 connotations and represent a central notion of 
 what it means to Hve in the world as a young 
 black man in the inner city.'^ 
 
 Effective approaches to curbing violence 
 should center on the understanding that vio- 
 lence is a complex phenomenon. It is important 
 to reaUze that violence results from a number of 
 factors, and therefore a "one size fits aU" ap- 
 proach to addressing this health problem is 
 hkely to fail. While some young men are injured 
 due to their involvement in gangs or in the illicit 
 economy, according to police data, many more 
 are injured as a result of interpersonal conflicts, 
 perceived jealousy, and conflicts inflamed by the 
 presence of drugs or alcohol. 
 
 The dramatic decrease in violence in the 
 United States, particularly due to homicides 
 among youth less than 16 years old, has been 
 largely credited to the collective efforts of 
 churches, community-based organizations, pub- 
 lic health authorities, and innovative law en- 
 forcement strategies such as community poUc- 
 ing. These reductions have not occurred in all 
 cities, but a substantial number of cities such as 
 Boston, Chicago, and New York have noted sig- 
 nificant decreases in violent crime. Still, Uttle 
 objective research is available to confirm the 
 relative contributors to the reduction in injuries. 
 However, despite the recent tendency to regard 
 violence as a pubhc health problem that is ame- 
 nable to surveillance, program implementation, 
 education and poUcy development, many of these 
 reductions in violent injury have been accompa- 
 nied by significant increases in the number of 
 young black men in prison. While few would 
 doubt that increased law enforcement efforts are 
 an integral part of any strategy to decrease vio- 
 lent injury, it is not at all clear that such ap- 
 proaches have a positive effect on either the 
 young men who are incarcerated or on the com- 
 munities to which they will eventually return. In 
 fact, given what we know about the effects of 
 trauma and violence in young men and the lack 
 of economic opportunity in communities of color, 
 young men who spend significant amounts of 
 
 " Sims, Bivins, Obeid, Horst, Sorensen, and Path, "Urban 
 Trauma." 
 
 '2 Coins, Thompson, Simpkins, "Recurrent Intentional In- 
 jury." 
 
 '3 Rich J.A., Stone D.A., 'The Experience of Violent Injury 
 for Young African American Men: The Meaning of Being a 
 'Sucker'," Journal of General Internal Medicine, 1996, vol. 
 11, pp. 77-82. 
 
 135
 
 time in jail ultimately have high rates of sub- 
 stance abuse, homelessness, and recidivism to 
 jail. Indeed, jails often lack resources to provide 
 adequate drug treatment services and mental 
 health support. Overcrowded jail conditions, 
 which are also frequently the rule in American 
 cities, expose newly incarcerated young men to 
 even more stress and violence in a confined envi- 
 ronment. Many young men find that incarcera- 
 tions, which are rapidly becoming a "rite of pas- 
 sage" in the inner city, are traumatic and lacking 
 in adequate health services. 
 
 HIV and AIDS 
 
 Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) 
 is the leading cause of death for black men be- 
 tween the ages of 25 and 44 years old. The rate 
 of HIV infection is rising among black men at a 
 higher rate than in any other group. ••• While 35 
 percent of HIV infections result from the use of 
 intravenous drugs and the sharing of infected 
 needles, a substantial proportion of these are 
 due to sexual transmission. Of these sexually 
 transmitted HIV infections, the largest propor- 
 tion (38 percent) have resulted from men having 
 sex with men. HIV infection was attributed to 
 heterosexual contact in 7 percent of these cases, 
 while no risk factor was identified in 12 percent 
 of the cases. This high proportion of cases in 
 which no risk factor can be identified is signifi- 
 cantly more than the proportion in any other 
 group, perhaps indicating that black men are 
 reluctant to acknowledge risk behaviors, even 
 when diagnosed with AIDS. 
 
 The introduction of effective therapies for 
 AIDS has modified the use of mortaUty data as a 
 reasonable means of detecting HIV infection, 
 given the fact that the disease is uniformly fatal. 
 The reduction in symptomatic HIV infection be- 
 cause of highly active antiretroviral therapy 
 (HAART or informaUy known as "the cocktail") 
 treatment measures makes it necessary to have 
 more accurate data about the rate of new HIV 
 infections. BUnded seroprevalence data's on HIV 
 
 '■> HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report, U.S. Department of 
 Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control, 
 1998. 
 
 '5 "Blinded seroprevalence data" is obtained through a pub- 
 lic health surveillance technique. This data collection 
 method tests blood samples for the presence of a variety of 
 diseases, in order to determine the percentage of individuals 
 in a certain population who may have certain illnesses. The 
 
 infections also indicate that black men are at a 
 high risk of new HIV infection. 
 
 These data point to the necessity of finding 
 effective ways to change the behavior of young 
 black men. National studies of urban adolescent 
 males that were conducted between 1988 and 
 1995 have shown that while black adolescents' 
 attitudes about premarital sex became more 
 conservative, there was no change in their sex- 
 ual behavior.'^ In addition, AIDS education did 
 not lead to any significant modification in sexual 
 activity among black males, although some 
 change did occur among nonblack males. While 
 certain communities of gay white men have been 
 successful in reducing the rate of HIV infection 
 among men who have sex with other men, these 
 approaches have had less success in the African 
 American community. This is due in part to 
 some resistance among black men to acknowl- 
 edge bisexuaUty or homosexuaUty. In general, 
 African American communities, particularly 
 members of religious organizations, stigmatize 
 these behaviors. Consequently, some young men 
 who are struggling with their sexual preferences 
 may be unwilling to seek health resources that 
 are identified with gays or bisexuals. Moreover, 
 some young black males in urban areas may 
 have anonymous sexual encounters or otherwise 
 engage in unsafe sex, in order to avoid reveaUng 
 their sexual identities. However, a significant 
 number of HIV positive men of color do identify 
 themselves as bisexual. If indeed these men are 
 having sex with both men and women, while 
 practicing unsafe sex and not informing their 
 partners of this fact, it is possible that women 
 and consequently their children ultimately could 
 become infected with HIV. 
 
 Mental Health 
 
 Mental health services for young black men 
 are sorely lacking. It is difficult to estimate the 
 prevalence of mental health problems in this 
 population, but anecdotally, a large number of 
 young men present themselves before health 
 providers with complaints of psychosocial stress, 
 trauma-related symptoms, and general anxiety. 
 
 blood samples are not classified by patients' names or identi- 
 fication numbers. 
 
 '6 Leighton K., Sonenstein F., Lindberg L.D., Bradner C.H., 
 Boggess S., Pleck J.H., "Understanding Changes in Sexual 
 Activity Among Young Metropolitan Men; 1979-1995," Fam- 
 ily Planning Perspectives, 1998, vol. 30, pp. 256-62. 
 
 136
 
 Often these young men are reluctant to utilize 
 traditional mental health services, such as coun- 
 seling and therapy. When they do consent to 
 such therapy, all too often they are referred to 
 health providers who are completely unfamiliar 
 with the realities of life in the inner city. Conse- 
 quently, young patients perceive these providers 
 as not helpfiol or not able to understand the is- 
 sues that they face. Indeed, studies suggest that 
 when African Americans seek assistance for 
 mental health problems, black men are more 
 likely than white males to be diagnosed with 
 psychotic disorders. As a result, black males are 
 more likely to be committed as inpatients for 
 mental health treatment. For example, in Bos- 
 ton, psychosis is the second leading cause of hos- 
 pitahzation for men between the ages of 15 and 
 24 years old. Injury related illnesses are the 
 primary leading cause of hospitahzation for this 
 age and gender group. For men between the ages 
 of 25 and 34, substance abuse is the leading 
 cause of hospitalization, with psychosis as the 
 second leading cause." 
 
 Many of the mental health problems that 
 young black men experience are related to the 
 unique stresses they encounter as a result of 
 poverty, racism, and past trauma. In general, 
 young black men have higher levels of stress and 
 anxiety due to the scarcity of meaningful em- 
 ployment opportunities. These men find them- 
 selves excluded from productive work, due to the 
 lack of quahty education they more than likely 
 received from poorer quahty inner-city schools. 
 Because of their real and perceived need for eco- 
 nomic survival, some of these young men turn to 
 unlawful measures to meet their economic obh- 
 gations. Because of this fact, and due to the 
 closer level of scrutiny that young black males 
 routinely receive from the police, these young 
 men are much more likely to be arrested or in- 
 carcerated. By some estimates, fully a quarter of 
 young black men in their 20s are under the su- 
 pervision of the criminal justice system.'* This 
 disproportionate contact with the criminal jus- 
 tice system means that many of these young 
 men have criminal records that further hinder 
 their ability to obtain meaningful work. The 
 
 stresses of balancing multiple hfe pressures, of- 
 ten without material or social capital, may lead 
 to feelings of hopelessness and desperation. 
 Moreover, in addition to these circumstances, 
 the impact of trauma in the form of losing 
 friends and family members to violence results 
 in a formula for a mental health crisis. 
 
 Over the past decade, there has been a sub- 
 stantial increase in suicide rates not only among 
 black men, but among young black males in par- 
 ticular. While suicide rates in young black men 
 are stUl lower than the rates for their white 
 counterparts, this rate is increasing more rap- 
 idly than for any other group. Insufficient data 
 are available to help us understand the reasons 
 for this change, but it is hkely to be due to the 
 stresses that were previously discussed, as well 
 as the lack of access to mental health services. 
 We can also speculate that some of the suicides 
 among young men are due to their confusion 
 about their sexual identities, since a major con- 
 tributor to suicides in young people is the feeling 
 of alienation brought on by their emerging sex- 
 ual preferences. Given that homosexuahty is 
 particularly stigmatized in African American 
 communities, this ahenation may be felt in an 
 extreme manner by inner-city young black 
 males. 
 
 Substance abuse behaviors also provide some 
 insight into the emotional health of young black 
 men in urban environments. While alcohol use 
 rates are higher among white males than black 
 males, young black men have a particularly high 
 rate of marijuana use. This rate seems to be on 
 the increase.'^ This is in contrast with cocaine 
 use, which seems to be decreasing in all Ameri- 
 can populations. In my interactions as a physi- 
 cian with young black male patients, I have the 
 sense that while many use marijuana because it 
 is part of the pop culture (i.e., using it mainly 
 during social interactions), a significant number 
 use this drug to treat themselves of anxiety 
 symptoms, particularly in the aftermath of a hfe 
 trauma. While the medical imphcations of this 
 use are unclear, there is a growing sense that 
 marijuana is a "stepping stone" drug to more 
 serious substances, such as alcohol, cocaine, and 
 possibly even heroin. There is reason to be con- 
 
 " Health of Boston (Boston, MA. Boston Public Health 
 Commission, 1998). 
 
 '* Young Black Men and the Criminal Justice System: A 
 Growing National Problem, The Sentencing Project, Wash- 
 ington, DC, 1990. 
 
 19 McCaig L., Greenblatt J., OfBce of AppUed Studies, Drug 
 Abuse Warning Network: Advance Report #17, Substance 
 Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Office of 
 Applied Studies, 1998. 
 
 137
 
 cerned about this progression, since black men 
 have a higher rate of substance abuse mortahty 
 as they grow older. Moreover, these drugs are 
 not effective in treating their symptoms of anxi- 
 ety. In addition, given the lUicit nature of mari- 
 juana in particular, use of marijuana may lead 
 to even more adverse interaction with the police 
 and criminal justice system, thus compounding 
 overall stress. 
 
 The effect of racism and oppression in the 
 mental health of young black men also bears dis- 
 cussion. While less easily quantified than data 
 on specific diseases, racism stands as a constant 
 backdrop against which these men Hve their 
 lives. Harvard University psychiatrist. Dr. Ches- 
 ter Pierce, in a groundbreaking article, ex- 
 pressed the notion that "micro-aggression" fac- 
 tors (i.e., small racial insults that are experi- 
 enced on a daily basis by people of color), have 
 an aggregate effect that is equivalent to or 
 greater than "macro-aggression" circumstances, 
 such as beatings or lynchings.^" Due to the 
 stereotypes that have been associated with black 
 men, they are more likely to report experiences 
 such as arrests, harassment from the pohce, de- 
 nial of front hne employment, poor treatment in 
 the health care system, and being followed by 
 security guards in stores. To the extent that the 
 effects of these insults are additive to the other 
 stresses of Ufe, it is clear that greater attention 
 to this issue is critical. 
 
 Access to Health Care and Health Care Utilization 
 
 Despite the health problems that were previ- 
 ously discussed, young men of color are less 
 likely than others to have access to effective 
 health care services. Young people between the 
 ages of 18 and 24 years old in the United States 
 are the least likely group to have insurance cov- 
 erage. In fact, 25 percent report having no in- 
 surance.2' Young black men in particular, be- 
 cause of their socioeconomic position, are less 
 likely to qualify for public sources of insurance, 
 such as Medicaid. Even though Medicaid eligi- 
 bility has been greatly expanded in the past few 
 years, young men over the age of 18 only qualify 
 if they are classified as "long-term unemployed," 
 
 2" Pierce C. "Offensive Mechanisms," cited in The Black 
 Seventies, Barbour F., ed. (Boston: Porter Sargent Publisher; 
 1970), pp. 265-82. 
 
 2' Hof&nan C, Uninsured in America: A Chart Book, The 
 Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, 1998. 
 
 which is defined as having been unable to find 
 work for a period of 2 years or more. Otherwise, 
 nondisabled young men cannot obtain Medicaid. 
 Most Americans who are insured, obtain health 
 insurance from their employer. Employer- 
 sponsored insurance coverage is less likely to be 
 offered at work settings that have mainly un- 
 skilled and nonunion jobs. In addition, health 
 insurance is prohibitively expensive for any 
 lower income or working class individual to pur- 
 chase on the open market. The social position of 
 young urban black men with higher rates of un- 
 employment and lower skilled jobs, ultimately 
 means that they have less access to health in- 
 surance. Even those individuals who qualify for 
 coverage may not know that they are eligible, 
 since few institutions with which young black 
 men have routine contact, such as the criminal 
 justice system, have the will or capacity to en- 
 sure that they are informed of their health op- 
 tions. 
 
 Finally, even for those young men who are 
 fortunate enough to have employer-sponsored 
 health insurance or public health insurance, 
 competition among managed care health insur- 
 ers may affect their access to care. Fierce conten- 
 tion within the health care market has relegated 
 preventative care initiatives to a low priority. As 
 a result, decisions about community-based 
 health outreach often focus on financial consid- 
 erations, with minimal efforts to sponsor health 
 outreach programs for the most disenfranchised 
 populations. Therefore, even young black men 
 who may be insured, still face barriers to effec- 
 tive preventive care. Health insurers are cur- 
 rently making httle effort to change this trend. 
 
 The lack of health insurance leads to several 
 problematic health-seeking behaviors. First, 
 young men may defer necessary care for none- 
 mergent problems because of their concern that 
 they will be unable to pay for treatment. Sec- 
 ondly, they may seek care in settings such as 
 emergency rooms or urgent care chnics, which 
 are not well-equipped to offer preventive health 
 services. Furthermore, encounters in emergency 
 settings tend to be less satisfying, since patients 
 are faced with harried staff and long waiting 
 times. Such experiences may further alienate 
 this group from seeking care, particularly pre- 
 ventive health care, which is the mainstay of 
 future health and wellness. 
 
 Access to culturally appropriate providers 
 may not exist, even for those individuals with 
 
 138
 
 health insurance or the abihty to obtain free 
 health care services. Health care providers are 
 affected by societal stereotypes of young black 
 males in the same manner as the general public. 
 Providers who hold these unconscious precon- 
 ceptions may judge patients based upon stereo- 
 typical notions and relate to them in an alienat- 
 ing manner. Anecdotally, numerous young black 
 men have related that providers assume that 
 they were involved with gangs, sold or used 
 drugs, or had particular attitudes based solely 
 upon their appearance. For example, a young 
 man who was an innocent victim of random 
 street violence recalled being lectured by a white 
 health care provider about the need to "change 
 his lifestyle," without even asking the youth 
 about the circumstances of his injury. 
 
 Recent research supports the notion that pro- 
 viders unconsciously consider race when making 
 treatment decisions about the diagnostic workup 
 of heart disease. Specifically, Schulman and col- 
 leagues found that physicians viewing video- 
 tapes of actors depicting patients with heart dis- 
 ease recommended certain high technology car- 
 diac diagnostic studies less often for black pa- 
 tients and for women. 22 In this study, all of the 
 "patients" were scripted to have identical symp- 
 toms, test results, occupations, and socioeco- 
 nomic status. If health care providers, in the face 
 of an experimental environment, consider a pa- 
 tient's race when making treatment decisions, 
 then it is likely that when they interact with a 
 young black male in an actual health care set- 
 ting, racial stereotypes as well as other deeply 
 held notions influence the level of care. This 
 finding is of particular concern, given that the 
 vast majority of physicians are white, even in 
 areas where the population is much more di- 
 verse. 
 
 Results of a Study of Young Men Visiting an 
 Urban Primary Care Clinic 
 
 Since 1992, the Young Men's Health Clinic 
 has existed at Boston City Hospital (now Boston 
 Medical Center). The chnic was begun out of a 
 need to provide more effective primary care 
 services for young men who were infrequently 
 seen in the primary care clinic, and even less 
 
 2^ Schulman K.A., Berlin J.A., Harless W., et al., "The Effect 
 of Race and Sex on Physicians' Recommendations for Car- 
 diac Catheterization, New England Journal of Medicine, 
 1999, vol. 340, pp. 618-26. 
 
 frequently identified with a primary care physi- 
 cian. Between 1992 and 1995, we gathered data 
 about the patients' health care problems in order 
 to more fully understand their range of con- 
 cerns. ^3 Most striking in these results were the 
 range of serious social pressures these young 
 men were facing and their lack of utilization of 
 health care services in the past. Nearly 20 per- 
 cent reported that they had never had a physical 
 examination, and for those who had, more than 
 60 percent had not had a physical examination 
 in the past year. Almost 25 percent reported that 
 they had never had any dental care, and 54 per- 
 cent had not seen a dentist in more than a year. 
 Also, 45 percent indicated that they had been 
 shot, shot at, stabbed, or beaten in the past. Ex- 
 perience in the criminal justice system was 
 common: 58.1 percent had been arrested, 29 per- 
 cent had been incarcerated, 44 percent reported 
 having been harassed by the poUce, and 61.2 
 percent had witnessed violence. A large number 
 of these young men were parents (39 percent), 
 and more than half (52.9 percent) were unem- 
 ployed. Not surprisingly, lack of education, a his- 
 tory of incarceration, having children, and being 
 black were all associated with having experi- 
 enced a violent assault in the past. 
 
 While the majority of the young men who 
 were coming in for their initial visit reported 
 that they were coming in for a "check-up," a sub- 
 stantial number came to be evaluated for sexu- 
 ally transmitted diseases or for stress-related 
 complaints. Many young men were concerned 
 about their bodies in very specific ways, but 
 most were anxious to gain weight and were 
 looking for advice about fitness and muscle de- 
 velopment. As expected for a population of 
 younger people, skin and dental complaints were 
 also prominent. 
 
 These results highlight the wide range of 
 critical health problems in this patient popula- 
 tion, and also emphasize the ways in which the 
 societal conditions of these young men so pro- 
 foundly impact their health. Health and social 
 factors are so interrelated that they must be 
 considered together. The experiences of violence, 
 so much a part of the urban landscape, directly 
 and indirectly influence the physical and mental 
 health of these young men. Their experiences 
 with social institutions, not the least of which 
 
 23 Rich J.A., Unpublished data, 1998. 
 
 139
 
 the criminal justice system, are profoundly nega- 
 tive and often traumatic. Although these young 
 men develop ways of coping that exempUfy their 
 resihence, in the long run they basically accept 
 their circumstances. 
 
 The Future of Health for Young Black Men in 
 the Inner Cities 
 
 In light of the foregoing discussion of the in- 
 terconnectedness of health status, social factors, 
 and barriers to effective health care for young 
 urban black men, it stands to reason that the 
 future depends in large part upon our approach 
 to these social factors. The collapse of the effort 
 in the early 1990s to estabhsh a national health 
 care system has led to a proliferation of health 
 care management organizations, and has inten- 
 sified competition in the health care arena. Un- 
 fortunately, the health concerns of those most in 
 need and the public health concerns of inner-city 
 communities have not been paramount in this 
 movement. Still, with growing dissatisfaction 
 among the general pubhc with the bureaucracy 
 of managed care, it is likely that some changes 
 will occur in the next decade to improve the 
 quality of health services and to increase patient 
 satisfaction. To a large extent, the population 
 that we are discussing has been peripheral to 
 this debate, as have the poor in general. How- 
 ever, it is likely that the poor health status of 
 young black men in urban areas will continue, 
 since they remain without a voice or an advocate 
 on their behalf in this health pohcy debate. 
 
