The high number of incarcerated Americans has created an "era of mass imprisonment" in the United States, Harvard University's Professor of Sociology Bruce Western said in a talk Thursday evening.
High incarceration rates, in particular among young black men, have increased inequality in the United States, said Western, who is also director of the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy at Harvard, for his lecture as part of the Provost's Lecture Series.
"This is a very disadvantaged population to begin with, so the penal system has the effect of magnifying inequality in American society," Western said.
Based on his research, Western said spending time in prison reduces an individual's yearly earnings once he is released by about 40 percent compared to similar people who have not spent time in prison. Having a criminal record also makes it more difficult for people to get jobs, he added.
In 2004, 13.5 percent of black men aged 22 to 30 were incarcerated, compared to two percent of white men in the same age group, Western said.
Both show an increase from 1980, when 5.7 percent of black men and under one percent of white men aged 22 to 30 were incarcerated, he added.
Western attributed the increase in incarceration to the war on drugs, the imposition of longer sentences and the re-imprisonment of parolees for technical violations of their parole.
Western said, however, that the problem he wants to resolve is not incarceration rates, but "the chronic idleness, addiction and mental health problems of men with little schooling."
To address these problems, as well as the broader issue of reintegrating released prisoners into society, Western proposed a "National Prisoner Reentry Plan." The plan includes drug treatment, housing and education, as well as the creation of 200,000 jobs for recently-released prisoners.
The plan would cost $8.5 billion to implement, but would save $10 billion a year in reduced crime and imprisonment expenses, Western said.
Provost Peter Lange, whose office sponsors the "Policy Visions for a New Presidency" lecture series, said this proposal and its relation to the causes of mass incarceration Western identified were the parts of the lecture that interested him most.
"I think it highlighted a policy issue that's not getting much attention and has broad consequences," Lange said.
Lange added that he was impressed by Western's knowledge of many aspects of the American penal system.
"Professor Western showed in the question period the incredible breadth of his knowledge in this area," Lange said.
Shawn Selleck, a second-year student in the Masters in International Development Program, called Western's lecture "excellent."
"There have been many studies published about this issue," he said. "To me, the question is not whether we have a problem, but whether we have the will to implement social policies that can solve these problems.
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