The Prison Race

I have recently been a bit of a fan of pictures that tell more of a story than a superficial glance gives the viewer ....

'The Last Mile' Programme Participants And Program Leaders

The picture above is from the start up of prison reform program at at San Quentin prison called 'The Last Mile' programme, which aims to educate selected inmates about social media, technology and entrepreneurship ... apparently all without access to a computer!

 

All very laudable, and who knows it may well cut the recidivism rates of about 60% in the US prison system. As Dennis Grimes one of the prison wardens at Baton Rouge Parish prison in Louisiana remarked when asked if prisons cut crime ... "Doesn't seem like it, doesn't seem like, 'cause this thing is still rolling."

In fact, in the US even hard line conservative states such as Texas have turned away from Prison building programs, because the costs (billions in infrastructure) and an annual cost of $27,000 (£17,650) to hold one prisoner for a year, are just too great in these straightened times. But even though in some states such as Texas prisons are being closed, last year, the US states still spent $50bn on incarceration costs, and California for example spent roughly the same amounts (around $8.9 - $9.5bn) on both incarceration, and higher education costs.

But what struck me about this picture was the ethnic composition of the subjects ......without the the prison uniforms, you can still spot the inmates and the program educators .... all the six criminals are Hispanic or Black (including the man on the far left, who has finished his prison spell), and the two white women and white male are the programme administrators and founders.

• What does that tell you about the ethnic aspects of criminality and prison populations in the US? 
• What does it tell you about the ethnic aspect of education, wealth and power in the US?  

The main racial demographic groups in the US (as of 2008), were 79.79% European American (65.60% non-Hispanic and 14.19% Hispanic), 12.84% African American, and 4.45% Asian American .... but in the 2.1 million males in prison in 2008, the prison main racial demographic groups were; 35.4 percent Black males, followed by 32.9 percent White males, and 17.9 percent Hispanic males.

As I said at the top of the story, pictures often have a hidden story that it takes a moment or two to decipher ... but when you do, it's often more interesting than the original subject matter.