 On the other hand, the pubUc health commu- 
 nity is acquiring a greater understanding of the 
 pUght of these young men, based upon the dis- 
 turbing health trends seen in pubhc health data. 
 Public health resources can be applied and inno- 
 vative partnerships can be developed within in- 
 ner-city communities to improve the overall 
 health of this population. These partnerships 
 must include the assistance of churches, schools, 
 the criminal justice system, and the labor infra- 
 structure in order to have the needed effect of 
 improving health status. Such programs must 
 integrate the voices of young black men them- 
 selves and recognize their capacity to contribute 
 to the health of their communities. In addition, 
 health care strategies should be evaluated to 
 ensure that they can be shared with and repU- 
 cated by other urban communities. 
 
 More specifically, with regard to specific 
 health problems that disproportionately affect 
 young black males, medical advances must be 
 paired with prevention strategies and improved 
 access to care. New therapies are now available 
 to extend the Uves of people with HIV infection. 
 These treatments are quite expensive, yet many 
 states have developed programs to ensure that 
 affected patients have access to these life-saving 
 drugs, without regard to their abihty to pay. 
 However, young black men, who comprise the 
 fastest growing segment of patients with AIDS, 
 will not obtain these treatments if they do not 
 get tested for HIV. As mentioned previously, 
 stigma within communities of color about the 
 sexual behaviors that lead to HIV infection, may 
 cause young men at risk to avoid testing for fear 
 they will be ostracized. Attention to this barrier 
 is critical, since access to HIV medications and 
 targeted prevention strategies will be central to 
 our ability to reduce the growing HIV epidemic 
 in urban areas. 
 
 The problem of violent injviry, the most 
 pressing issue for young black men, has seen 
 some decrease in the past few years. While many 
 have taken credit for this reduction, its causes 
 are not yet clear. Any approaches to this prob- 
 lem that include incarcerating large numbers of 
 young urban black men will further poison their 
 abihty to function in the work world. Moreover, 
 we can fully expect that violence wUl worsen as 
 economic prosperity gives way to recession, more 
 black males progress through puberty and into 
 adolescence, 2^ and previously incarcerated young 
 men retvirn to their communities. Programs de- 
 signed to address the behavioral precursors of 
 violence must be grounded in the reahties of life 
 for these young men. Where possible, health ini- 
 tiatives should include the input of young black 
 men in the design and evaluation stages of the 
 programs, which will empower them to change 
 their own communities and to critically evaluate 
 the social forces responsible for the dispropor- 
 tionate incidence of violence in their neighbor- 
 hoods. Further study is necessary to better com- 
 prehend the unique demands and characteristics 
 of the current urban environment, as a means of 
 understanding the ecological aspects of the 
 problem of aggression. Larger system solutions 
 
 2'' Resident Population of the United States: Middle Series 
 Projections, 2001-2005, by Age and Sex, Washington, DC: 
 United States Bureau of the Census, 1996. 
 
 140
 
 are also called for to decrease the threat of vio- 
 lence in urban communities. Recently, a number 
 of American cities initiated lawsuits against gun 
 manufacturers, and sought damages under pub- 
 lic nuisance and product liabihty legal theories. 
 Such efforts on the part of municipaUties and 
 public health departments may have the desired 
 effect of reducing the flood of guns into commu- 
 nities of color, while obtaining resources to fur- 
 ther decrease the pain of violence and homicide. 
 
 Lastly, the mental health of these young men 
 must be given the highest priority. In an envi- 
 ronment of shrinking resoxirces for therapeutic 
 mental health services, more attention and re- 
 sources should be provided to community-based 
 preventive mental health resources that are cul- 
 turally appropriate and accessible to these young 
 men. We must move beyond a recreational view 
 
 of mental health and development — i.e., "the 
 keeping them busy approach" — and fully create 
 and fund approaches that recognize that this 
 segment of the population has been grossly ne- 
 glected, scapegoated, and underserved. Effective 
 approaches would move away from blaming the 
 victim, recognize the unique social position occu- 
 pied by these young men, and build upon their 
 strengths and capacities. Approaches to preven- 
 tive health care that further stigmatize and 
 marginaUze these young men will not be suc- 
 cessful. Societal biases held against young Afri- 
 can American men will ultimately infect health 
 care providers, who are charged with protecting 
 their health. Within health care and pubhc 
 health, we must push to increase awareness of 
 and sensitivity to the complex health issues fac- 
 ing young black urban men. 
 
 141
 
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 142
 
 The Effects of Internalized Prejudice on the Mental Health of 
 African American Youth 
 
 Brian K. Williams, Ph.D. 
 
 Introduction 
 
 In 1954, the Supreme Court, in Brown u. the 
 Board of Education,^ ruled that racial segrega- 
 tion in education was unconstitutional. This de- 
 cision was a major breakthrough in providing 
 better educational opportunities for African 
 Americans and other people of color. In spite of 
 the ever-increasing numbers of people of color 
 reaching professional ranks and positions of 
 power, there has been research that suggests 
 that members of minority groups may be per- 
 ceived and evaluated less favorably than their 
 white counterparts. Members of these minority 
 groups may be found to harbor some of these 
 negative perceptions themselves. 
 
 Several terms have been used to describe this 
 tendency to self-negate. Internahzed prejudice, 
 internahzed racism, and internahzed oppression 
 are terms used to describe the acceptance of 
 negative stereotypes and expectations from soci- 
 ety, which result in the devaluation of the work 
 or performance of minority members, in com- 
 parison to the work or performance of members 
 of the white majority group in society. When an 
 individual incorporates these negative stereo- 
 types into his or her self-image, self-hatred and 
 divisiveness among in-group members may re- 
 sult. Blacks with high levels of internahzed ra- 
 cism have been reported to have less marital 
 satisfaction (Taylor, 1990; Taylor & Zhang, 
 1990), are more likely to commit serious crimes 
 against other blacks (Terrell, Taylor, & Terrell, 
 1980), and are hkely to consume more alcohol 
 than blacks who internahze lower levels of ra- 
 
 * Psychologist, Student Counseling Services, Texas A&M 
 University, College Station, TX. 
 
 '347 U.S. 483(1954). 
 
 cism (Taylor & Jackson, 1990a; Taylor & Jack- 
 son, 1990b). 
 
 Several authors have developed stage theo- 
 ries of black identity development which de- 
 scribe the process of "becoming black," or pro- 
 gressing from a worldview in which blacks are 
 devalued and whites are ideahzed, to a world- 
 view characterized by self-pride, self-acceptance, 
 and pro-black feeUngs. These theories are com- 
 monly referred to as models of psychological Ni- 
 grescence. The models generally describe black 
 identity development primarily in response to 
 racially oppressive conditions. The stage in 
 which negative racial stereot}T)es have been in- 
 ternalized has been described variously as pas- 
 sive acceptance (Jackson, 1975), Negromachy 
 (Thomas & Thomas, 1971), and pre-encounter 
 (Cross, 1991). 
 
 The Legacy 
 
 It is not difficult to see how this perception 
 can develop. In this country, African Americans 
 have been systematically convinced of their infe- 
 riority through an education system that has 
 consciously excluded the contributions and in- 
 fluence of African people. This has helped create 
 a condition in which there has been a pervasive 
 lack of self-knowledge and unawareness of the 
 history and accomphshments of African Ameri- 
 cans. Esteemed African American psychologist. 
 Dr. Na'im Akbar (1984), has addressed the de- 
 structive impact that slavery has had on people 
 of African descent. Dr. Akbar quite effectively 
 identified the psychological legacy of slavery, 
 including the disrespect of African American 
 leadership, feehngs of personal inferiority, an 
 unnatural attraction to material objects, the 
 harmful influence on the black family, and the 
 overall devastating effect on the personahties of 
 African American people. 
 
 143
 
 Dr. Akbar also examined the negative psy- 
 chological consequences, to both blacks and 
 whites, of portraying religious images in any 
 particular race. According to Dr. Akbar, one of 
 the more obvious outcomes of viewing God in an 
 image other than oneself, is that the image of 
 the deity becomes superior. Hence, the individ- 
 ual's image is inferior. This can create a self- 
 fulfilling prophecy of a poor self-image, when the 
 individual begins to think and act in inferior 
 ways. Dr. Akbar then referred to how, in Ameri- 
 can society, historical references to most Chris- 
 tian religious images (i.e., Jesus and other indi- 
 viduals in the Bible) were primarily displayed as 
 Caucasian, and the resulting psychological con- 
 sequences on the viewers of these images. He 
 explained that depicting an image or concept of 
 God and other religious figures, with certain at- 
 tributes that resemble a particular race of peo- 
 ple, endows these individuals with an unnatu- 
 rally inflated perspective of themselves and their 
 self-worth. These individuals then ultimately 
 perceive themselves to be superior. As a result. 
 Dr. Akbar concluded that the Caucasian wor- 
 ships himself, and the African American regards 
 the Caucasian as being "God-like." He main- 
 tained that having such representations thus 
 tends to Umit the concept of the Creator, and 
 suggested removing these images both from the 
 society and the minds of all individuals. 
 
 A distressing fact is that black scholars have 
 identified and have addressed internaUzed 
 prejudice for decades. African American histo- 
 rian and educator. Dr. Carter G. Woodson, de- 
 lineated how Afirican Americans have been 
 taught to view themselves as inferior. In his 
 classic work. The Mis -Education of the Negro 
 (1933), Woodson stated: 
 
 The same educational process which inspires and 
 stimulates the oppressor with the thought that he is 
 everything and has accomplished everything worth 
 while, depresses and crushes at the same time the 
 spark of genius in the Negro by making him feel that 
 his race does not amount to much and never will 
 measure up to the standards of other peoples. The 
 Negro thus educated is a hopeless habihty of the race 
 (p. xiii). 
 
 Thus, being trained to adopt a Eurocentric 
 worldview, Afi-ican Americans are vulnerable to 
 the development of a distorted self-image and 
 perception of inequahty. The mass media play a 
 
 major role in contributing to the perception of 
 the inferior status of African Americans. There 
 are relatively few images of successful Afi-ican 
 Americans in positions of power, outside of the 
 athletic and entertainment industries. The me- 
 dia portray negative images of blacks being in- 
 carcerated or involved in illegal activity, sub- 
 jected to brutal and dehumanizing mistreatment 
 by law enforcement officials, or cast in low- 
 status or buffoonish roles. The majority of the 
 images of African Americans depicted in the me- 
 dia are based on negative or derogatory stereo- 
 types. ^ Furthermore, images of beauty and de- 
 sirability seldom depict African features. ^ 
 
 Hence, the overwhelming portrayal of African 
 Americans in negative representations and the 
 relatively few number of positive and dignified 
 images reduce the sense of self-respect. These 
 portrayals also invite a sense of inferiority. As a 
 result, a high black-on-black crime rate, partici- 
 pation in illegal drug and gang activity, and 
 Umited interest in academic endeavors are all 
 indicative of a fundamental sense of disrespect 
 for black life and lack of a sense of self- worth. 
 
 Racial Preference 
 
 Self-identity problems have commonly been 
 associated with problems of self-esteem. Petti- 
 grew (1964), in elaborating on the self-esteem 
 problems of African Americans, stated the fol- 
 lowing: 
 
 For years, Negro Americans have had httle else by 
 which to judge themselves than the second-class 
 status assigned them in America. And along with this 
 inferior treatment, their ears have been filled with 
 the din of white racists egotistically insisting that 
 Caucasians are innately superior to Negroes. Conse- 
 quently, many Negroes consciously or unconsciously, 
 accept in part these assertions of their inferiority. In 
 addition, they accept the American emphases on 
 
 2 For example, many major cities have evening news reports 
 that tend to identify or highhght the ethnicity of alleged per- 
 petrators of crimes when the suspects are African Americans. 
 References to the ethnicity of crime suspects are less likely to 
 occur when the suspects are white. Secondly, other common 
 examples include: music videos that depict blacks in sugges- 
 tive and sexually explicit scenes, popular television situation 
 comedies and movies that routinely include African American 
 characters referring to each other in vulgar and derogatory 
 terms, and normalizing violent behavior. 
 
 3 CoUins. 1990; Neal & Wilson, 1989, describe how media 
 images of beauty and desirability seldom include individuals 
 with African features. 
 
 144
 
 "status" and "success." But when they employ these 
 standards for judging their own worth, their lowly 
 positions and their relative lack of success lead to 
 further self-disparagement (p. 9). 
 
 Investigations into the black self-concept 
 have generally focused on the paradigm of pref- 
 erence behavior. White choice preference in 
 blacks was hypothesized to be indicative of racial 
 self-rejection. As a result of social rejection and 
 being relegated to an inferior and second-class 
 status, African Americans may develop a nega- 
 tive self-concept, which would be expressed by 
 evaluative and self-identification preferences in 
 favor of stimuli with physical characteristics 
 that were not black. The majority of these stud- 
 ies have found that: 1) accurate self-identification 
 increases with age; 2) white children tend to 
 surpass black children in identifying with their 
 own race; and 3) both white and black children 
 tend to prefer white over black choices (Clark & 
 Clark, 1947; Friedman, 1980). Findings from 
 many of these studies appeared to indicate that 
 black children may have lower levels of self- 
 esteem and self-pride. 
 
 Kenneth and Mamie Clark (1939a, 1939b, 
 1940, 1947) were among the earUest investiga- 
 tors to report white identification and prefer- 
 ences in black children. In their now famous doll 
 study (1947), they used black and white dolls to 
 ehcit identification and preference responses 
 firom 253 black children, and found that in spite 
 of their own skin color, these black children 
 tended to prefer the white doll and negate the 
 black doll. A substantial amount of evidence has 
 been found to support the Clark and Clark early 
 findings (Asher & Allen, 1969; Gopaul-Mc Nicol, 
 1988; Morland, 1962; Radke & Traeger, 1950; 
 Stevenson & Stewart, 1958). 
 
 Opposing Evidence 
 
 Results from later studies suggested that 
 movements stressing "black pride" and accep- 
 tance of one's race changed the tendency to iden- 
 tify with and prefer white over black (Fox & Jor- 
 dan, 1973; Mahan, 1976; Vershure, 1976; Win- 
 nick & Taylor, 1977). Spencer (1984) found evi- 
 dence that challenged the common interpreta- 
 tion of many of these studies. She found that 
 although black preschoolers showed majority 
 group racial attitudes and pro-white biased cul- 
 tural values on a racial attitude and preference 
 measure, 80 percent of the sample obtained posi- 
 
 tive self-concept scores. Additional findings have 
 questioned the typical interpretation of poor self- 
 esteem in blacks from white racial preference 
 responses (Clark, 1982; Leung & Drasgow, 1986; 
 Rosenberg, 1979; Samuels & Griffore, 1979). 
 Other researchers investigating racial identifica- 
 tion and preference in African American chil- 
 dren also found conflicting evidence (Fox & Jor- 
 dan, 1973; Hraba & Grant, 1970; Ogletree, 1969; 
 Ward & Braun, 1972). 
 
 Criticisms of Earlier Investigations 
 
 The early research that investigated the 
 black self-concept did not go without criticism. 
 Nobles (1973) not only questioned the interpre- 
 tation of the findings of earlier studies, but ar- 
 gued that estabhshing research on the black self- 
 concept in theoretical approaches that do not 
 incorporate African conceptions of self was siiffi- 
 cient reason to discard or reject most, if not all, 
 previously published research in the area. 
 
 Baldwin (1979) also addressed the issue of 
 cultural sensitivity. He stressed that the failure 
 of previous black self-hatred research to recog- 
 nize or give consideration to basic cultural dif- 
 ferences between the Euro American and Afri- 
 can American communities was a major cause of 
 the misperception of black behavior. Moreover, 
 he indicated that these cultural differences con- 
 tributed to the erroneous conception of the black 
 personahty being a result of racial oppression in 
 American society, rather than resulting from a 
 distinct socio-cultural orientation. 
 
 In addition. Banks (1976) disputed the statis- 
 tical significance of most of the research on pref- 
 erence behavior in blacks, and also raised an- 
 other important point. He questioned the com- 
 mon use of white subjects as a comparative 
 group for the choice behavior of black subjects. 
 Banks stressed that employing a white compara- 
 tive group tended to perpetuate the notion of 
 black self-rejection. Assumptions made in these 
 instances reflect the beUef that white behavior 
 represented a standard of mental health. Fur- 
 ther, Banks questioned the desirability of re- 
 sponding in highly ethnocentric response sets, as 
 is commonly the case with white samples. He 
 pointed out that this type of orientation has tra- 
 ditionally been regarded as maladaptive for both 
 individual and group functioning. According to 
 Banks, the tendency for blacks to prefer white 
 stimuh in evaluative preference situations or as 
 
 145
 
 objects of self-identification has generally been 
 mistakenly interpreted as a failure to adopt posi- 
 tive racial self-regard. Although Banks' views 
 did not go without challenge (e.g., Williams & 
 Morland, 1979), his points certainly warrant 
 consideration when designing and reviewing re- 
 search in the area of racial preference. 
 
 Research with Adult Populations 
 
 As evidenced from the hterature reviewed 
 thus far, the majority of racial preference re- 
 search has focused on preschool and elementary 
 school age children. A few studies have been di- 
 rected toward adult samples. For example, in a 
 study examining possible racial preferences to- 
 wards social service providers, Dubey (1970) 
 found that in spite of using black interviewers, 
 the majority of his survey sample (taken from a 
 predominately black neighborhood) showed no 
 racial preference in professional service provid- 
 ers. This pattern was virtually identical for men 
 and women, and across age groups. The over- 
 whelming majority of respondents to the survey 
 appeared to be indifferent to the race of the per- 
 son providing the social service. Later survey 
 research supported this finding (Clark & Clark, 
 1980). 
 
 Is the evidence of African American self- 
 hatred real? Has there been a substantial im- 
 provement in black self-perception? Clark and 
 Clark (1980) sought to investigate whether the 
 influence of the civil rights movement had a 
 lasting effect on the self-images of blacks. They 
 conducted a national survey of 1,200 blacks with 
 subjects representing all major regions of the 
 country. They found indications that while 
 blacks were making progress in achieving 
 healthier self-images, they generally have not 
 consistently developed an overall sense of posi- 
 tive self-esteem and racial acceptance. They 
 summarized their results with the following: 
 
 Whatever were the positive gains obtained by the 
 Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s[,] 
 these gains have not yet resulted in a consistently 
 positive self-image for the majority of Blacks. Ameri- 
 can Blacks are still involved in a turbulent struggle 
 for self-esteem, self-respect and racial self-acceptance 
 even as they are burdened with the negative stereo- 
 types, self-rejection and deep feelings of inferiority 
 which the pervasive racism of the larger society im- 
 poses upon them and their children. In spite of the 
 removal of the more flagrant signs of racial rejection, 
 the rise of the Black Power movement and the de- 
 
 mands for racial pride of the 1960s and 1970s, the 
 majority of Blacks stiU appear to be burdened with 
 racial self-doubt (p. 178). 
 
 As a researcher, I sought to investigate the 
 effects of internalized prejudice on African 
 Americans by ascertaining whether black coUege 
 students show evaluative biases according to 
 their understanding of an individual's gender or 
 ethnicity, and whether or not that evaluation is 
 influenced by the level of the student's self- 
 esteem (WUhams, 1993). A modification of a 
 methodology initially used by PhiUp Goldberg 
 (1968) was used to determine whether a sample 
 of professional writing, with varied authorship, 
 would be evaluated differentially by students 
 when it was presented in black-authored and 
 white-authored versions, and with both male 
 and female authors. 
 
 Three hundred and thirty-five students en- 
 rolled in two historically black state universities 
 were administered a brief professional article 
 and instructed to read and evaluate the article 
 on various aspects of worth. Authorship of the 
 article was varied by inclusion of an appropriate 
 photograph of an African American or white 
 man or woman. At a subsequent class period, a 
 brief self-esteem scale was used to obtain a 
 measure of the subjects' self-image. 
 
