African American Crisis

The Crisis of the Young African American Male and the Criminal Justice System

Marc Mauer Assistant Director The Sentencing Project

Prepared for U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
April 15-16, 1999 Washington, D.C.

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THE CRISIS OF THE YOUNG AFRICAN AMERICAN MALE AND THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM Marc Mauer Assistant Director The Sentencing Project 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 disproportionately from social 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
In addition, 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 justice system are often heavily overlaid with considerations 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 Elliott has conducted analyses of youthful offending and its relation to race and class.8 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% of males reporting that they have engaged in some form of violent offending – aggravated assault, robbery, or rape – by the age of 27. Black males engage in serious violent offending at higher rates than white males, but not dramatically so. By age 27, 48% of black males have reported at least one instance of such behavior, compared to 38% of white males, a ratio of about 5:4. For lower class males, the differences are even smaller, about 7:6 black to white. Offenses by blacks are more likely to lead to arrest than those of whites. While the selfreported involvement of
Overall drug use by African Americans is not substantially different than for other demographic groups. Household surveys conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration have found that blacks represent 15% of monthly drug users, roughly comparable to their 13% share of the national population. For drug selling, 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 background.15 A report issued by the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, for example, assessed differences in the white suburban drug markets and inner-city black and Hispanic neighborhoods of Milwaukee.16 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 suburban distribution of cocaine and other drugs took place by word of mouth through contacts at work, bars, athletic leagues, and alternative cultural events such as “raves.” Suburban sales