 Results of the study failed to support the no- 
 tion that African American college students in- 
 ternahzed prejudice, to the extent that they 
 would devalue work they perceived to have been 
 produced by an African American of professional 
 status. Students gave significantly more favor- 
 able evaluations of the journal article when it 
 was presented as being written by an African 
 American author. The gender of the purported 
 author also had a significant influence on the 
 evaluations given to the article, with female 
 authors receiving significantly more favorable 
 ratings than male authors. This result was con- 
 sistent for both male and female subjects. The 
 respondents' level of reported self-esteem had no 
 significant influence on the evaluations of the 
 article. 
 
 It was suggested that environmental factors 
 may have influenced the results of this study. 
 Subjects for the study were obtained from two 
 historically black universities. It has often been 
 claimed that a predominately black college envi- 
 ronment might foster an improvement in self- 
 confidence and enhance racial self-pride in Afri- 
 
 146
 
 can American students, in part due to the nur- 
 turing that students receive. These educational 
 institutions tend to have a large number of posi- 
 tive African American role models serving as 
 instructors, professors, administrators, and men- 
 tors. Previous research (Broverman, Vogel, Bro- 
 verman, Clarkson, & Rosenkrantz, 1972; Joesting 
 & Joesting, 1972) has found strong support for 
 the notion that having positive role models can 
 have significant influence on the self-image of 
 minority group members. 
 
 Hopson and Hopson (1992) reported evidence 
 demonstrating that racial preferences among 
 children could be changed at least temporarily. 
 In an earher study (PoweU-Hopson, 1985), the 
 Clarks' (1947) doll experiment was repUcated. 
 The results indicated that 65 percent of the 
 black children in the sample chose the white doU 
 to play with, and 76 percent chose the black doll 
 that "looked bad" to them. However, a second 
 part was added to the study, that included an 
 intervention. Those children who chose a black 
 doU were reinforced with verbal praise. The 
 black doU was also described by positive adjec- 
 tives, and a story was read that depicted black 
 children in favorable ways. Finally, the re- 
 searchers modeled pro-black responses to prefer- 
 ence questions by choosing black dolls them- 
 selves. The children were then retested, and the 
 results showed that 68 percent of the children 
 now chose the black doll to play with, and only 
 27 percent indicated that the black doll "looked 
 bad" to them. The Hopsons also observed that 
 the children's attitudes and choices were also 
 positively affected by the presence of black re- 
 searchers as role models. They suggested that 
 early exposure to black Americans in positions of 
 authority and power should begin as early as 
 preschool age. They also stressed that open ac- 
 knowledgment of racial issues, positive model- 
 ing, and reinforcement of blackness is needed to 
 combat low self-esteem and poor racial identity 
 in black children. 
 
 Gopaul-McNicol (1988) discovered that brief 
 interventions are insufficient to overcome harm- 
 ful influences that result from a social climate 
 that is replete with negative stereotypes associ- 
 ated with African Americans. She fovmd that 
 most of the children who had participated in the 
 Powell-Hopson (1985) study failed to maintain 
 their pro-black attitudes and had reverted to 
 white doll preference and selection. She con- 
 cluded that a holistic effort that includes par- 
 
 ents, educators, and society at large, is needed to 
 promote racial pride and self-acceptance in black 
 children. 
 
 Jawanza Kunjufu (1988) also emphasized the 
 need to have African American professionals as 
 positive role models for African American youth, 
 in order to help combat the perception of hmited 
 job opportunities and enhance their desire to 
 study. According to Kunjufu, having more pro- 
 fessional African American role models would 
 also show the youth the range of opportunities 
 that are available to them, aside from the ath- 
 letic and entertainment fields. Kunjufu specifi- 
 cally highlighted the need for more black men to 
 spend time with black youth, and identified how 
 black peer groups can be a valuable resource to 
 connect with younger youth. 
 
 An Example of a Model Program 
 
 How do we implement these ideas and sug- 
 gestions to help promote the development of a 
 healthy sense of self-worth in African American 
 youth? As a practicing psychologist working in a 
 large university counseling center, I have had 
 the opportunity to personally observe the dis- 
 turbing prevalence of self-devaluation among 
 African American college students. For example, 
 I have counseled African American clients who 
 have fantasized about harming and ehminating 
 the black community out of shame and distaste 
 for "their" behavior. Other chents refused to 
 identify their ethnicity. Some prefer to list them- 
 selves as "American" on student information 
 forms that chents complete when initially pre- 
 senting themselves to the counseling center for 
 services. If I probed this issue further, these stu- 
 dents revealed a conscious attempt to avoid 
 identifying themselves with other African 
 Americans. In addition, I have also observed 
 young black male students commonly using 
 negative and derogatory terms to refer to each 
 other and to black women. Occasionally, I still 
 hear students making references to certain Afri- 
 can Americans who either have "good" or "bad" 
 hair, as well as comments about their prefer- 
 ences for dating someone who has "light skin." 
 As someone with a particular concern for the 
 mental health and well-being of the African 
 American community, I found these instances to 
 be quite disturbing. 
 
 While seeking an intervention to assist the 
 African American male students at Texas A&M 
 
 147
 
 University, a large public institution with an 
 enrollment of approximately 3 percent African 
 American students, I collaborated with an Afri- 
 can American male colleague in the Department 
 of Multicultural Services of the university to 
 create a Black Men's Discussion Group. This 
 colleague attended a historically black college 
 known for developing strong African American 
 male scholars and leaders. He also earned a law 
 degree from a prestigious law school, and was 
 still in his 20s when the group was initially 
 formed. The forum allowed the participants in 
 the group to have direct and ongoing exposure to 
 two African American male professionals, one of 
 whom is an attorney, and the other, a licensed 
 psychologist in the state of Texas. Our goal was 
 to provide a forum where issues of importance to 
 black men could be discussed in a supportive and 
 collegial atmosphere. It was anticipated that 
 these issues would not be limited to topics that 
 were germane to this university, but would also 
 encompass issues of relevance to their overall 
 well-being. Some of these topics would include: 
 societal and gender roles, racial/cultural identity 
 issues, male/female relationships, general social 
 problems, and pohtical concerns. 
 
 Unfortunately, typical perceptions often in- 
 clude regarding those individuals who seek 
 counsehng for personal difficulties or support as 
 weak or mentally disturbed. In the African 
 American community, individuals often rely on 
 family, friends, and the church for needed sup- 
 port and guidance. Accordingly, concerns about 
 trust will often prevent most African American 
 students at a large, predominately white univer- 
 sity from seeking available assistance. Because 
 of the stigma that stiU appears to be associated 
 with counseling-related activities within this 
 population, we decided to hold the meetings in 
 the student center on campus rather than in the 
 building where the student counsehng services 
 are usually held. Initially, the group meetings 
 were not pubhcly advertised, and participation 
 was limited to students that the group facihta- 
 tors individually invited to attend. We then en- 
 couraged group members to invite their male 
 peers whom they felt were sincere about wanting 
 to address issues confronting black men, and 
 who were willing to be vehicles for change. The 
 facUitators stressed the point that we would 
 generally not come to group sessions with an 
 agenda and would expect the members to gener- 
 ate the discussion topic. Self-respect and respect 
 
 for others were also identified as expectations for 
 participation in the group. We acknowledged 
 that disagreements can and will occur, but re- 
 spect for others' opinions is expected. The group 
 has followed standard counsehng procedures 
 regarding confidentiahty of information, but 
 group members have not been considered as 
 "clients" of the counseling center. Relationships 
 between group facilitators and group members 
 have been of a mentoring quaUty. 
 
 Occasionally, members have been challenged 
 or confronted by the facihtators or other group 
 members on behaviors or attitudes that were 
 self-destructive in nature or antithetical to Af- 
 ricentric principles of group cohesion.'' Response 
 to the feedback has usually been positive and 
 well accepted. As one member has fondly re- 
 sponded, "It's all good!" Group discussions have 
 encouraged positive and healthy dating and 
 friendships with women, consistently stressed 
 the importance of being positive role models for 
 African American youth, and promoted strong 
 identities based on Africentric principles. 
 
 Involvement with the Black Men's group has 
 been beneficial to both the members and the 
 creators of the group. The facihtators have often 
 commented how we have enjoyed the interaction 
 with other black men, especially considering the 
 relatively few social outlets geared towards Afri- 
 can Americans on the campus or in the commu- 
 nity. It has also allowed me to estabhsh credibil- 
 ity with other African American students, as 
 members have occasionally directed their peers 
 to me for counseling services. Ongoing mentor- 
 ing relationships have been maintained with 
 former members who have since graduated from 
 the university and moved on to professional ca- 
 reers of their own. 
 
 Participation in the group has apparently had 
 an impact on some members. After discussions 
 with a staff member of a local youth organiza- 
 tion, the need for more black male involvement 
 in community outreach became apparent. Sev- 
 eral of the students in the Black Men's group 
 independently formed a student service organi- 
 
 * Afiricentric principles that have been promoted in the group 
 include: self-knowledge/tribal knowledge, oneness or harmony 
 with nature, unity and the survival of the group, cooperation 
 and collective responsibility, interdependence, commonality, 
 and spirituaHty. The group facilitators have emphasized 
 these principles because we believe that they are most consis- 
 tent with nature, promote good mental health, and encourage 
 positive group and community fuictioning. 
 
 148
 
 zation designed to reach out to the youth in the 
 local community. According to their mission 
 statement, the organization was built on princi- 
 ples of unity, spirituality, and service. Their 
 primary goal is to provide positive guidance and 
 alternatives to youth by promoting self- 
 improvement in various aspects of their lives. 
 They have designed mentoring programs and 
 activities, provided tutorial services, and worked 
 with the Boys' and Girls' Clubs in the area, as 
 well as various elementary, junior high, and 
 high schools. They continually stress the impor- 
 tance of education and emphasize self- 
 empowerment in their interactions with the 
 youth in the community. Founding members of 
 the organization selected the name, "Brothers of 
 the Roundtable," to reflect the concept that ail 
 members are equal and valued. When the stu- 
 dents decided to seek recognition as an official 
 organization by the university, they asked the 
 two co-creators of the Black Men's Discussion 
 Group to serve as advisors. This organization is 
 just one example of the possible benefits of men- 
 toring initiatives. Although no formal outcome 
 measures have been used to determine the effec- 
 tiveness of the group, this appears to be a prom- 
 ising area for future research. 
 
 Other Recommendations: TexasA&M 
 University Programs That Encourage a 
 Positive Self-Image 
 
 Several other programs at Texas A&M Uni- 
 versity appear to be beneficial in helping to de- 
 velop healthy self-images and self-esteem, while 
 increasing retention rates of students of color at 
 the university. The Department of Multicultural 
 Services provides a proactive orientation pro- 
 gram for first-year students who have been ad- 
 mitted to the university. This program, 
 "Excellence Uniting Culture Education and 
 
 Leadership" (ExCEL), was designed to ease the 
 transition to the university, and to enhance stu- 
 dents' academic and leadership skills, while 
 promoting the preservation of students' cultural 
 identities. ExCEL participants also have the op- 
 portunity to interact with both peer and fac- 
 ulty/staff mentors, and to become familiar with 
 other university services. 
 
 Secondly, outreach efforts initiated by the 
 Student Counseling Service, often attempt to 
 address the misconceptions associated with par- 
 ticipating in counseling. These outreach efforts 
 are helpful in informing all students of our 
 services that are available to them. 
 
 Educational programs have also been imple- 
 mented which instUl a sense of pride in black 
 students. One such program is the "Leadership 
 of the Civil Rights Movement Seminar and 
 Tour," which is sponsored by the Department of 
 Multicultural Services. This seminar includes a 
 detailed review of significant events and leaders 
 of the movement, and culminates with a week- 
 long tour of southern cities where many of these 
 historic events took place. Students or "Freedom 
 Riders" that participate in this program also 
 have the opportunity to meet civil rights leaders. 
 Students who have participated in this seminar 
 and tour leave with an increased sense of cul- 
 tural awareness and pride. They describe their 
 participation as a life-changing experience. 
 
 Hence, young black males are more likely to 
 develop healthy self-images when they receive 
 the same opportunity to participate in self- 
 esteem promoting activities as others in this so- 
 ciety. Accordingly, opportunities for such experi- 
 ences in goal-oriented male mentoring groups; 
 leadership, academic, and skill-building initia- 
 tives; and cultural programs should be routinely 
 provided to every young African American male. 
 
 149
 
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 Author Note 
 
 The author would bke to thank Ted Stachowiak 
 and Donna Davenport for their assistance in critiqu- 
 ing the manuscript. 
 
 Correspondence concerning this article should be 
 addressed to Brian K. Williams, Student Counseling 
 Service, Texas A&M University, Henderson Hall, 
 College Station, Texas 77843-1263. Electronic mail 
 may be sent via Internet to (Brian. Williams® 
 TAMU.EDU). 
 
 151
 
 The Pseudomasculine Identity and the African American Male 
 
 Charles L. Woodley, Ph.D.* 
 
 Introduction 
 
 The "crisis" of the African American male is 
 considered to be real by some and imagined by 
 others. Unfortunately for many, whether it is 
 real or imagined, it is not deemed important 
 enough to warrant the type of attention neces- 
 sary to bring about a change in the issues un- 
 dergirding this "crisis." 
 
 Yet, African American males have been la- 
 beled an endangered species by some and as su- 
 per predators by others (Bennett, DUuho, and 
 Walters, 1996). This is largely due to the number 
 of African American males who are incarcerated, 
 on probation or parole, or who have become the 
 victims or perpetrators of homicide. This "crisis" 
 of the African American male has been pre- 
 sented as statistical information in such diverse 
 categories as employment, crime, education, 
 drug abuse, sexual behavior, and health. 
 
 According to Bennett, et al. (1996), violent 
 crime is on the rise. They report that while 
 males ages 14 to 24 years old comprise about 8 
 percent of the general population, they consti- 
 tute 27 percent of all murder victims and 48 per- 
 cent of aU murderers. Within this statistic is the 
 fact that between 1985 and 1992, the murder 
 rate for blacks ages 14 to 17 years old increased 
 by over 300 percent. Also, black males ages 14 to 
 24, representing slightly more than 1 percent of 
 the population, accounted for 17 percent of the 
 victims of crime and 30 percent of the criminal 
 offenders. At the current rate of African Ameri- 
 can male incarceration, by the year 2000, 60 per- 
 cent of the total United States prison population 
 is projected to be composed of African American 
 males (King, 1993). In contrast, only 25.9 per- 
 
 Psychologist/director, Acute Mental Health Services/ 
 Correctional Medical Services, Kilby Correctional Facility, 
 Mt. Meigs, AL. 
 
 cent of black males ages 18 to 21 were in college 
 in 1993. In 1990 and 1993, blacks (male and fe- 
 male) represented only 5.8 percent of individuals 
 with bachelor's degrees (Smith and Horton, 
 1997). African American males constitute more 
 than 48 percent of the prison population in the 
 United States, even though they comprise only 
 about 6 percent of the general population (U.S. 
 Department of Justice, 1991). As reported by 
 Brazaitis in King (1993), their incarceration rate 
 is 4 times higher than indigenous African males 
 in South Africa, thus making the United States 
 the largest incarcerator of people of African de- 
 scent in the world. 
 
 While the foundations of American society 
 are crumbling, it is perhaps the African Ameri- 
 can community that best serves as a barometer 
 for the larger segment of society. It is also the 
 sons and daughters of the African American 
 community who are largely paying the price for 
 the seemingly unchecked deterioration of our 
 social and pohtical structures, and even in some 
 circles, being cast as scapegoats. Fundamentally, 
 this "crisis" is a dilemma of American society, 
 which includes a deterioration of values, family, 
 patriotism, and spirituahty and the failure to 
 transmit such constructs across generations due 
 to changes in family and societal structures. It is 
 no surprise that the crisis of American society 
 would first be evident in the African American 
 community. Social science research has indi- 
 cated that the ills of society are more likely to 
 manifest first and more prominently in the mar- 
 ginal groups of a society, due to their position of 
 less power, influence, and fewer resources to 
 cope with adverse conditions. However, given 
 the legacy of adversity faced by African Ameri- 
 cans and their resihence in enduring, it is sur- 
 prising that there exist conditions that can be 
 labeled as having reached crisis proportions. It 
 would appear that something has changed 
 
 152
 
 within the African American culture since the 
 forces of racism and discrimination have re- 
 mained ubiquitous for at least the past 400 
 years. 
 
 Unemployment has always been highest 
 among teenage black males, and Smith and Hor- 
 ton (1997) reported that in 1993, 33.1 percent of 
 blacks hved below the poverty line. Yet, neither 
 poverty nor other external forces produced the 
 factors that we are labeling a "crisis" at the pres- 
 ent time. 
 
 Factors Contributing to the "Crisis" of the 
 African American IVIale 
 
 Theoretical explanations abound to explain 
 this "crisis" in black America. Using crime as the 
 factor of investigation, Bennett et al. (1996) have 
 posited that the root cause for our current in- 
 creases in crime is "moral poverty." They define 
 moral poverty as, 
 
 the poverty of being without loving, capable, respon- 
 sible adults who teach you right from wrong; the pov- 
 erty of being without parents and other authorities 
 who habituate you to feel joy at others' joy, pain at 
 others' pain, satisfaction when you do right, remorse 
 when you do wrong; and the poverty of growing up in 
 the virtual absence of people who teach moraUty by 
 their own everyday example and who insist that you 
 follow suit. In the extreme, moral poverty is the pov- 
 erty of growing up severely abused and neglected at 
 the hands of deviant, delinquent, or criminal adults. 
 
 The problem with most theories is that they 
 select one variable to explain a complex phe- 
 nomenon and cite it as the sole cause. The be- 
 havior of African American males, as in all indi- 
 viduals, is caused by a cluster of contributing 
 factors. Moral poverty appears to be but one of 
 the contributing parts of this dilemma. 
 
 Lost in the focus on crime, drug abuse, and 
 other deviant behaviors as the defining elements 
 of the "crisis" of young African American males 
 is the tragic loss of human potential, and the 
 stifling effect it has on the progress of the Afri- 
 can American community. This crisis is the loss 
 of productive citizens who are contributing to 
 their famihes and communities by reaching their 
 social and spiritual potential, both individually 
 and for the benefit of the African American 
 community as a whole. Explanations that focus 
 only on the ehmination of crime, drug abuse, and 
 other deviant behaviors are short-sighted. What 
 
 is needed are explanations that can be opera- 
 tionalized to move the African American male 
 into an African-centered manhood, out of second- 
 class citizenship, and up from the pit of "learned 
 helplessness" that resulted from the legacy of 
 racism and slavery. To do this would address the 
 issues of crime and delinquency as well, but 
 would serve to elevate the young African Ameri- 
 can male to an empowered manhood, stabilize 
 the family and community, and further the 
 cause of African Americans for equal participa- 
 tion in the fratermty of mankind. 
 
 Like other ethnic groups in the United 
 States, African Americans have been subjected 
 to the socializing effects of the American Dream. 
 Perhaps in no other group is "success" wanted so 
 badly and so quickly. However, this "success" is 
 often misinterpreted or reduced to materialistic 
 gratification. Yet there is a common thread of 
 wanting to be financially secure, having ade- 
 quate shelter, providing for one's family, having 
 your own and not having to grovel and beg for 
 just the basics of life — the kinds of things money, 
 power, and respect can bring. Many African 
 American males have made dangerous environ- 
 mental adaptations in an effort to obtain the 
 money, power, and respect that seem to be so 
 valued by this society and, in so doing, have cre- 
 ated a hostile environment for themselves and 
 others who must exist in it. Many have redefined 
 what it means to be a man. They have developed 
 a "pseudomasculine identity" that is reinforced, 
 yet feared by society. It is an identity driven to 
 obtain money, power, and respect at any cost. It 
 is an identity born out of a street orientation, 
 pop culture, moral poverty, hopelessness, and 
 cultural/historical poverty which includes a lack 
 of self-love and self-knowledge. It is an attempt 
 to live up to being a man as defined by the peer 
 culture, and a rejection of the definition of what 
 a man is by mainstream society, because it is not 
 a role viewed as attainable or worthwhile. 
 
 "Street" vs. "Decent" Orientations 
 
 Anderson (1994) discusses two orientations 
 that socially organize the community of many 
 African American males — "decent" and "street." 
 The "decent" orientation is characterized by men 
 who raise families that tend to accept main- 
 stream values. These men attempt to teach these 
 values to their children. "Decent" men value 
 hard work and self-rehance and are wilUng to 
 
 153
 
 delay their own gratification for the betterment 
 of their children. Many of them go to church and 
 are interested in their children's schooling. They 
 tend to be strict in their child-rearing practices 
 and adhere to a straight moral line. 
 
 In contrast, the "street" orientation is charac- 
 terized by men who raise families that often 
 show a lack of consideration for other people, 
 and have only a marginal investment in their 
 family and community. Although these men may 
 love their children, many of them are unable to 
 cope with the physical and emotional demands of 
 parenthood. They have difficulty reconciling 
 their needs with those of their children. They are 
 more fully invested in the "code of the streets," 
 and may aggressively socialize their children 
 into this subculture in a normative manner. 
 Specifically, this code of the streets is a set of 
 informal rules which govern interpersonal public 
 behavior, including violence, and prescribe a 
 proper comportment and an approved method of 
 responding if challenged. These men regulate 
 the use of violence and support a subculture life- 
 style that may be characterized by hustling, 
 promiscuity, and a host of other antisocial be- 
 haviors. 
 
 It is this street orientation which allows for 
 the growth and development of the pseudomas- 
 culine identity. Once this identity is rooted, en- 
 vironmental changes such as a new neighbor- 
 hood, an increase in material possessions, con- 
 tact with moral wealth (the opposite of moral 
 poverty), or even incarceration will not bring 
 about a change. An internal change in the way 
 the individual thinks about himself and the 
 world becomes necessary. 
 
 Most famihes of all ethnic groups strive for a 
 "decent" orientation. It is the absorption of posi- 
 tive mainstream values into the psyche of the 
 individual that greatly guides him or her into a 
 pro-social lifestyle, and away from those atti- 
 tudes and behaviors that constitute what we 
 now call crisis behaviors. This psyche, however, 
 is undergirded by an individual's identification 
 with a firmly rooted and developed culture, 
 which provides a sense of worth, value, and di- 
 rection. It is important to note that this decent 
 orientation, which is synonymous with "true 
 middle-class values," can be learned by anyone, 
 regardless of socioeconomic status, ethnicity, or 
 whether they live in the suburbs or inner city. 
 
 Unfortunately, for many African American 
 males, there is difficulty reconciUng the virtue of 
 
 such an orientation with the experience of being 
 an African male in America. A value system that 
 should be natural and desirable to him, may be 
 deemed a scheme by white America to impose 
 "whiteness" on him, even when the rejection of 
 the decent orientation is to his detriment. He 
 fails to realize that the best of middle-class val- 
 ues are a part of his historical culture. The fact 
 that black children, who are acting intelhgently, 
 e.g., using correct grammar, doing their home- 
 work, or participating in class, are often taunted 
 by other black kids that they are "trying to be 
 white," is an example of the confusion of values 
 such males experience. Due to American sociaH- 
 zation, young African American males want the 
 same things that other Americans want. Yet, the 
 attitudes, values, and behaviors needed to attain 
 the American dream are viewed as being charac- 
 teristic of the white race. This results in various 
 rationalizations, projections of blame, and par- 
 allel behaviors that have the purpose of ap- 
 proximating the American ideal. 
 
 What is puzzhng is the fact that the worst of 
 the mainstream values, such as the pursuit of 
 self-interests at the expense of others, is easily 
 accepted. I have heard more than one inmate 
 make comments to me that are similar to the 
 following: "Man I was a nobody before I started 
 in the drug game. But once in, everybody knew 
 me. I had money, cars, a nice house, and those 
 Janet Jackson looking [honeys] that I couldn't 
 get with before. Man I was balHn'! I finally felt 
 like somebody!" Evident in this statement is the 
 desire for money, power, and respect. However, 
 the behaviors used to attain these goals are as- 
 sociated with the street orientation. They are 
 parallel to mainstream behaviors but deviant, 
 e.g., drug deahng, robbery, and hustling, and 
 entail the risk of killing or being lolled and 
 hurting others to advance one's self-interests. 
 The inmate who made the aforementioned 
 statement to me had been shot several times. 
 When he gets out, he plans to return to "ballin." " 
 
 On another occasion, I asked a young African 
 American male inmate what would he do on the 
 streets, if someone disrespected him by slapping 
 his woman in public in his presence. He indi- 
 cated that he would have to loll the person. 
 When asked whether it would be more appropri- 
 ate, if possible, to eUcit the help of the pohce, he 
 stated that it might be all right to do so. He ex- 
 plained: 
 
 154
 
 However, it would not get you any props from the 
 others in the neighborhood. If you killed him, people 
 would talk about how you handled your business and 
 how not to mess with you. If you called the cops, oth- 
 ers might try you or think they can take your woman. 
 
 This line of reasoning indicates that there is 
 something different about how the pseudomas- 
 cuhne male thinks. Although physically ma- 
 tured, there appears to be a cognitive adaptation 
 to what IS perceived to be a hostile environment, 
 that has the character of arrested development. 
 A different value system is at work along with a 
 t3T)e of conscious awareness that is counter to 
 navigating the social environment of the larger 
 society; and yet, at the core, there is the desire 
 for respect and acceptance. This is a learned ad- 
 aptation and, as such, can be unlearned. 
 
 Unfortunately, "handling one's business" be- 
 comes equated with maintaining a tough image 
 and "getting over" in deahng with hfe's everyday 
 problems. This is at the expense of productively 
 navigating the environment to obtain a better 
 quality of hfe. Akbar (1985) stated it well as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 History has well demonstrated that when a message 
 of moral strength, basic goodness and kindness is fed 
 into the minds of people, the so-called "natural evil 
 tendencies" in man begin to disappear. When children 
 are exposed to words of hope and high ideals, those 
 children aspire for those high ideals of sharing, coop- 
 eration, and peace. The passive reaction to destruc- 
 tive and evil tendencies feeds the occurrence of those 
 very tendencies. A resignation to such violence is the 
 hidden message in the concept of the original sin, 
 humanity's basically evil nature, and the unconscious 
 aggressive drive hidden in people. All of these mes- 
 sages are erosive to the aspiring higher nature of hu- 
 man beings. 
 
 Factors that Cause the "Street" Orientation 
 
 The crux of the matter lies in raising one's 
 consciousness of self and others, developing self- 
 love and self-knowledge, developing an African 
 (American)-centered identity, and accurately 
 assessing those negative forces that are external 
 as well as internal. Many young African Ameri- 
 can males lack an integrated masculine identity 
 (which includes self-knowledge), cultural/histor- 
 ical knowledge, acceptance of self, and an Afri- 
 can (American)-centered orientation. They also 
 have a confUcted image of their spiritual selves 
 due to the racist use of religious text. The prob- 
 
 lem hes in the psyche of the African American 
 male. It has not been nurtured to develop a posi- 
 tive mascuhne identity of "self." All cultures 
 have their heroes, martyrs, legends, and rituals 
 which serve to inspire and guide the human po- 
 tential of its members. However, if you examine 
 the psyche of the average African American 
 male, you will find that it is bereft of the very 
 images, symbols, values, and rituals that lead to 
 cultural cohesiveness and harmony, knowledge 
 of self, and the true potentiahty of the human 
 potential. Where such rituals, symbols, values, 
 etc., exist, you will find that the icons behind 
 them are not of the African American culture, or 
 they are less than ideal symbols which have 
 been synthesized from what is thought to be at- 
 tainable, available, or proper for African Ameri- 
 cans. In order to be accepted by the African 
 American psyche, the heroes, martyrs, icons, and 
 other positive symbols must represent "him." 
 
 Akbar (1985) asserts that due to the unreal 
 images of manliness portrayed by the mass me- 
 dia, men struggle with the unattainable ideals of 
 what they should be. African American males 
 become bombarded with images of unreal macho 
 men who display a pseudomasculinity, and who 
 are violent or have confhcted racial and/or gen- 
 der identities. This unreal image of manhood 
 influences the African American male to define 
 his manhood in terms of some physical dimen- 
 sions hke fashions, "gangsta' skills," pimping, or 
 being a "mean bad dude." This perception inhib- 
 its his desire to be a participant in the market- 
 place of world trade, production, or culture. 
 
 African Americans have been fed the same in- 
 formational diet as Caucasian Americans. Such 
 information has served to sohdify the white psy- 
 che; however, the black psyche cannot develop 
 ftdly from it. European Americans have ensured 
 that their consciousness has been well informed 
 about their greatness. They do not lack in self- 
 knowledge. The great stories of Louis XIV, Co- 
 lumbus, Napoleon, Queen Victoria, Copernicus, 
 Gahleo, the Greeks, and the Romans are funda- 
 mental elements of the icons and heroes of the 
 white psyche (Akbar, 1996). Their heroes, mar- 
 tyrs, and other symbols, however, are only par- 
 tially integrated into the black psyche, while the 
 other part is rejected as being "not me." The psy- 
 che of the African American male is fed a con- 
 stant diet that he is violent, ignorant, irrespon- 
 sible, and incapable of managing anything, even 
 his own family. This results in the acceptance of 
 
 155
 
 the type of negative stereotyping cited in Brown 
 (1995) from a Washingtofi Post article entitled 
 "Stereotype Within." In general, a group of black 
 sixth-grade students answered questions which 
 indicated their beUefs about black people. Some 
 of their entrenched beliefs are hsted below: 
 
 • Blacks are poor and stay poor because they 
 are dumber than whites and Asians. 
 
 • Black kids who do their schoolwork and be- 
 have must want to be white. 
 
 • Black people don't like to work hard. 
 
 • Blacks don't need to work hard because it 
 won't matter in the end. 
 
 • Black people have to be bad, so they can 
 fight and defend themselves from other 
 blacks. 
 
 • Blacks see their badness as natural. 
 
 • Black men make women pregnant and 
 leave. 
 
 • Black boys expect to die young and unnatu- 
 rally. 
 
 What is evident in these attitudes is nearly a 
 total denigration of one's self as well as others of 
 the same race and culture. They indicate no 
 positive cultural foundation to guide the devel- 
 opment of a positive mascuhne identity. These 
 children's attitudes reflect a psyche bereft of 
 self-love, cultural awareness/history, and a posi- 
 tive cultural identity. These are the attitudes of 
 a culturally sick psyche which he at the core of 
 moral poverty and social deviance. Such ideology 
 represents a defeatist attitude and the expres- 
 sion of "learned helplessness." Individuals with 
 these attitudes do not believe that they matter 
 in the overall scheme of society. Nor do they be- 
 Ueve that there is anything that they can do to 
 escape their "fate." This results in both a defeat- 
 ist attitude, and behaviors that reflect an alter- 
 nate social orientation — one that they beheve 
 they can attain. In the vernacular of Azibo 
 (Atwell and Azibo, 1992), such an individual is 
 "misoriented" and suffers from "mentacide." 
 
 "Misorientation" and "Mentacide": 
 The Result of the Street Orientation 
 
 "Misorientation" is defined as the process of 
 operating from or negotiating the environment 
 with a conceptual base in which African 
 (American)-centered psychological and behav- 
 ioral elements are not the operative ones. In- 
 
 stead, European-centered, Arab-centered, or 
 other non-African cognitive elements are opera- 
 tive in the conceptual base. Such elements in- 
 clude the aforementioned negative attitudes. An 
 African American who is misoriented does not 
 promote the maintenance of his or her race. In 
 fact, such a person is likely to violate the first 
 law of survival — self-preservation. Misorienta- 
 tion is genetic blackness minus psychological 
 blackness. 
 
 "Mentacide" is defined as the systematic 
 process that depletes an African's psychological 
 blackness/African self-consciousness or pre- 
 cludes its development. Mentacide produces mi- 
 sorientation and hinders correct orientation 
 (Azibo, 1989). Racism, discrimination, learned 
 helplessness, and acceptance of the victim role 
 are procedural factors of mentacide. 
 
 In order to avert the destructive forces of mi- 
 sorientation and mentacide, "correct orientation" 
 is needed. Correct orientation has been achieved 
 when an African's behefs, values, attitudes, and 
 behaviors are oriented to (a) recognize him or 
 herself as an African (American); (b) to prioritize 
 African (American) interests, survival, and pro- 
 active development; (c) to respect and perpetuate 
 aU elements of the African (American) culture 
 that are culturally enriching and stabihzing; and 
 (d) to support a standard of conduct that neu- 
 trahzes people and things that are anti-African 
 (American) whether they be black or white, hb- 
 eral or conservative (Atwell and Azibo, 1992). 
 Correct orientation has the capacity to prevent 
 the development of the pseudomascuiine identity 
 and, where it exists, to replace it. 
 
 Correcting "Misorientation" and "Mentacide" 
 
 The uniqueness of this ideology is in its appli- 
 cation to African Americans. It is not new and 
 should be recognizable by members of any cul- 
 ture who have been successful at promoting 
 their interests, estabhshing a positive identity, 
 and maintaining relative cohesiveness and sta- 
 bility. In this era of "self-help," it is an objective 
 that can be endorsed and supported by aU. Such 
 a correct orientation would not be a detriment to 
 the general American society. Just as it is possi- 
 ble for whites to have a pro-white ethnocentric 
 orientation without being concurrently anti- 
 black, it is possible for blacks to have a pro-black 
 ethnocentric orientation without being anti- 
 white. In order for the young African American 
 
 156
 
 male to accept those attitudes, values, and be- 
 haviors lauded by mainstream society, he must 
 see them as having emerged from and being a 
 part of his own ethnic group. He must have inte- 
 grated into his psyche the "big picture" which 
 includes a historical, cultural, and spiritual in- 
 terconnectedness of the ideology by which he 
 should hve his life. 
 
 It has been my experience in cUnical practice 
 within a penal institution, that the best way to 
 engage an African American male in construc- 
 tive dialogue is to address the issues of self- 
 knowledge, cultural history, spirituality, racism, 
 and discrimination. In contrast, one of the best 
 ways to disengage a black male from the psycho- 
 therapeutic process is to deny that his minority 
 status plays any role in his life circumstances or 
 frustrations, lack of appropriate direction, and 
 general angst that he experiences. He does not 
 want to hear that "slavery was a long time ago — 
 get over it." Nor does he want to hear that every- 
 thing is fine now because we are on a level 
 playing field. He will reject, summarily, efforts 
 to characterize the problems in the African 
 American community as being all his fault, and 
 no amount of "statistricks" (statistics used im- 
 properly to support a one-sided view) will con- 
 vince him otherwise. His senses teU him that 
 this is not true. Dialogues which addresses cul- 
 ture, history, racism, and discrimination seldom 
 conclude in a simple rehashing of the blame 
 game. Most often it stimulates interest, places 
 the focus on "self," and has the potential to bring 
 about the empowerment of self that will bring 
 about the fundamental change in his psyche that 
 will allow him to address those very issues that 
 have led to the national sounding of the alarm 
 that there is a "crisis" of the young African 
 American male. When provided the proper tools 
 and an acceptable rationale for change, he is 
 more Ukely to make the effort to change. The 
 "blame game" only serves to build up resentment 
 and resistance to change even when such change 
 is in the best interest of the young African 
 American male. 
 
 White supremacy, which included slavery, 
 created a cultural and societal trauma in this 
 country, and racism and discrimination continue 
 to create a cultural and individual psychological 
 trauma. As Bernal (1987) points out, there has 
 been a concerted effort by white academicians 
 and scientists to advance the Extreme Aryan 
 Model since the mid 1800s. This has resulted in 
 
 an attempt to oppress black people, and thus has 
 created psychological trauma. Mental health 
 professionals know that for traumatized indi- 
 viduals, the traumatizing event cannot just be 
 dismissed as an irrelevant incident. The trauma- 
 tizing event must be addressed and worked 
 through in order for the individual to recover 
 from it. It is my contention that young African 
 American males are in a state of psychological 
 shock and are trying their best to survive the 
 world as they perceive it. However, the cultural, 
 historical, and racial trauma must be dealt with, 
 in order to empower them to overcome the social 
 crisis of this country. 
 
 This trauma has resulted in mental disorders 
 peculiar to black people. Fields (1986) lists one of 
 these disorders as "whitemanrism" — the adverse 
 affect of the presence of white people on some 
 blacks, which results in them acting out of char- 
 acter. Azibo (1998) identifies materialistic de- 
 pression, anxiety, personal identity conflict, and 
 oppression violence reactions, among others, as 
 developing from the unique experiences of blacks 
 with the forces of oppression. 
 
 Recommendations for Change 
 
 There are steps that can be taken to bring the 
 young African American male into "correct ori- 
 entation." Their crisis behaviors represent a de- 
 viation from the norms of African American cul- 
 ture. Such erosions of black identity or culture 
 require the task of resociahzation (Baldwin, 
 1976). Resociahzation is akin to correct orienta- 
 tion. Band-Aid approaches will not work. Self- 
 help without proper guidance and resources will 
 not work. 
 
 Proper development of the African American 
 psyche has the greatest potential for real and 
 sustained change through empowerment. Akbar 
 (1985) defines self-knowledge as knowing how 
 we, as human beings, work and also knowing 
 our real potential. Human goals and aspirations 
 are defined by those cultural and historical im- 
 ages that are examples of the best of human ca- 
 pacity. The following are some suggestions for 
 attacking the "crisis" of the young African 
 American male: 
 
 1. Synchronize race, black identity, and culture 
 by poohng the human resources of the black 
 community, e.g., black helping professionals, 
 the black client and family, other black pro- 
 
 157
 
 fessionals, and community members, in or- 
 der to facilitate and promote cultural values, 
 ideology and identification; disseminate cul- 
 tural history; disseminate culturally relevant 
 information on health issues, legal issues, 
 economic and political issues; and to estab- 
 lish treatment networks for identifying and 
 addressing individual problems (Jackson, 
 1992). 
 
 2. Restore the consciousjiess of black people 
 about themselves: From the "cradle to the 
 grave," we must submerge ourselves in in- 
 formation about ourselves in order to change 
 the content of our consciousness. Blackness 
 needs to be celebrated and can be done with- 
 out degrading others. We must unashamedly 
 display our images and great ancestral fig- 
 ures throughout our environments. The sto- 
 ries of natural black inferiority and undesir- 
 ability from Tarzan to Sambo, were stories 
 constantly told to destroy the worth of the 
 black psyche and give others the rationalized 
 justification to marginahze us. Celebration of 
 "self is a way to promote heaUng by recog- 
 nizing ourselves, our heroes, and our accom- 
 pUshments through art, holidays, monu- 
 ments, toys, and the hterature that we read 
 (Akbar, 1996). 
 
 3. Implement the process of correct orientation 
 wherever possible in the community and in- 
 stitutions, such as churches, schools, and 
 prisons. Gendreau, Saint John, and Andrews 
 (1990) conducted a meta-analyses of offender 
 treatment literature to determine the most 
 effective means to deter recidivism. They 
 found that high-quality treatment to offend- 
 ers in need that is based on cognitive- 
 behavioral models and Hnked to community- 
 based programs works best. Further, correc- 
 tional treatment had the most potential for 
 control of recidivism. With the large num- 
 bers of incarcerated African Americans, pris- 
 ons are a good place to implement cognitive- 
 behavioral, African American-centered treat- 
 ment programs designed to bring about 
 "correct orientation." An excellent model, the 
 "therapeutic community" already exists for 
 deahng with the problem of substance abuse. 
 One of its primary components is the in- 
 struction, modeling, and reinforcement of 
 pro-social behaviors. It could be modified to 
 
 effectively socialize or resocialize the African 
 American male into the "decent orientation" 
 practiced by the majority of African Ameri- 
 cans and empower him (correct orientation) 
 to be an asset to his family and community. 
 Similar training could be done in the schools 
 and churches. 
 
 4. African American organizations must moni- 
 tor and marshal the energies of the commu- 
 nity to address relevant issues in education, 
 politics, business and criminal justice. The 
 vast network of churches and black newspa- 
 pers are excellent mechanisms that could 
 "get the word out." 
 
 5. Continue a national initiative on race to in- 
 clude a massive antiracism campaign in all 
 communities and to promote positive black 
 images in the mass media and in the African 
 American community. 
 
 6. Promote biculturality. African Americans 
 must be able to function effectively within 
 their communities and within mainstream 
 society. For example, they must be able to 
 speak both proper Enghsh and slang, de- 
 pending on the environment. 
 
 7. Train leaders, teachers, preachers, and the 
 community at large on what it means to be 
 pro-black, pro-pohtical, and pro-American 
 (Fields, 1986). We need to hold schools ac- 
 countable in the education of our children. 
 We passively accept underachievement as 
 the best that can be done. A massive effort of 
 empowerment training is needed. 
 
 Conclusion 
 
 Even if strategies were implemented today to 
 deal with the problems facing the African 
 American community, change would be slow but 
 steady. Over the next 10 years, conditions are 
 Hkely to worsen. Changes in the poUtical climate 
 that seek to maintain the status quo, the rise in 
 hate crimes, the growing gulf between the socio- 
 economic classes within the black community, 
 and the overall moral decay growing in Ameri- 
 can society does not bode well for the young Afri- 
 can American male. Whereas the focus of this 
 paper has been on the young African American 
 male, all tenets of it are applicable to the young 
 
 158
 
 African American female and the entire black on psychopathology but on empowerment and 
 
 community. Unless the crisis is preempted, the revival of the human spirit in all conclaves of the 
 
 African American community will become fur- African American community. We achieved 
 
 ther isolated from mainstream society, leading to physical emancipation over 130 years ago. What 
 
 a further erosion of our human potential and the is needed now is the adoption of a hberation ideol- 
 
 gains made in education, economics, and politics. ogy. One that will promote cultural, spiritual, and 
 
 With the rise in antiblack activism, this could mental emancipation. This appears necessary to 
 
 only lead to further racial confhct. The recom- reverse the problems of "The Crisis of the Young 
 
 mendations made in this paper are not focused African American Male in the Inner Cities." 
 
 159
 
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 Akbar, N. (1985). The Community of Self 
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 Fields, U.J. (1986). Free at Last: Prescription for 
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 Jackson, A.M. (1992). A Theoretical Model for the 
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 160
 
 Panel 
 
 Employment 
 
 161
 
 Building Equity within Welfare Reform for Children in Fragile Families 
 
 Ronald B. Mincy* and Hillard Pouncy** 
 
 In 1996 Congress reformed the nation's wel- 
 fare system so that work and parental responsi- 
 bility became the system's core themes. The new 
 system seeks to emancipate low-income famihes 
 with children from the old system's dependency 
 structure. In the Personal ResponsibiUty and 
 Work Opportunities Reconcihation Act (PRWO- 
 RA),' cash benefits are a form of temporary as- 
 sistance that parents receive while they prepare 
 for work. Congress considered work and child 
 support, typically provided by the father, to be a 
 permanent solution to welfare-dependency for 
 low-income famihes. PRWORA's tougher child 
 support provisions seek to increase the child 
 support enforcement system's effectiveness so 
 that, in turn, child support will become a more 
 reliable source of income for poor famihes. 
 
 Critics of welfare reform usually focus on 
 PRWORA's impact on mothers — not enough jobs, 
 not enough services, insufficient distance from 
 poverty — (Blank, 1994; Briskin and Thomas, 
 1998; Duncan, et al. 1997; Edin and Lein, 1997; 
 Hamilton et al., 1998; Haveman and Bershad- 
 ker, 1998; Pavetti, 1997; Scrivener et al., 1998; 
 Wagner et al., 1998). Some critics also note that 
 the adverse effects of these measures have fallen 
 disproportionately on black welfare recipients 
 (DeParle, 1998). Low-income black women on 
 welfare are more likely to apply for welfare be- 
 fore marrying, completing school, or acquiring 
 much work experience (Bane and Ellwood, 
 1994). As a result, their efforts to prepare for 
 work and leave the welfare roUs are made more 
 difficult. They are hkely to exhaust their 5-year 
 hmit on cash assistance before they secure the 
 
 * Senior program officer. Ford Foundation, New York. 
 
 Adjunct faculty, urban studies. University of Pennsylva- 
 nia. 
 
 ' Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconcilia- 
 tion Act of 1996, Pub. L. No. 104-193, 110 Stat. 2105 (1996). 
 
 kinds of jobs that pay a hving wage (Duncan et 
 al., 1997, Wagner et al., 1998). 
 
 Too few observers of welfare reform notice 
 that African American men are overrepresented 
 among the fathers of children on welfare, and 
 few notice that many black fathers are too poor 
 to pay their child support obligations. (Achatz 
 and MacAllum, 1994; Brien, 1997; Hamer, 1997; 
 Johnson, 1998; Koball, 1998; Levesque, 1994; 
 McLanahan, 1998; Meyer et al., 1996; Mincy and 
 Sorensen, 1998; Mincy and Pouncy, 1999; Pat- 
 terson, 1998; Pirog-Good, 1995; Rich, 1998, 
 Sorensen and Lerman, 1997; Wheaton and 
 Sorenson, 1998). Many of these fathers, like the 
 mothers of children who are long-term welfare 
 recipients, had their first children before mar- 
 rying, completing school, or obtaining much 
 work experience. Too many of these fathers face 
 an additional barrier because they acquire a 
 criminal record before or after having children. 
 
 In this paper we argue that the process of 
 creating a safety net for custodial mothers who 
 are long-term welfare recipients generates large 
 debts for low-income fathers. These debts thwart 
 fathers' efforts to acquire the skills they need to 
 get good jobs and enter the mainstream, which, 
 in turn, diminish their prospects of helping their 
 children and their children's mothers escape 
 poverty. Because black children on welfare are 
 more Hkely to be born to two disadvantaged par- 
 ents, PRWORA is likely to have a disproportion- 
 ate negative impact on the well-being of black 
 children. 
 
 Section 1 briefly reviews quahtative and 
 quantitative data on the early marginaUzation of 
 young, low-income black and Hispanic youth. 
 Section 2 briefly summarizes Survey of Income 
 Program Participation data and notes similari- 
 ties and differences among black, white, and La- 
 tino/a noncustodial fathers and custodial moth- 
 ers. Section 3 uses simulations developed by 
 
 163
 
 Wendell Primus and one developed by Elaine 
 Sorensen to assess how welfare reform and child 
 support enforcement reform have affected low- 
 income, never-married parents and their chil- 
 dren. Section 4 presents new policy ideas for in- 
 creasing the well-being of children when both 
 parents are disadvantaged. The last section 
 summarizes the arguments and explains why 
 these pohcy proposals are Likely to respond more 
 effectively to the needs of young, minority, frag- 
 ile families. 
 
 1. Young Low-Income Black Males: 
 Dimensions of Marginalization 
 
 In the spring of 1998, researchers for the 
 Denver Workforce Initiative^ interviewed 45 
 low-income African American and Latino males 
 aged 15 to 35 to gain some idea of how they 
 viewed the city's labor market.^ Although the 
 sample was small, researchers believed it was 
 representative of the city's 9,000 other black, 
 Latino, Asian, and Native American men in this 
 age group. The young, low-income men were in- 
 terviewed in the places they lived, worked, went 
 for help, or looked for jobs. Some were inter- 
 viewed at a United Parcel Service (UPS) work 
 site. Others were interviewed at a youth sub- 
 stance abuse and domestic violence treatment 
 center, a young fathers support group, a public 
 housing site, and a community-based organiza- 
 tion. 
 
 The sample's median age was 18. Not sur- 
 prisingly, given their age, only 37 percent had 
 finished high school, finished a GED program, or 
 begun a postsecondary education. Fifty percent 
 said they were in a GED education program, and 
 8 percent had dropped out of high school. Most 
 were unemployed (58 percent); when the UPS 
 site is removed, unemployment increases to 67 
 percent. Surprisingly, given their age, 61 percent 
 had a criminal record. Even subtracting the 
 
 2 Preliminary findings fi-om the Work of the Men of Color 
 Committee of the Denver Workforce Initiative. Ken Grimes, 
 John Callahan and others. 
 
 ^ The study excludes Asian men and undersamples Native 
 American men and Latinos. Forty-eight percent of the men 
 are black, and 51 percent are Latino. If the sample were a 
 true mirror of Denver's black and Latino population, 30 
 percent would be black, and 70 percent would be Latino. The 
 study oversamples younger men, so the median age is 18 
 years old. The sample size is too small to provide statisti- 
 cally significant information. The data are for illustrative 
 purposes only. 
 
 young men at the youth detention site, a major- 
 ity still had a criminal record. One-third had a 
 felony conviction. Even more surprisingly, 78 
 percent of the young men were not married, but 
 56 percent had children. If the young fathers' 
 support group is dropped from the sample, the 
 percent having children remains high at 40 per- 
 cent. 
 
 National comparative studies of American 
 youth usually confirm the impressions captured 
 at the Denver site. Young, low-income African 
 American and Latino males are less likely to 
 have an education past high school than their 
 white peers. Over 30 percent of black teenage 
 males are unemployed, compared with 14 per- 
 cent of their white peers (Economic Report of the 
 President, 1999). In 1994, one-third of African 
 American men between the ages of 20 and 29 
 were in the criminal justice system. In urban 
 areas, these percentages are often higher. In 
 Baltimore, in 1991, for example, 56 percent of 
 black men between the ages of 18 and 35 were in 
 prison, on parole, awaiting disposition on crimi- 
 nal charges, or being sought on an arrest war- 
 rant (Brenner, 1998).'* Finally, when young black 
 males become fathers they are more Likely to 
 have a child outside of marriage — almost 70 per- 
 cent of black children are born outside of mar- 
 riage. 
 
 Most noncollege American youth end their 
 adolescence with an ineffective, even chaotic en- 
 try into the labor force. As a nation, we virtually 
 ensure such chaos by putting up significant bar- 
 riers between high schools and employers. But, 
 as the Denver focus data illustrate, the ending of 
 adolescence for black males is catastrophic, go- 
 ing beyond employment instability to include 
 crime and early unwed fatherhood. 
 
 1.1 Young Black Males and the Consequences 
 of Early Involvement with the Child Support 
 Enforcement System 
 
 Most young noncustodial fathers do not pay 
 child support, primarily because their incomes 
 are too low, at least among black and Hispanic 
 fathers. As table 1 shows, young black men are 
 overrepresented among the nation's 4 million 
 young nonresident fathers. A third of young 
 noncustodial fathers are black, half are white, 14 
 
 ' Report draft notes. Eric Brenner. Fathers in Prison, Feb. 8, 
 1998, for the National Center on Families and Families. 
 
 164
 
 percent are Hispanic, and the rest are of other 
 races (3 percent). 
 
 Black fathers are least likely to pay child 
 support (15 percent), followed by Hispanic fa- 
 thers (30 percent) and white fathers (44 per- 
 cent). The largest category of black fathers are 
 those who do not pay child support and have low 
 incomes (44 percent). Among Hispanic fathers, 
 35 percent have low incomes and do not pay 
 child support. White fathers have the smallest 
 fraction of low-income nonpayers (26 percent). 
 
 Patterns of race and receipt of child support 
 by custodial mothers are similar to patterns of 
 race and payment of child support by noncusto- 
 dial fathers. Blacks are overrepresented among 
 the ranks of young custodial mothers. Most 
 young custodial mothers do not receive child 
 support (59 percent). Only about one-quarter of 
 black and Hispanic custodial mothers receive 
 support, but the majority of white custodial 
 mothers receive child support. Mothers who do 
 not receive child support also tend to be poor, 
 especially if they are black or Hispanic. 
 
 1.2 Low-Income, Nonpaying, Noncustodial 
 Fathers: Just as Needy as Poor Moms 
 
 Welfare reform seeks to make low-income, 
 nonpaying fathers honor their child support ob- 
 hgations as it seeks to make the mother and her 
 household self-sufficient. Unfortunately, a low- 
 income, nonpaying father often needs as much 
 help in making his child support payment as the 
 poor mother needs to become self-sufficient. 
 Most low-income, nonpaying fathers have little 
 education past high school (see table 3).^ White 
 nonpayers are more likely to have a high school 
 diploma, and, perhaps as a result, a sizable mi- 
 nority of are likely to work full time. Notwith- 
 standing those who are fully employed, over half 
 of the nonpayers work intermittently (48.5 per- 
 cent) or are out of the labor force (1.6 percent), 
 as are their black and Hispanic counterparts. 
 There are, however, noticeable racial and ethnic 
 differences among young custodial mothers. 
 While approximately 50 percent of young white 
 and black mothers work intermittently or are 
 looking for work, 65 percent of young Hispanic 
 
 mothers are out of the labor force. Presumably, 
 child care responsibilities are an important rea- 
 son for labor force nonparticipation among 
 mothers. 
 
 These data suggest that poor black parents 
 who are not involved in the child support system 
 differ from their white and Hispanic peers by 
 degree of impairment, not kind of impairment. 
 As groups, they all share low levels of educa- 
 tional attainment and are all severely underem- 
 ployed or unemployed. These are universal 
 problems among poor nonpayers and nonreceiv- 
 ers, and like the latter the former may need as- 
 sistance before they can provide for their chil- 
 dren. 
 
 1.3. The Critical Difference: Marital Status and 
 Household Arrangements 
 
 Marital status and living arrangements are 
 the primary dimensions by which young, poor 
 families differ by race and ethnicity. According 
 to table 4, black low-income parents who are not 
 involved in the child support system are much 
 less likely to have been married than their white 
 and Hispanic peers. ^ Moreover, most young, low- 
 income black nonpayers have not estabhshed 
 their own independent households. Less than 
 one-quarter of these fathers Hve with some of 
 their children, whether or not there is a spouse 
 present. Forty-five percent hve with a relative. 
 The rest hve by themselves (8 percent) or with a 
 nonrelative. Many of these men are cohabiting. 
 By contrast, most white and Hispanic low- 
 income nonpayers have set up independent 
 households with a spouse andyor some of their 
 children. These differences in family formation 
 make it less likely that black children will bene- 
 fit from the father's work effort and discourage 
 fathers from working and paying child support. 
 
 Fragile Families 
 
 The conventional wisdom about these low 
 rates of marriage among poor young black moth- 
 ers and fathers may have been best expressed by 
 
 5 Fifty-three percent of young, black nonpayers and 80 per- 
 cent of poor nonpaying Hispanic dads had not finished high 
 school. For an 18 to 34 age group, it would be useful to know 
 whether these fathers eventually got their GED. 
 
 •> We do not look to see whether currently married fathers 
 were also previously married, or fathered children and were 
 never married to the mothers of their previous children. 
 Normally, this is important to know because it can help 
 account for discrepancies in the aggregate marital status of 
 custodial and noncustodial households 
 
 165
 
 W.J. Wilson in his discussion of the ethnographic 
 work of Mark Testa.^ 
 
 The ethnographic data reveal that both in- 
 ner-city black males and females beheve that 
 since most marriages will eventually break up 
 and since marriages no longer represent mean- 
 ingful relationships, it is better to avoid the en- 
 tanglements of wedlock altogether. For many 
 single mothers in the inner city, nonmarriage 
 makes more sense as a family formation strategy 
 than does marriage. Single mothers who per- 
 ceive the fathers of their children as unreliable 
 or as having hmited financial means will often — 
 rationally — choose single parenthood. From the 
 point of view of day-to-day survival, single par- 
 enthood reduces the emotional burden and 
 shields them from the type of exploitation that 
 often accompanies the sharing of both hving ar- 
 rangements and limited resources. Men and 
 women are extremely suspicious of each other, 
 and their concerns range from the degree of fi- 
 nancial commitment to fidehty. For all those 
 reasons, they often state they do not want to get 
 married until they are sure it is going to work 
 out.8 
 
 An alternative interpretation of these data is 
 that mothers and fathers see many barriers to 
 marriage, but most mothers and fathers begin 
 with the hope that they might marry and raise a 
 family together. Mincy (1994) defines a unit 
 composed of a low-income, unwed mother, fa- 
 ther, and their child as a fragUe family. Al- 
 though parents in a fragile family do not legiti- 
 mate an unwed birth by marriage or estabhsh 
 paternity, they do not count on single parent- 
 hood. Instead, they are involved in a process of 
 family formation, the end result of which can be 
 marriage. This view draws upon ethnographic 
 research by Achatz and MacAllum (1994), who 
 found that when young inner-city men and 
 women have sex and a pregnancy results prior to 
 a committed relationship, their decision making 
 is reactive — "what can we do now?" 
 
 Support for this interpretation comes from 
 preliminary analysis of data from a special sur- 
 vey of young, poor pregnant couples. McLanahan 
 finds that most of these couples are involved in 
 committed relationships and many contemplate 
 
 7 Wilson, William J., 1996. When Work Disappears: The 
 World of the New Urban Poor. New York: Knopf. 
 
 « Ibid., pp., 104-05. 
 
 marriage (Waller, 1998). Finally, Achatz and 
 MacAllum found that without support and posi- 
 tive interventions encouraging dual-parent in- 
 volvement and paternity estabUshment, such 
 couples are likely to move apart and eventually 
 rationalize their separation in the manner often 
 captured by standard ethnographies. This sug- 
 gests that welfare reform may be impeding the 
 process of family formation by treating fragile 
 families as if they were divorcing families (Mincy 
 and Pouncy, 1999). 
 
 3. Welfare Reform's Impact 
 
 The traditional goal of social welfare policy 
 since the mid-1970s has been to mitigate the ef- 
 fects of marital dissolution on families with chil- 
 dren. The primary strategy has been to configure 
 taxes and transfers, including child support, in 
 ways that raise the incomes of these mother- 
 headed famihes above the poverty line while re- 
 ducing postdivorce and postseparation gender 
 inequities. 
 
 Unfortunately, this focus on the plight of di- 
 vorced and separated mothers and their 
 child(ren) ignores the phght of the many low- 
 income mothers and fathers who may be in the 
 process of family formation when they have their 
 children and who are poor even before they have 
 children. In addition, the children of fragile 
 famihes face even greater prospects of long term 
 poverty and welfare dependency because their 
 parents tend to be younger and have less educa- 
 tion and work experience than the divorced and 
 separated mothers for whom welfare poUcy is 
 primarily intended. 
 
 3.1. Welfare Reform's Impact on Child Well-being 
 and Gender Equity 
 
 To examine PRWORA's intended and un- 
 tended effects on low-income children, Wendall 
 Primus (1998) of the Center on Budget and Pol- 
 icy Priorities conducted a simulation of Califor- 
 nia's tax and transfer system. The simulation 
 shows how much income a married couple with 
 two children in California would retain after 
 taxes and transfers and compares such a family 
 with an equivalent unmarried couple that was 
 divorced, separated, or never-married with two 
 children and a joint earnings equal to the mar- 
 ried couple's earnings. 
 
 Depending on the earned income of the mar- 
 ried and single-mother family, both qualify for 
 
 166
 
 the Earned Income Tax Credit, welfare in the 
 form of Temporary Assistance for Needy Fami- 
 hes (TANF), child care credits, head of house- 
 hold deductions, and food stamps. The single- 
 mother family also receives child support pay- 
 ments according to the California child support 
 guidelines. (The $50 child support disregard is 
 ignored in these simulations). The noncustodial 
 father pays child support for the two children, 
 but does not take the Earned Income Tax Credit 
 or food stamps, and does not qualify for tax relief 
 provided to resident parents. 
 
 For famihes earning between $10,000 and 
 $40,000, Une A of chart 1 illustrates the house- 
 hold income of the married couple, after taxes 
 and transfers and expressed as a percentage of 
 poverty, assuming the father is the sole earner 
 and the couple has two children. The children in 
 this family never fall below the poverty line even 
 if the father earns as httle as $10,000. Lines B 
 and C illustrate what happens to the custodial 
 mother and children (B) and the noncustodial 
 father (C) if the couple divorces, separates, or 
 never marries. According to line B, the combina- 
 tion of child support payments, TANF, and head 
 of household deductions is not sufficient to hft 
 the custodial mother and children above the 
 poverty hne, no matter what the noncustodial 
 father earns and contributes through child sup- 
 port. 
 
 Moreover, the distance between Unes B and C 
 illustrates the gender inequity that is created by 
 a divorce or a separation. This ineqviity is an in- 
 creasing function of earnings. For example, it 
 seems patently unfair that a noncustodial parent 
 who earns $35,000 per year should have an in- 
 come that is 150 percent of the poverty level for 
 a single-person household, while the income of 
 his ex- wife and children is just 80 percent of the 
 poverty level for a family of three. This is the 
 illustration of U.S. social welfare's main policy 
 goals — reducing child poverty and hmiting the 
 inequity between postdivorced couples. 
 
 However, efforts to reduce child poverty and 
 gender inequity impose substantial child support 
 burdens on low-income noncustodial fathers. As 
 shown in chart 1, a low-income Californian fa- 
 ther earning $12,000, for example, pays about 
 one-fourth of his income ($3,216) in child sup- 
 port and is left at the same poverty level as his 
 children and their mother. Fathers who pay 
 child support according to the Cahfornia guide- 
 
 lines and have lower earnings than $12,000 are 
 left in greater poverty than their children. For 
 these fathers, mothers, and children — most of 
 whose famihes are less hkely to have been mar- 
 ried — in California's tax and transfer system, the 
 gender equity question is moot. 
 
 Chart 2 illustrates child poverty and gender 
 equity outcomes when mothers work and their 
 earnings account for 25 percent of family in- 
 come. Although children in married-couple 
 famihes never fall below the poverty hne, the 
 first observation is that the situation of married- 
 couple families with combined earnings of 
 $20,000 or more is worsened when the wife 
 works. This can be seen by comparing chart I's 
 line A to chart 2's hne A. For example, let us 
 imagine two famihes — the WiUiams and the 
 Johnsons. In chart 1, Mr. Wilhams earns 
 $15,000; Mr. Johnson earns $20,000; and neither 
 Mrs. Wilhams nor Mrs. Johnson works. In this 
 situation, after taxes and transfers the Johnson 
 family income is 120 percent of the poverty hne, 
 and the Williams' family income is 129 percent 
 of the poverty line. 
 
 Now let us suppose that both Mr. WiUiams 
 and Mr. Johnson experience a reduction in work 
 hours, which reduces their earnings by 25 per- 
 cent. To offset this reduction, Mrs. WiUiams and 
 Mrs. Johnson both begin to work part time. After 
 taxes and transfers, the Wilhams' family income 
 remains at 120 percent of the poverty hne, 
 whereas the Johnson famUy income faUs to 114 
 percent of the poverty threshold. This occurs be- 
 cause at $20,000, the benefits that the Johnsons 
 receive from the Earned Income Tax Credit 
 (EITC) and state tax exemptions are too smaU to 
 offset the increased taxes that Mrs. Johnson 
 pays on her earnings. Pohcy makers have com- 
 plained for a long time about the marriage pen- 
 alty, which this Ulustrates, although such dis- 
 cussions usuaUy focus on the increased tax bur- 
 den and do not include benefits such as the 
 EITC. 
 
 The second observation is that for most cou- 
 ples, both the increase in child poverty and the 
 gender inequity that foUows a divorce, separa- 
 tion, or nonmarriage are muted when the 
 mother works. In chart 1, hne B, chUdren hving 
 with a single mother who does not work are poor 
 no matter how much their father earns and con- 
 tributes in standard child support payments. In 
 chart 2, hne B, chUdren hving with a single 
 
 167
 
 mother who earns $4,250 or more are no longer 
 poor once they receive child support from a fa- 
 ther earning $12,750 or more — where the com- 
 bined parental incomes total $17,000 or more. 
 
 By emphasizing work and payment of child 
 support in PRORWA and boosting the Earned 
 Income Tax Credit, the architects of the most 
 recent welfare reform may have succeeded in 
 reducing child poverty, at least for children with 
 at least one parent earning substantially more 
 than the minimum wage.^ However, when these 
 same poUcies are apphed to very low-income 
 parents, they reverse the traditional pattern of 
 gender inequities, leaving men destitute and 
 mothers and children better off without them.'" 
 These low-income parents are likely to have 
 been unmarried and poor even before they had 
 children. 
 
 For the final sunulation, it will be helpful if 
 we focus on the consequences of welfare reform 
 for the low-earning, unmarried parents captured 
 in a discussion of child support enforcement by 
 Jeff Johnson (Johnson, J.M., 1998). Johnson 
 asks what happens to "Andre," a 21-year-old 
 high school dropout who, much Like the youth in 
 Denver, holds no steady job and was once ar- 
 rested for selling marijuana as he and "Benita," 
 
 9 Assume, for example that Mr. Johnson earns $9.21 per 
 hour and works a 30-hour week for 52 weeks during the 
 year and Mrs. Johnson earns $5.15 per hour and works 3 
 days per week, 7 hours a day, for 52 weeks during the year. 
 Their combined earnings will be $20,000, nearly 25 percent 
 of which will come from Mrs. Johnson's earnings. Notice, 
 however, that if Mrs. Johnson divorces Mr. Johnson and 
 continues working, the gender inequity (the gap between 
 line B and C) that follows is substantially reduced (at least 
 for parents with combined earnings near the median family 
 income). Thus, a married couple with combined earnings of 
 $30,000 has an income that is 140 percent of the poverty 
 level after taxes and transfers. If the couple divorces, the 
 income of the custodial mother and children falls to 121 
 percent of the poverty line for a family of three, while the 
 income of the custodial father falls to 123 percent of the 
 poverty Une for a single-person household. At $35,000 the 
 income of the noncustodial father and the custodial mother 
 and children are still comparable. Below $30,000, however, 
 income of a custodial mother and children as a percentage of 
 poverty is actually higher than the income of a noncustodial 
 father. This "reverse" equity difference becomes quite sig- 
 nificant for parents with combined earnings of $15,000 or 
 less. 
 
 '" After paying taxes and child support, noncustodial fathers 
 are left with incomes at just 61 percent of the poverty line 
 for a single-person household, while the income of the custo- 
 dial mother and children is 120 percent of the poverty hne 
 for a three-person household. 
 
 the never-married mother of his two children, 
 struggle to support themselves. 
 
 • This fictitious couple hves in California, and 
 because of PRWORA's work requirements, 
 Benita works full time all year at a mini- 
 mum-wage job. She earns $7,500 per year 
 and hopes to earn more after she gains some 
 work experience. Though she has a hard 
 time managing work and time with her chil- 
 dren, she is feeling better about herself now 
 that she is off welfare. Including child sup- 
 port payments, which Andre is now required 
 to pay, earned income tax credits, and other 
 transfers, Benita and the children now have 
 income equivalent to 120 percent of the pov- 
 erty line for a family of three. 
 
 • Andre works 28 hours a week for 52 weeks, 
 earning $7,500 per year at $5.15 an hour in 
 part-time jobs. After he pays child support, 
 his income is 45 percent of the poverty Une. 
 
 • Benita's mother has been a big help and will 
 continue to help as long as Benita keeps her 
 promise to stay away from that "good-for- 
 nothing Andre," who has been trying to see 
 her and the children since he was released 
 fi-om jail, where he had been spending time 
 for seUing marijuana (Johnson). Benita 
 keeps her promise to her mother, but she 
 feels guilty. She has never told her mother 
 that, just before Andre was arrested, they 
 were both smoking and seUing marijuana in 
 order to save money to get an apartment to- 
 gether and, possibly, marry. Had they mar- 
 ried, their combined earnings of $15,000 
 would have left them with a combined in- 
 come, after taxes and transfers, of 120 per- 
 cent of the poverty hne for their family of 
 four (chart 3). The 3-year separation, the 
 wishes of Benita's mother, Andre's unstable 
 work history, his criminal record, and other 
 problems have all ended their joint apart- 
 ment and marriage plans. Still, it does not 
 seem fair to him that she should keep him 
 away from his children now. Neither beUeves 
 it fair that their earnings are equal, but she 
 and the children are doing much better than 
 he is. 
 
 As chart 3 also illustrates, when mothers and 
 fathers make equal contributions to earnings, 
 California's tax and transfer system gives single 
 
 168
 
 mothers and children incomes that, as a per- 
 centage of their poverty Une, exceeds or equals 
 the incomes of married couples with children. 
 Moreover, these incomes are always above the 
 poverty Une. However, the incomes of fathers 
 remain below the poverty Une unless the com- 
 bined parental earnings exceed $35,000. 
 
 3.2 A Debt Engine — Impact on Low-Income 
 Noncustodial Fathers Who Pay Child Support 
 
 Social welfare policy not only increases pov- 
 erty among low-income, noncustodial fathers, it 
 increases the debt these fathers carry. Such debt 
 was found among participants in the Parent's 
 Fair Share Demonstration (PFS) operated by the 
 Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation 
 (MDRC). PFS was designed to provide media- 
 tion, employment training, peer counseling, and 
 enhanced child support services to low-income, 
 noncustodial fathers who were unable to pay 
 chUd support. Many low-income fathers who 
 participated in PFS were unemployed when they 
 enrolled in PFS, and those who had worked in 
 the previous 9 months earned, on average, 
 $2,800 (DooUttle et al., 1998). In the five PFS 
 sites that provided data on arrears, almost all 
 the fathers were in debt because of their child 
 support obhgations. Almost one-half had arrears 
 of over $2,000, or a debt near their 9-month 
 earnings (see table 5). 
 
 Debt among these noncustodial fathers in- 
 creases for several reasons. 
 
 • Back child support debt: Even when a never- 
 married, noncustodial father is willing to be- 
 gin paying child support immediately after 
 the birth of his child, the child support 
 agency often lags behind in processing his 
 case. These lags may be as short as a few 
 days or as long as a year or more. When the 
 order is determined in many states, it will be 
 set back to the date of the child's birth. A 
 back child support order may also include a 
 separate charge for the medical bills related 
 to the birth of the child. These orders do not 
 necessarily take into account informal pay- 
 ments made by the child's father or that he 
 may be living with the child. 
 
 • Size of a/i initial child support order: In 
 many cases the child support order is high, 
 given the father's income. Often the child 
 support agency sets the order based on a fa- 
 
 ther's earnings potential under the assump- 
 tion that he works full time and full year at 
 the prevaihng minimum wage although his 
 actual earnings fall far below potential earn- 
 ings because his employment is unstable. 
 • Inflexible implementation: As fathers experi- 
 ence unemployment spells, due to job insta- 
 bility, illness, disabiUty, or incarceration, the 
 child support agency does not adjust the 
 amount of the father's child support order 
 unless the father requests a downward modi- 
 fication. Few fathers know that they have 
 the right to this, and those who do know do 
 not have access to the legal services that 
 could assist them. In one dramatic example, 
 an agency assessed an incarcerated father 
 an order based on a minimum-wage job, al- 
 though he was required by law to have no 
 earnings while in jail. When he was released 
 from prison, he faced a $5,000 child support 
 debt. 
 
 In a simulation of what typically happens to a 
 poor, never-married father who begins to pay 
 child support for a child whose mother is on wel- 
 fare, Sorensen identifies several sources of debt 
 and details their impacts (table 6). In this exam- 
 ple, the noncustodial father lives in Wisconsin 
 and earns $8,360, which is 103 percent of pov- 
 erty for a one-person household. He does not es- 
 tablish paternity and receive a child support or- 
 der until 1 year after the child's birth. He is as- 
 signed a "minimum-wage" order, which assumes 
 he earns the minimum wage at a full-time, year- 
 round job even though he does not. He is 
 charged $4,680 in back support— $1,680 for a 
 year's worth of back support since he did not es- 
 tabhsh an order at the time of the birth and 
 $3,000 to reimburse the government for the 
 medical expanses of the birth, which were paid 
 by Medicaid. 
 
 In this example — again, a fairly typical sce- 
 nario — he compUcates the picture by having a 
 second child with a second mother. This second 
 mom is not on cash assistance but she had her 
 child on Medicaid. Thus the father's debt grows 
 to almost $9,000 and his retained earnings are 
 only 44 percent of the poverty level. 
 
 As welfare reform takes hold we can expect 
 the number of fathers in arrears to grow. In 
 1996, for example, over a third of the nation's 
 fathers who had children on welfare and paid 
 
 169
 
 child support were in arrears (see table 7). Un- 
 fortunately, most experts expect custodial moth- 
 ers who are long-term welfare recipients to ex- 
 perience interruptions in their employment after 
 they exit welfare for work. While fathers should, 
 of course, be held responsible for their children, 
 the child support debts they accumulate often 
 prevent them from making the investments in 
 training and education that would, in the long 
 run, improve their capacity to find stable, weU- 
 paying work. Without this, we can expect in- 
 creases in the number of poor children who rely 
 on two unstable sources of parental income. 
 
 3.3 Impact on Fragile Families 
 
 In a third area, too, welfare reform has ad- 
 verse effects. It does help fragile famiUes — low- 
 income, never-married mothers and fathers who 
 may still be involved in a family formation proc- 
 ess. Welfare reform's impact on mothers and fa- 
 thers in such situations has received httle atten- 
 tion. 
 
 Given the low rate at which young, never- 
 married, low-income black fathers set up inde- 
 pendent households, what happens when such 
 fathers seek to do more than pay child support? 
 What happens when a noncustodial father who 
 hves with relatives and a low-income custodial 
 mother who has her own household seek to pool 
 their incomes and resources as a further step in 
 their family formation effort? How would the tax 
 and transfer system treat them? 
 
 Given welfare's traditional goal of providing 
 for famihes in dissolution, its terms and bench- 
 marks are poor guides for assessing impacts on 
 fragile families. We recharacterize the term 
 "child well-being" as the gap between a fragile 
 family's combined income and the poverty line. 
 We redefine the term "equity" as the gap be- 
 tween a married couple's retained earnings and 
 a fragile family's retained earnings.^' 
 
 Primus's California study provides useful 
 data for this analysis. It includes an estimate of 
 how the state's tax and transfer system would 
 
 " The poverty threshold for a married couple with two chil- 
 dren is $16,766 in 1998. The poverty threshold for a fragile 
 family is the combined poverty threshold of a custodial 
 mother with two chUdren ($13,086) and a noncustodial fa- 
 ther ($8,359), or $21,445. This means in some cases that a 
 fragile family retains more earnings than a married family, 
 but the fragile family's earnings will fall below the poverty 
 line and the married family's earnings will lay above the 
 poverty line (Primus, 1998). 
 
 treat a never-married couple that combined their 
 incomes but maintained separate households. 
 For low-income famihes, California provides a 
 marriage bonus. A married family with $10,000 
 in earnings will receive over $19,000 in income 
 (including cash and food stamps) after taxes and 
 transfers. A fragile family with $10,000 in 
 earnings will retain between $14,588 and 
 $16,300 in income (including food stamps), de- 
 pending on how much the mother contributes to 
 their joint income. The low-income married cou- 
 ple gains a bonus of between $2,823 to $4,534 
 over the fragile family. At higher incomes, the 
 state's tax pohcies penahze marriage. If both 
 parents earn $10,000, the married couple retains 
 only $19,172, while the unmarried couple retains 
 $21,627 in net earnings. However, a standard- 
 ized comparison that takes into account the two- 
 household poverty threshold of a fragile family, 
 expressed as a percentage of poverty, shows that 
 in all cases the equity gap favors the married 
 couple. The gap grows as large as 50 percentage 
 points, with an average gap of 30 points (charts 
 3 through 5). 
 
 Although the well-being of children of a non- 
 working, never-married mother improves when 
 the mother and noncustodial father combine 
 earnings, the children's financial well-being im- 
 proves even more significantly if she and the 
 father marry. As a custodial parent earns more, 
 she decreases the well-being of her children if 
 she combines income with the noncustodial fa- 
 ther. A custodial parent, for example, who earns 
 $10,000 and receives child support from a non- 
 custodial parent who also earns $10,000, will 
 provide her children with household net earn- 
 ings that are 130 percent of poverty. If that cus- 
 todial parent were to combine income with the 
 noncustodial parent, their joint retained earn- 
 ings leave the children in a household with net 
 earnings that are 105 percent of poverty, reduc- 
 ing the well-being of their children by 25 per- 
 centage points. 
 
 4. What's Next? — A Policy for Fragile Families 
 
 Answers to the question of how better to pro- 
 vide for children whose parents are poor and 
 have never married sometimes confuse ideology 
 with evidence. Conservative pohcy makers, for 
 example, are likely to conclude that encouraging 
 marriage is the best "fragile family" pohcy avail- 
 able. States hke California now transfer enough 
 
 170
 
 benefits and advantages to married couples that 
 parents who earn at least $10,000 will always 
 maintain a household above the poverty line. 
 There is also evidence that marriage dehvers 
 stronger parental resources — e.g., supervision, 
 aspirations, and involvement (McLanahan and 
 Sandefur). From a conservative perspective, 
 closing an equity gap between fragile and mar- 
 ried families is actually a destructive pohcy be- 
 cause it undermines the marital choice. 
 
 This view ignores evidence that most young, 
 poor, never-married fathers and mothers already 
 aspire to marriage (McLanahan et al., 1998). 
 Some already try to marry (Achatz and MacAl- 
 lum), but require stronger pathways to marriage 
 that can overcome peer norms, low earnings, 
 poor skills, a criminal record, the risks of domes- 
 tic violence, and other barriers. It might help if 
 youth knew more about the financial advantages 
 of marriage, but who told them, how they told 
 them, when they told them, and what help they 
 offered as they told them might matter more. 
 When this pohcy is reduced to a "marry or else" 
 policy, it becomes a smokescreen for doing 
 nothing for children in poor, never-married, sin- 
 gle-parent households. 
 
 Some elements of a more centrist or Hberal 
 view on providing for children of poor, never- 
 married parents (Bane and EUwood) are already 
 captured in PRWORA. These more liberal ele- 
 ments are encouraging the never-married 
 mother to become self-sufficient, the father to 
 pay child support, and both parents to become 
 more responsible in the future; these are already 
 core welfare reform goals. So far, the evidence 
 suggests that in the ideal situation where the 
 mother works and the father pays child support, 
 the results are impressive. A custodial mother 
 earning $7,500 who also receives child support 
 from a noncustodial father earning $7,500 will 
 retain more earnings than an equivalent mar- 
 ried couple earning $15,000. From this perspec- 
 tive, the most practical pohcy for "fragile fami- 
 lies" is to encourage a mother's work effort and a 
 father's child support effort. 
 
 The problem is that the pohcy does Uttle to 
 secure the parenting resources that married 
 parents, or even unmarried co-parents, can pro- 
 vide for their children. It also has devastating 
 consequences for low-income, noncustodial, 
 never-married fathers. When such fathers earn 
 less than $15,000 and comply with the child 
 
 support enforcement authorities, their net 
 earnings are 80 percent or less of the poverty 
 threshold. If they fail to comply, their arrears 
 become a permanent barrier to self-sufficiency. 
 If conservatives fear that marriage is under- 
 mined when never-married couples can increase 
 their combined income without marrying, then 
 welfare reform's current goal of making single- 
 parent households self-sufficient undermines 
 marriage even more. 
 
 The fragile family pohcy initiative is an at- 
 tempt to carve out a new middle ground between 
 marriage-only poHcies and the centrist/liberal 
 version of welfare reform. It creates a pathway 
 for low-income, never-married parents to secure 
 more stable arrangements that can end in mar- 
 riage, unmarried team parenting or, at a mini- 
 mum, conventional separate households with 
 provisions that ehminate barriers to the father's 
 self-sufficiency. Such "new middle" pohcies com- 
 bine efforts that: (1) alleviate child support- 
 related debt for low-income, noncustodial fa- 
 thers, (2) increase and support the work effort of 
 fathers; (3) increase the joint equity of never- 
 married parents; and (4) increase the well-being 
 of children in poor, never-married households. 
 Unfortunately, most efforts achieve only one or 
 two of these goals at the expense of other goals. 
 
 The Clinton administration's effort to in- 
 crease the well-being of children by increasing 
 the number of fathers who pay child support, for 
 example, carries the cost of increased debt for 
 low-income fathers as discussed in section 3. The 
 efforts by some states that allow fathers of chil- 
 dren on welfare to pass all or part of their sup- 
 port payments directly to their children and re- 
 duce a father's animosity toward the welfare sys- 
 tem have Httle direct impact on his debt rehef. 
 Similarly, proposals that cap a low-income fa- 
 ther's child support payments help fathers avoid 
 the debt burdens outUned in section 3 during a 
 spell of unemployment, but this measure can 
 harm children when it lowers the child support 
 contributions paid directly to them. 
 
 Efforts that reconfigure taxes and transfer 
 benefits show the most promise at achieving aU 
 four policy goals simultaneously. One such effort 
 extended Earned Income Tax credits to noncus- 
 todial fathers. This helped fathers avoid debt 
 risks even as they paid more child support on a 
 more regular basis (Wheaton and Sorensen). 
 
 171
 
 Building on such a proposal, Primus ad- 
 dressed all four goals with a Child Support In- 
 centive Plan (CSIP) (Primus, 1998). This plan 
 matches a custodial mother's unused tax credits 
 and child tax credits'^ against the father's child 
 support payments J3 These credits then subsidize 
 the father's child support. A father who pays all 
 of his order secures the mother's unused credits. 
 In addition, the father's child support payments 
 go directly to the family. The tax system does not 
 count such income and the father's child support 
 payments are capped. Typically, an order should 
 not exceed 5 percent of the fathers first $5,000 in 
 net income, 25 percent of the next $5,000, and 35 
 percent of the remainder. 
 
 When the proposal is fully implemented, it 
 eUminates the net income gap between married 
 couples and fragile couples that are willing to 
 pool their incomes. (See charts 7 through 9). Not 
 shown in charts 7 through 9 are the impact of 
 the proposal on custodial mothers and noncusto- 
 dial fathers. The proposal brings nonworking 
 custodial households above the poverty line and 
 moderates the position of noncustodial fathers. 
 They gain, on average, 20 percentage points in 
 increased net earnings, but those who earn 
 $10,000 or less will remain below the poverty 
 Une. 
 
 At the same time, this encourages fathers to 
 collaborate with custodial mothers. Primus has 
 provided a financing scheme for achieving the 
 four goals, but what is the mechanism for 
 achieving fragile family collaborations? We as- 
 sume that, given the opportunity to work and 
 increase his children's benefits, a noncustodial 
 father will want to work. However, reports from 
 the Parents Fair Share Demonstration and field 
 reports from earlier demonstrations (Johnson 
 and Pouncy) suggest that the quality of the bond 
 between the young father and mother may be a 
 stronger governing incentive than even the ro- 
 bust financial incentives Primus's CSIP offers. 
 In addition, other serious barriers to self- 
 
 '2 These include her Earned Income Tax Credits, personal 
 exemptions, a $500 child tax credit and state tax credit. 
 
 '3 Primus and Rosenbaum estimate that a custodial mother 
 with no income will accumulate up to $6,909 in child tax 
 credits and Earned Income Tax Credits that she will not 
 use. These unused federal tax benefits decline as a mother's 
 earning level increases, so that when her income reaches 
 $22,000, she typically does use all the credits to which she is 
 entitled. 
 
 sufficiency for both mothers and fathers (Danziger 
 et al.) have to be addressed. 
 
 The national program Partners for Fragile 
 Family Demonstration addresses just such fam- 
 ily-building issues by helping young, never- 
 married parents find pathways to more stable 
 arrangements. It is the kind of program that 
 could help young, never-married parents exploit 
 the opportunities of a Child Support Incentive 
 Plan. 
 
 5. Summary 
 
 Between the conservative view that marriage 
 is the answer for the poor dependent children of 
 never-married parents and the established pol- 
 icy that increases the well-being of such children 
 within single-parent households lie new policy 
 options that support both these goals. Efforts to 
 increase the earnings of poor, never-married, 
 noncustodial fathers can be designed in ways 
 that also increase child well-being, build fragile 
 famihes, and decrease the risks of child-support 
 related debt. 
 
 Currently, poor, young black men are over- 
 represented among the ranks of noncustodial 
 fathers who do not pay child support. These fa- 
 thers and poor, nonpaying white and Hispanic 
 fathers like them usually have few skills and 
 tend not to be employed full time. In many re- 
 spects they share the attributes of the poor 
 mothers who do not receive child support pay- 
 ments. 
 
 As state governments comply with PRWORA 
 requirements to find these fathers and enforce 
 their child support obligations, they are likely to 
 create large, permanent debts for these men and 
 erect permanent barriers that prevent their in- 
 tegration into mainstream society. This also 
 threatens the well-being of their children. 
 
 There is some evidence that most never- 
 married parents are caught in an arrested fam- 
 ily formation process. Estabhshed welfare poHcy 
 offers little support for building such families, 
 and in this case policy begets what it beholds. 
 The child support enforcement system, the wel- 
 fare system, and other social welfare agencies 
 operate together in ways that reinforce existing 
 barriers to this alternative family formation 
 process. 
 
 172
 
 We have explored some ideas for resolving increase their earnings and attach themselves 
 
 these logams to an alternative family formation more strongly to their children seem to be the 
 
 process. Those that deliver incentives for low- most promising, 
 income, never-married, noncustodial fathers to 
 
 173
 
 Tables and Figures 
 
 Table 1 
 
 Noncustodial Dads (18-34) and Their Child Support Payment Status 
 (low income = food stamps) 
 
 Total 
 
 Percent of all dads (of row 1 ) 
 
 All payers (% of columns 2-5)) 
 
 Low-Income payers 
 
 Able payers 
 All non-payers 
 
 Low-income non-payers 
 
 Able non-payers 
 Total low-income non-payers 
 
 All dads 
 
 White dads 
 
 Black dads 
 
 Hispanic dads 
 
 4,325,982 
 
 2,247,598 
 
 1,492,192 
 
 616,192 
 
 - 
 
 50% 
 
 33% 
 
 14% 
 
 1,299,037 
 
 989,396 
 
 225,842 
 
 182,274 
 
 (32%) 
 
 (44%) 
 
 (15%) 
 
 (30%) 
 
 423,669 
 
 194,204 
 
 137,955 
 
 86,437 
 
 (10%) 
 
 (8.64%) 
 
 (9.25%) 
 
 (14.03%) 
 
 1,000,915 
 
 795,192 
 
 87,887 
 
 95,836 
 
 (22%) 
 
 (35.38%) 
 
 (5.89%) 
 
 (15.55%) 
 
 3,039,459 
 
 1,258,202 
 
 1,266,351 
 
 433.918 
 
 (68%) 
 
 (56%) 
 
 (85%) 
 
 (70%) 
 
 1,535,424 
 
 573,653 
 
 658,802 
 
 216,378 
 
 (34%) 
 
 (25.52%) 
 
 (44.15%) 
 
 (35.12%) 
 
 1,504,035 
 
 684,549 
 
 607,549 
 
 217,540 
 
 (34%) 
 
 (30.46%) 
 
 (40.72%) 
 
 (35.30%) 
 
 1,504,035 
 
 573,653 
 
 658,802 
 
 216,378 
 
 Source: 1990 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). 
 
 Table 2 
 
 Custodial Moms (16-32) and Their Child Support Payment Status 
 
 
 All moms 
 
 White moms 
 
 Black moms 
 
 Hispanic moms 
 
 Total 
 
 5,069,818 
 
 2,798.044 
 
 1,590,284 
 
 548.522 
 
 Percent by racial groups (of row 1) 
 
 - 
 
 56.6% 
 
 32.2% 
 
 1 1 .6% 
 
 All receivers (% of racial groups) 
 
 2,083,880 
 
 1 ,442.254 
 
 442,022 
 
 150.952 
 
 
 (41.1%) 
 
 (51.55%) 
 
 (27.80%) 
 
 (27.52%) 
 
 Poor receivers 
 
 602,690 
 
 308.816 
 
 230,686 
 
 52,959 
 
 
 (1 1 .9%) 
 
 (11.04%) 
 
 (14.51%) 
 
 (9.65%) 
 
 Non-poor receivers 
 
 1,481,190 
 
 1,133,437 
 
 211.336 
 
 97.993 
 
 
 (28.8%) 
 
 (40.51%) 
 
 (13.29%) 
 
 (17.86%) 
 
 All non-receivers 
 
 2,985,938 
 
 1,355,791 
 
 1,148,263 
 
 397,570 
 
 
 (58.9%) 
 
 (48.45%) 
 
 72.20%) 
 
 (72.48%) 
 
 Poor non-receivers 
 
 1,400,179 
 
 498,041 
 
 652,533 
 
 200.237 
 
 
 (27.6%) 
 
 (17.80%) 
 
 (41 .03%) 
 
 (36.50%) 
 
 Non-poor non-receivers 
 
 1.585,758 
 
 857,749 
 
 495.730 
 
 197,333 
 
 
 (31 .3%) 
 
 (30.66%) 
 
 (31.17%) 
 
 (35.98%) 
 
 Total poor non-receivers 
 
 1,400,179 
 
 498,041 
 
 652,533 
 
 200,237 
 
 Source: 1990 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). 
 
 According to Mincy and Sorensen (1998) "low income' means low enough to qualify for food stamps for a single person household. 
 
 174
 
 Table 3 
 
 Education and Employment of Low-Income Noncustodial Dads (18-34) Who Do Not Pay Child 
 Support, and of Poor Custodial Moms (16-32) Who Do Not Receive Child Support 
 
 
 White 
 
 Black 
 
 Hispanic 
 
 White 
 
 Black 
 
 Hispanic 
 
 
 dads 
 
 dads 
 
 dads 
 
 moms 
 
 moms 
 
 moms 
 
 Education 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 <12 
 
 34.0 
 
 53.4 
 
 79.1 
 
 35.8 
 
 52.6 
 
 61.3 
 
 12 
 
 43.5 
 
 41.2 
 
 14.8 
 
 44.9 
 
 38.7 
 
 27.1 
 
 >12 
 
 22.6 
 
 5.4 
 
 6.0 
 
 19.4 
 
 8.7 
 
 11.6 
 
 Employment 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Worked intermittently 
 
 48.5 
 
 56.9 
 
 65.3 
 
 21.7 
 
 14.2 
 
 20.8 
 
 Looked for work 
 
 19.2 
 
 34.7 
 
 7.6 
 
 22.8 
 
 37.1 
 
 12.6 
 
 Worked full time full year 
 
 30.8 
 
 1.2 
 
 17.5 
 
 9.2 
 
 4.4 
 
 1.3 
 
 Not in labor force 
 
 1.6 
 
 7.2 
 
 9.7 
 
 46.3 
 
 44.3 
 
 65.2 
 
 Source: 1990 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). 
 
 Table 4 
 
 Living Arrangements of Low-Income Non-Custodial Dads (18-34) Who Do Not Pay Child Support, 
 and of Poor Custodial Moms (16-32) Who Do Not Receive Child Support 
 
 Marital status 
 
 Currently married 
 Previously married 
 Never married 
 
 White 
 
 Black 
 
 Hispanic 
 
 White 
 
 Black 
 
 Hispanic 
 
 dads 
 
 dads 
 
 dads 
 
 moms 
 
 moms 
 
 moms 
 
 56.8 
 
 25.8 
 
 61.4 
 
 14.7 
 
 6.0 
 
 9.1 
 
 24.0 
 
 4.8 
 
 14.0 
 
 51.7 
 
 11.4 
 
 30.8 
 
 19.2 
 
 69.4 
 
 24.6 
 
 33.6 
 
 82.6 
 
 60.1 
 
 Living arrangements 
 
 Lives with some of their own 
 
 children and spouse 
 Lives with some of their own 
 
 children and no spouse 
 Lives alone 
 Lives with spouse 
 Lives with other relatives 
 Lives with nonrelatives 
 
 53.3 
 
 22.2 
 
 57.'9 
 
 12.4 
 
 3.6 
 
 3.7 
 
 0.9 
 
 2.0 
 
 0.0 
 
 87.6 
 
 96.4 
 
 96.3 
 
 16.6 
 
 7.6 
 
 5.1 
 
 0.0 
 
 0.0 
 
 0.0 
 
 1.8 
 
 0.7 
 
 0.0 
 
 0.0 
 
 0.0 
 
 0.0 
 
 11.2 
 
 45.4 
 
 19.2 
 
 0.0 
 
 0.0 
 
 0.0 
 
 16.3 
 
 21.9 
 
 17.8 
 
 0.0 
 
 0.0 
 
 0.0 
 
 Source: 1990 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). 
 
 175
 
 Table 5 
 
 Highlights from the (Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation's Parent's Fair Share 
 Demonstration Report, 1998 
 
 Grand Los 
 
 All sites Dayton Rapids Jacksonville Angeles Memphis Springfield Trenton 
 Characteristics at random 
 assignment 
 Employed at random 
 
 assignment 17.0 104 15.9 39.5 12.3 5.1 10.9 17.1 
 
 Ever worked 97.3 96.9 99.0 98.9 98.4 90.2 98.1 97.1 
 
 Ever employed full time 90.7 89.9 94.7 93.6 93.5 78.4 91.8 89.1 
 
 Hourly wage at most recent or 
 
 cun-ent job ($) 6.33 6.14 5.87 5.55 8.14 5.26 6.73 6.87 
 
 Eamings during 3 quarters (9 
 
 months) before random 
 
 assignment ($) 2,799 2,212 2,646 3,699 2,633 1,744 3,775 2,468 
 
 Arrears (%) 
 Percent with arrears 
 
 infonnation available 60.3 88.1 57.2 68.5 0.0 0.0 
 
 An-ears less than $2,000 
 An-ears $2,000 to $7,999 
 Arrears $8,000 or more 
 
 Source: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation. 
 
 60.3 
 
 88.1 
 
 57.2 
 
 68.5 
 
 51.4 
 
 51.7 
 
 48.8 
 
 18.7 
 
 31.5 
 
 30.2 
 
 35.1 
 
 48.0 
 
 17.1 
 
 18.1 
 
 16.2 
 
 33.3 
 
 97.1 
 
 90.4 
 
 79.5 
 
 52.0 
 
 15.3 
 
 32.2 
 
 5.2 
 
 15.8 
 
 176
 
 Table 6 
 
 Impact of Child Support and Back Support— Hypothetical Example of Child Support Policy 
 in Wisconsin 
 
 Annual earnings 
 
 Payroll taxes 
 
 Income taxes 
 
 EITC 
 
 Earnings after taxes and EITC 
 
 W2 
 
 Current child support 
 
 (assuming a minimum wage order) 
 
 Back support (assuming paternity 
 
 established one year after the 
 
 birth, back dated order to the birth 
 
 of the child) 
 Income after W2, current support, 
 
 taxes and EITC 
 Debt 
 
 $1,680 
 
 $7,712 
 $0 
 
 First mom 
 
 
 Dad + first 
 
 mom 
 
 Second mom 
 
 Dad + first and 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 second mom 
 
 
 %of 
 
 
 %of 
 
 
 %of 
 
 
 %of 
 
 Amount 
 
 pov. 
 
 Amount 
 
 pov. 
 
 Amount 
 
 pov. 
 
 Amount 
 
 pov. 
 
 $0 
 
 
 $8,390 
 
 103 
 
 $6,032 
 
 57 
 
 $8,390 
 (same) 
 
 103 
 
 $0 
 
 
 ($642) 
 
 
 $461 
 
 
 ($642) 
 
 
 $0 
 
 
 ($435) 
 
 
 $0 
 
 
 ($435) 
 
 
 $0 
 
 
 $85 
 
 
 $2,133 
 
 
 $85 
 
 
 $0 
 
 
 $7,398 
 
 91 
 
 $7,703 
 
 73 
 
 $7,398 
 (same) 
 
 91 
 
 $6,032 
 
 57 
 
 $0 
 
 
 $0 
 
 
 $0 
 
 
 $1 ,680 
 
 
 ($1,680) 
 
 
 $1,394 
 
 
 ($3,074) 
 
 
 ($1 ,680) 
 
 73 $5,718 
 ($4,680) 
 
 70 
 
 $1,394 
 
 $9,087 
 $0 
 
 87 
 
 ($3,074) 
 
 $4,334 
 ($9,074) 
 
 44 
 
 Source: Sorensen tabulations based on standard Wisconsin tax, welfare and child support enforcement codes. 
 Note: Dollars expressed in 1996 values. In 1996 the poverty thresholds were: one person — $8,163 and 2 people 
 wage in 1996 was $4.75. A full-time minimum wage job yielded an annual salary of $9,880. 
 
 -$10,507. The minimum 
 
 Table 7 
 
 Summary of CSE data for Fiscal Year 1996 and Previous 4 Years on AFDC Cases and Arrears Data 
 
 Statistical overview for 5 consecutive 
 fiscal years 
 
 1992 
 
 1993 
 
 1994 
 
 1995 
 
 1996 
 
 Total caseload 
 
 15.157.996 
 
 17.124,529 
 
 18,609,805 
 
 19,162,137 
 
 19,318,341 
 
 AFDC/FC caseload 
 
 6.752,458 
 
 7.471,702 
 
 7,985,983 
 
 7,879.725 
 
 7,379,958 
 
 Non-AFDC caseload 
 
 6,440.712 
 
 7,486,902 
 
 8.189,569 
 
 8.783.238 
 
 9.347,147 
 
 AFDC arrears only caseload 
 
 1.964.796 
 
 2,165,925 
 
 2.434,253 
 
 2.499.174 
 
 2,591,236 
 
 Percentage of AFDC caseload in arrears 
 
 29.0 
 
 28.9 
 
 30.4 
 
 31.7 
 
 35.1 
 
 Source: Office of Child Support Enforcement. Preliminary Data Report, for fiscal year 1996, August 1997. 
 
 177
 
 Chart 1 
 
 Income after Taxes and Transfers: A California Comparison of Married and Nonmarried Households 
 
 — -♦ — mamed income 
 
 -h - CUStodllJ UKMK 
 
 -• — aoncmtodial 
 
 S20.000 
 
 S2S,0O0 $30,000 
 
 faaiily earDinc* 
 
 Chart 2 
 
 Income after Taxes and Transfers: The Mother Earns 25% of Family Income 
 
 1 100 
 
 I 
 
 J 
 
 - married lacame 
 
 - custodial income 
 
 ~ ftoncmtodial 
 
 2SOO0 30000 
 
 fvnity evnings 
 
 178
 
 Chart 3 
 
 Income after Taxes and Transfers: Parents Have Equal Income 
 
 -married income 
 -custodial income 
 ~noncusiodial income 
 
 20000 25O00 30000 
 
 family eanung 
 
 Chart 4 
 
 Married and Fragile Family Income when the Mother Has No Eamings 
 
 ♦ mamcd camingi 
 
 -X • ■ fragile family earnings 
 
 20000 25000 
 
 fionity earnings 
 
 179
 
 Chart 5 
 
 Married and Fragile Family Income Compared when the Mother Contributes 25% of Family Income 
 
 13000 
 
 25000 
 family eanungs 
 
 Chart 6 
 
 Married and Fragile Family Income Compared when Parent Incomes are Equal 
 
 liOOO 
 family earmngi 
 
 180
 
 Chart 7 
 
 Fragile Family Income after Proposal when the Mother Has No Earnings 
 
 ■ — mirried income 
 - - -4 - -ciutodiaJ iiKortie 
 •— ooncusiodtal income 
 
 » combined , 
 
 10000 ISOOO 
 
 20000 2S000 30000 
 
 family earning 
 
 Chart 8 
 
 Fragile Family Income after Proposal when the Mother Earns 25% 
 
 _^ .^^^^ 
 
 ^ -^ — ■"" 
 
 ■ > married income 
 - -•— • cuslodial income 
 • -♦— -noncustodial income 
 ^ fragile fiunily income 
 
 2OO00 
 
 25000 
 family earning) 
 
 181
 
 Chart 9 
 
 Fragile Family Income after Proposal when the Mother and Father Have Equal Earnings 
 
 2(H) 
 
 160 
 
 140 
 
 s 
 
 |.20 
 
 a 
 
 $ 100 
 
 a, 
 a 
 
 i »« 
 J 
 
 60 
 
 20 
 
 ^ ^~m 
 
 •■ — married income 
 
 ■ -• — custodial faxnity income 
 
 ■ -♦ noncustodial income 
 
 ' A ■ fragile family locoine 
 
 ISOOO 
 
 20000 
 
 25000 30000 
 
 family eanungs 
 
 182
 
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 184
 
 The Crisis of African American IVIales: Barriers to 
 Successful Employment 
 
 ZuLiNE G. Wilkinson, M.S.W., A.C.S.W., L.C.S.W* 
 
 Abstract 
 
 Black male unemployment is a multifaceted 
 problem, which reflects the complexities associ- 
 ated with racial discrimination in America. This 
 paper describes critical elements of the situation. 
 Current literature on poverty, employment, fam- 
 ily counseling, child development, and career 
 counseling, as well as experience from commu- 
 nity-based initiatives, are the foundation for ad- 
 dressing the issue. Strategies for policy and prac- 
 tice are recommended. 
 
 Background 
 
 Poverty is the single major factor affecting 
 the employment of African American men. Re- 
 searchers have concluded that chronic poverty 
 severely constricts most life choices such as 
 where to Uve, attend school, or play. When pov- 
 
 * Executive director, Union Industrial Home for Children, 
 Trenton, NJ. 
 
 Acknowledgments: This paper is presented in tribute to the 
 late Gwendolyn Evans-Hughes, Ph.D., who was a member of 
 the Board of Managers of the Union Industrial Home for 
 Children (UIH) at the time of her passing in July 1998. Dr. 
 Hughes was deeply committed to the work of Operation 
 Fatherhood. She provided invaluable insight and advice; her 
 contributions are sorely missed. Appreciation is expressed to 
 the staff of UIH for their patience and assistance during the 
 period of research and writing — especially Tonya Coy, 
 DaNita Gaines, and the staff of Operation Fatherhood. 
 Special recognition is extended to Susan Gueye for her 
 untiring efforts at implementing the redesign of Operation 
 Fatherhood, not to mention her word processing assistance 
 in preparing the text. I extend loving appreciation to my 
 husband and colleague. Dr. Jean Wilkinson, for his 
 encouragement and critical reading of the final manuscript. 
 Lastly, it is with sincere gratitude that I applaud the 
 courageousness of the Board of Managers of UIH and the 
 State of New Jersey for their attention to this critical issue. 
 
 erty defines social identity, the greater the prob- 
 abihty that the poor person will be viewed nega- 
 tively. Poverty influences access to quahty edu- 
 cation, which in turn directly impacts opportuni- 
 ties for meaningful and gainful employment. 
 Moreover, joblessness and poverty increase the 
 risk of psychological stress. Among the poor, 
 major psychological stressors include racism, 
 vulnerabUity to physical and mental health 
 problems, inadequate housing, and hmited fi- 
 nancial resources for bills, housing, and health 
 care. Increased forced relocation, heightened 
 family disruption, and domestic violence may 
 result. 
 
 Getting men to work is a pervasive theme in 
 any discussion of African Americans and pov- 
 erty. Work is crucial to a community's economic 
 viability and a significant factor in its psycho- 
 logical wellness. Writing in Forbes magazine in 
 February 1998, Peter Brimelow points out that 
 while there has been a drop in unemployment 
 over the past two decades, black male unem- 
 ployment (9.6 percent) has dramatically di- 
 verged from white male unemployment (3.8 per- 
 cent). Participation in the labor force is consid- 
 erably less for all blacks than for whites. Ac- 
 cording to 1990 census data, black men in the 
 labor force were grossly underrepresented. Be- 
 tween 1980 and 1990, the percentage of black 
 men employed in professional jobs such as engi- 
 neers, physicians, and real estate agents de- 
 clined significantly. 
 
 Those in unskilled positions like janitors, 
 guards and aides increased (Stein, 1996). The 
 impact of these data has consequences for the 
 economic and psychological well-being of the Af- 
 rican American male and the entire community. 
 
 185
 
 In a 1998 article, Cowdery provides insight 
 into some of the intangibles that affect access to 
 work for African American men. He describes 
 "hard skills" and "soft skills" and their signifi- 
 cance to the job search. Lack of hard skills such 
 as reading comprehension, computer program- 
 ming, or the ability to operate a cash register 
 results in a lower median wage for black men. 
 Practice has shown that when individuals are 
 deficient in these areas, they are unable to read 
 instructions in order to complete tasks, to write 
 and file basic reports, or to utilize computer 
 technology in positions hke retail sales or the 
 fast foods industry. Thus, deficiencies in educa- 
 tional background and preparation contribute to 
 the ability to obtain gainful employment. Soft 
 skills are characterized by attitude and values 
 about work. They are described as motivation, 
 work ethic, acceptance of supervision, appropri- 
 ate dress, clear speech, and ability to interact 
 with coworkers and customers (Cowdery, 1998). 
 Cowdery reports that a significant number of 
 employers admit that regardless of the individ- 
 ual's hard skills, deficits in soft skills influence 
 whether or not a person is employable. 
 
 Black male unemployment is a multifaceted 
 problem, which reflects the complexities associ- 
 ated with racial discrimination in America. Ra- 
 cism is a factor affecting access to work, job re- 
 tention, and compensation. 
 
 In a recent article, a white professor reveals, 
 "I never reahzed until I was in my late 20's how 
 much privilege my physical appearance afforded 
 me" (Kiselica, 1999, p. 14). Kisehca admits his 
 lack of understanding about the benefits or h- 
 abilities that whites Unk to race. From their 
 youth black men are keenly cognizant of the ef- 
 fects of color. As the individual begins to com- 
 prehend the value and emotional significance of 
 alignment with a particular group, racial iden- 
 tity develops. Since privilege in America is 
 closely associated with color, African American 
 males learn the perceived deficits associated 
 with blackness very early in life. They know that 
 there are few choices for self-description that do 
 not begin with color. Racial identity is multidi- 
 mensional and influenced by factors such as 
 gender, social class, nationality, reHgion, em- 
 ployment and lifestyle choice. 
 
 Research suggests "that social identity pro- 
 vides a link between the sense of self and identi- 
 fication with an in group." Group membership, 
 whether viewed as positive or negative, is a sig- 
 
 nificant influence on the importance that the 
 individual places upon identification with the 
 group (Davis & Ganly, 1999). 
 
 African American men are taught from their 
 social environment, the media, and personal in- 
 teractions, the lifetime imphcations of being 
 black. Perceived negativism, whatever the social 
 context (e.g., school, employment, health care) 
 greatly impacts the African American male's 
 ability to benefit from societal institutions and to 
 make meaningful contributions to society. Black 
 men grow up in an environment of psychological 
 insult (e.g., increased suspicion, lack of approval, 
 fear). Common responses to this phenomenon 
 include diminished self-esteem, negativism, and 
 intolerance. Given the burden of adjusting to 
 color stigma, psychological insult and deficient 
 hard and soft skills, black men face tremendous 
 obstacles in order to obtain and maintain gainful 
 employment. 
 
 Response to the Dilemma 
 
 Significant efforts have been made by com- 
 munity-based organizations, governmental 
 agencies, and charitable foundations to address 
 the problems of unemployment among mostly 
 African American noncustodial fathers. Union 
 Industrial Home for Children (UIH), Trenton, 
 New Jersey, has been a leader in this area. For 
 the 140 years of its existence, UIH has provided 
 services to children and their famihes. The 
 agency offers residential care and social services 
 to abused and traumatized teen mothers and 
 their infants. In addition, vocational assessment, 
 job placement, and coaching for unemployed 
 noncustodial fathers are incorporated into a pro- 
 gram called Operation Fatherhood. Another ini- 
 tiative, First Steps, targets adolescent males 
 through after-school and summer programs. De- 
 veloped in 1989, First Steps was designed to ad- 
 dress the male role and responsibihty in concep- 
 tion prevention. A formal curriculum provides 
 the framework for equipping young males with 
 skills to enhance their critical decisionmaking 
 capacities, reduce at-risk behaviors, and promote 
 sexually responsible behaviors (Union Industrial 
 Home, 1991). 
 
 Operation Fatherhood at UIH was one of 
 seven sites selected to participate in the Parents 
 Fair Share Demonstration (PFS) in 1994. The 
 intent of the endeavor was to implement reform 
 legislation to reduce the number of children on 
 
 186
 
 welfare whose parents were not assuming finan- 
 cial responsibility. The strategy behind PFS was 
 to prepare noncustodial parents to assume legal 
 obUgations for the support of their children. 
 Aimed at recipients of Aid to Famihes with De- 
 pendent Children (AFDC), this welfare reform 
 initiative requires both parents to financially 
 support their children. 
 
 PFS built partnerships between state child 
 support enforcement agencies, government de- 
 partments, private philanthropic organizations, 
 and private nonprofit community-based agencies 
 like UIH. Targeted to ehgible parents regardless 
 of race, age, and hving situation, the stated pro- 
 gram goals were: 
 
 1. To increase the employment and earnings of 
 unemployed noncustodial parents of children 
 receiving welfare 
 
 2. To increase child support payments 
 
 3. To support and improve parenting behavior 
 (Doolittle, Knox, Miller and Rowser, 1998, p. 
 5) 
 
 A core curriculum included peer support, em- 
 ployment and training, and enhanced child sup- 
 port enforcement. Mediation was included in 
 several programs, i National findings have 
 shown that most of the seven sites were unsuc- 
 cessful in locating long-term gainful employment 
 for program participants. Operation Fatherhood 
 outcomes have been consistent with the national 
 research data. The national study revealed that 
 more people paid child support than might have 
 in the absence of the program. DooUttle, et al., 
 found that although there was an overall in- 
 crease in child support payments, there was "no 
 corresponding increase in fathers' employment 
 and earnings." This posed financial dilemmas for 
 men who were usually contributing to at least 
 two households. 
 
 Operation Fatherhood 
 
 Several years after the national grant, the 
 New Jersey State Division of Family Develop- 
 ment, Office of Child Support, partnered with 
 UIH to continue the program's basic thrusts — 
 assessment, job readiness, preparation, and 
 placement. The agency continues to address the 
 
 issues of job stability; development of sustained 
 soft skills and psychological support — all aimed 
 at preventing joblessness among men 18 years of 
 age and older. Included in the model are limited 
 transportation assistance and funds for job 
 training. The program has referral networks 
 with the Department of Labor, family court, 
 county welfare, and social service agencies. A 
 summary of data from the 1998 Operation Fa- 
 therhood funding cycle revealed the following: 
 
 • Most of the men enrolled in the program 
 were African American. 
 
 • Few men who participated in the program 
 moved into substantive long-term employ- 
 ment. 
 
 • Of the participants, only 63 percent were 
 employed for at least 6 months. 
 
 • Thirty-seven percent of participants lost em- 
 ployment for a variety of reasons, including 
 (a) temporary employment — 24 percent; (b) 
 employer treatment — 11 percent; (c) trans- 
 portation problems — 10 percent; and (d) lay- 
 offs — 6 percent.^ 
 
 These findings raise disturbing issues rela- 
 tive to African American male employment and 
 further support the need for a comprehensive 
 approach for addressing unemployment: 
 
 1. Education 
 
 On reviewing data from an Operation Fa- 
 therhood sample, less than 50 percent of the par- 
 ticipants were high school graduates. Since most 
 of those involved in the program were raised in 
 poverty — many from single female-headed 
 households — the high school dropout rates are 
 predictable. Poor education reduces the capacity 
 to compete in an increasingly technological soci- 
 ety. These numbers reflect the generational na- 
 ture of poverty. Poor education hmits economic 
 opportunity and self-sufficiency. Education tends 
 to broaden the individual's worldview and 
 heighten self-esteem. Uneducated African 
 American men face limited opportunities for 
 employment because they are unprepared to 
 compete for more lucrative technical and profes- 
 sional positions. Poor education contributes to 
 
 ' Mediation was not a component of Operation Fatherhood, 
 Trenton, NJ. 
 
 2 The reasons for short-term employment, lay off, and em- 
 ployer treatment may be illustrative of the lack of "soft 
 skills" raised in the previous discussion. 
 
 187
 
 marginal job placements with low wages result- 
 ing in motivation problems. 
 
 2. Marriage 
 
 Most men in Operation Fatherhood had fa- 
 thered 2.4 children with more than one woman. 
 Marriage was not a common factor in parenting. 
 This finding is consistent with research about 
 marriage among the poor. Research on marriage 
 among African Americans reveals a substantial 
 decline over the last 25 years (King, 1999). It is 
 important that the historical context be consid- 
 ered. Many African American male Uves have 
 been shortened by war. Others are, or have been, 
 involved in the criminal justice or mental health 
 systems. Data show that the ratio of African 
 American women to African American men se- 
 verely limits the prospects for marriage. Ac- 
 cording to recent statistics, the ratio of adult Af- 
 rican American men to women (ages 25-55) is 85 
 men for every 100 women. The imbalance is even 
 greater in inner-city, low-income areas. The de- 
 chne in available marriage partners affects the 
 total health of the community. It is commonly 
 accepted that marriage is a tremendous influ- 
 ence on life satisfaction, and positive mental and 
 physical health. Men who have problems with 
 drug abuse and mental illness or those with 
 criminal records are not usually viewed as viable 
 marriage partners. Because there are fewer 
 marriages, children of unemployed men often 
 lack the benefits of the father relationship. Pa- 
 rental influence as well as poverty have enor- 
 mous effects on children. The offspring of poor 
 single mothers and unemployed fathers are at 
 greater risk of becoming high school dropouts, 
 substance abusers, or teenaged parents. ^ They 
 are more Ukely to be unemployed and poor. 
 
 3. Incarceration 
 
 African American males often engage in so- 
 cially unacceptable and potentially criminal be- 
 haviors which, they beUeve, offer access to 
 greater economic freedom. The rate of incarcera- 
 tion for African American males is estimated at 
 nearly 3,100 per 100,000 (NY Times, 1998). The 
 effect of a father's absence due to incarceration 
 
 3 While poverty and single parenthood may predispose chil- 
 dren to greater risk, where there is structure and a suppor- 
 tive extended family, the risks are decreased (Salem, Zim- 
 merman and Nortaro, 1998). 
 
 has significant impact on African American 
 males, their families, and offspring. Research 
 findings point to the social effects of prison: 
 
 • Increased female-headed households 
 
 • Father absence from children 
 
 • Increased probabihty of children of offenders 
 becoming involved in youth crime (Brenner. 
 National Center on FamiHes and Fathers 
 Brief, Fathers in Prison). 
 
 Moreover, the nonrehabihtative nature of prison 
 does not prepare released inmates for produc- 
 tive/competitive work. On returning to the com- 
 munity, reintegration proves difficult. The job 
 search may be overwhelming, which further 
 marginahzes the male. 
 
 4. Transportation 
 
 The vahd driver's license has become the uni- 
 versal standard for personal identification and 
 for access to employment opportunities. The 
 process of obtaining a driver's hcense is a signifi- 
 cant rite of passage for many young Americans. 
 In poor communities this is less true. In the Op- 
 eration Fatherhood sample, ordy 14 percent of 
 men possessed a valid driver's license. As in 
 many factory communities, Trenton experienced 
 a sharp dechne in manufacturing over the last 
 20 years. Manufacturing and high tech jobs relo- 
 cated outside of the city's central core. The lack 
 of pubhc transportation also significantly im- 
 peded participants' access to a wider job pool. 
 Using the "Spatial Mismatch HjTJothesis," a geo- 
 graphical perspective relating work location to 
 population centers, Cooke (1993) found that 
 "elevated rates of African American male unem- 
 ployment in central city American communities 
 are linked to the geographic structure of urban 
 labor markets." The decline of traditional blue 
 collar jobs in central cities and their relocation to 
 suburban areas have created barriers to job 
 placement and retention that may actually dis- 
 courage men from seeking jobs beyond their lo- 
 cal communities. In his research, Cooke cites 
 other significant barriers to African American 
 male employment: 
 
 • Residential segregation 
 
 • Employment discrimination 
 
 188
 
 • Low economic return to commuting 
 
 • Dependence on public transportation 
 
 • Poorly developed job information networks 
 
 These factors relegate African American 
 males, who generally reside in cities, to seek jobs 
 in areas that are "geographically limited and 
 devoid of job opportunities" (Cooke, 1993, p. 408). 
 
 Recommendations 
 
 The effects of joblessness are pervasive and 
 predispose children and their famiUes to higher 
 levels of economic and psychological distress. 
 Poor education, limited work opportunities, and 
 higher rates of crime erode the fabric of the Afri- 
 can American community. Given these relevant 
 practice findings and research data, the follow- 
 ing poUcy/program recommendations are impor- 
 tant to helping African American males become 
 gainfully employed and critical to raising the 
 level of community well-being. However, im- 
 pacting the work ethic of African American 
 males will require a combination of family fo- 
 cused short and long range strategies: 
 
 1. Fatherhood programs are an essential ele- 
 ment to address the complexities of employ- 
 ment among African American males. Pro- 
 grams should incorporate self-esteem en- 
 hancement and skill development in order to 
 build a sound work ethic leading to sus- 
 tained employment. 
 
 2. The hterature emphasizes the importance of 
 father involvement in the lives of their chil- 
 dren. Regardless of income, job placement, or 
 residence, fathers are significant to the emo- 
 tional and psychological development of 
 their children. Fathers who are employed 
 are more likely to be involved with their 
 children and provide financial and emotional 
 support. 
 
 3. The stress associated with single parenthood 
 has been well documented. Because many 
 African American children are reared in sin- 
 gle-female-headed households, parenting edu- 
 cation targeted to African American mothers 
 is advised. Programs should be based in tra- 
 ditional and nontraditional settings. The 
 goal should be to raise the competency level 
 of parents, identify methods for reducing 
 
 stress and provide an array of supports to 
 enable successful parenting. 
 
 4. Parenting education should encourage par- 
 ents to provide warm, caring, structured 
 family environments. Whether or not they 
 are reared by two parents, children are more 
 successful and less prone to antisocial be- 
 haviors when love, nurturing, and appropri- 
 ate limits are integral parts of child rearing. 
 
 5. Early intervention and early childhood edu- 
 cation programs should include a curriculum 
 specifically aimed at building self-esteem 
 and sparking children's interest in learning. 
 African American children must be given an 
 expanded view of career opportunities early 
 in their schoohng. In a study that addressed 
 career preferences among elementary school 
 children grades one through six (Bobo, 
 1998), the primary choice of career among 
 African American boys was professional 
 athletics. The findings for white and Latino 
 children reflected interests in a wider spec- 
 trum of probable careers. 
 
 6. Several studies have shown that key people 
 who influence the occupational preference 
 among black male youth were ranked as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 Person holding preferred occupation 
 
 Fathers 
 
 Mothers 
 
 Teachers 
 
 Peers 
 
 Siblings 
 
 Relatives (not immediate family) 
 
 Counselors 
 
 Neighbors (Pallone, 1970, 1973) 
 
 Recent theories promulgated by African 
 American educators emphasize that mentoring, 
 role models, African American counselors, suc- 
 cess stories, parental influence, and early access 
 programs are indeed more significant than ". . . 
 developmental process theories [which] do not 
 lend much assistance in guiding African Ameri- 
 can career choices" (Murray and Mosidi, 1993, p. 
 444). This is even more crucial in hght of the dis- 
 couraging statistics regarding incarceration. It is 
 imperative to incorporate mentoring and career 
 counsehng components into preadolescent edu- 
 
 189
 
 cation programs. Career counseling for African 
 American males must emphasize a broad range 
 of productive work beginning in the elementary 
 school (Bobo, 1998). 
 
 7. The literature has raised the issue of geog- 
 raphy and work. African American males 
 must be able to obtain and maintain vahd 
 drivers' licenses. Driver education must be 
 incorporated into the core curriculum of ur- 
 ban schools. Innovative approaches to job 
 training are integral to the design of com- 
 prehensive job readiness programs. Driver 
 training must be included in such initiatives. 
 
 8. Programs that promote heightened self- 
 awareness and self-esteem must address 
 male-female relationships and aim for de- 
 layed parenthood. Partnerships must be 
 forged between schools, community organi- 
 zations, and faith-based institutions to ad- 
 dress these important concerns. 
 
 9. Access to education in computer technology 
 must begin in early childhood and continue 
 into adulthood. 
 
 10. The development of public-private partner- 
 ships that facihtate access to internships and 
 apprenticeships, and lead to substantive em- 
 ployment, must be understood as important 
 tools to reducing poverty and dependency. 
 
 11. Affirmative action and EOE standards 
 should be maintained in order to ensure the 
 fullest possible representation of African 
 American males in a diverse work force. 
 
 12. Attention must be paid to the insidious, det- 
 rimental impacts of poverty on the entire Af- 
 rican American community and males in 
 particvdar. 
 
 The total health of the African American 
 community is inextricably linked to the capacity 
 for full participation in productive work experi- 
 ences. Poverty is a major contributing factor to 
 the breakdown of important social systems. This 
 discussion highhghted circumstances that miti- 
 gate against African American males' access to 
 meaningful work. The challenge for our society 
 is to help young men develop positive identities 
 and achieve positive goals despite the prevalence 
 of negative perceptions. 
 
 190
 
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