This Washington Post article highlights he findings from Economic Policy Institute’s report, Mass Incarceration and Children’s Outcomes: Criminal Justice Policy is Education Policy. The report says the “evidence is overwhelming that the unjustified incarceration of African American fathers (and, increasingly, mothers as well) is an important cause of the lowered performance of their children” and of the racial achievement gap.
- By the age of 14, approximately 25 percent of African American children have experienced a parent — in most cases a father — being imprisoned for some period of time. On any given school day, approximately 10 percent of African American schoolchildren have a parent who is in jail or prison, more than four times the share in 1980.
- The comparable share for white children is 4 percent; an African American child is six times as likely as a white child to have or have had an incarcerated parent.
- A growing share of African Americans have been arrested for drug crimes, yet African Americans are no more likely than whites to sell or use drugs. Of imprisoned fathers of African American children, only one-third are in prison because of a violent crime.
- Research in criminal justice, health, sociology, epidemiology, and economics demonstrates that when parents are incarcerated, children do worse across cognitive and noncognitive outcome measures — and the incarceration is a key cause. For example, children of incarcerated parents are more likely to drop out of school; develop learning disabilities; misbehave in school; suffer from migraines, asthma, high cholesterol, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and homelessness.
A youth-led study, funded by Target, looked at young people’s experiences in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, and St. Paul. Its findings indicate that young people are living with pervasive stress; are under siege — over-policed, undervalued, and marginalized; and don’t feel safe in their schools or communities.
Read the Vera Institute of Justice’s report, New Orleans: Who’s in Jail and Why? It aims to advance an important public conversation about how we are using out jail and how it impacts safety in our city.
Until recently, New Orleans led the nation in jail incarceration: before Katrina, we jailed people at a rate five times the national average. The consequences were dramatic for the tens of thousands of people booked into the jail each year who lost their jobs, homes, and even custody of their children. Instead of making us the safest city in America, this over-use of detention destabilized communities.
Read the Spring 2016 issue of Lumina Foundation FOCUS that looks closely at real-life success stories of three African-American males:
- Evan Snelling, a high school basketball star who saw his Division I dreams shattered by injury, and then rebounded to find an even more satisfying role as a mentor to other young black males at Georgia Highlands College.
- Kevin Lee, a 22-year-old who’s compiled a stellar academic record at Paul Quinn College in Dallas — and earned national accolades for his entrepreneurial skills — despite the fact that he’s homeless.
- Terrance Range — who, in his teens and early 20s was an admittedly unfocused student interested only in “wildin’ out” — but is now a dedicated scholar, a second-year doctoral student at Michigan State University with plans to become a college president.
In the Pew Research Center’s latest social and demographic trends report, they find that there are deep divisions in between Blacks and Whites in how they see racial discrimination, barriers to Black progress, and prospects for change.
- Many Blacks are skeptical that the country will eventually make the changes necessary for racial equality.
- A bout one-third of White Americans say Obama has made race relations worse.
- Blacks are about twice as likely as Whites to point to discrimination as a major reason that some Blacks have a harder time getting ahead.
- Among Whites, young adults, college graduates, and Democrats are more likely to say their race has been an advantage.
The U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights released its report, 2013-2014 Civil Rights Data Collection: A First Look.
The CRDC is a survey of all public schools and school districts in the U.S. It measures student access to courses, programs, instructional and other staff, and resources — as well as school climate factors, such as student discipline and bullying and harassment — that impact education equity and opportunity for students. Additional data highlights later will be released later in 2016.
The California Endowment’s discusses what it has learned halfway through the Building Healthy Communities (BHC) initiative in their report, A New Power Grid: Building Healthy Communities at Year 5.
So, what have they learned? It starts with this: BHC will be successful when three things happen to benefit the health of young people in lower-income communities:
- 100 percent coverage of and access to health-promoting health services for young people is the norm;
- 100 percent of California schools have wellness and school climate policies and practices; and
- 100 percent of California cities and counties have established local health-promoting policies.
A report from Cities United, Violence Trends, Patterns, and Consequences for Black Males in America: A Call to Action, is part of a three-part series focused on identifying the patterns, predictors, and interventions for reducing violence among black males in the United States.
This report paints a detailed picture of the trends and patterns of violent offending and victimization among young black males as well as the profound consequences this violence wreaks upon not only the lives and futures of these boys and young men but that of their families and communities as well. Summarizing and marshalling the latest scientific research, this report seeks to galvanize leaders to take vital action across our nation’s cities to reduce violence and violent deaths among young black males.
MEE Productions’ newest report, Heard, Not Judged: Insights into the Talents, Realities and Needs of Young Men of Color, delves into the everyday life, concerns, and obstacles facing boys and men of color.
It provides detailed findings about what boys and young men of color need in order to help them overcome the challenges and obstacles they face in their day-to-day lives. The report highlights the voices of young men in Oakland, New York City, Baltimore, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Detroit as they opened up and shared what is on their minds and in their hearts. Among other things, the report focuses on four main areas:
- Values: This section explores the personal values of low-income, urban African-American males and the obstacles they face (real or perceived).
- Success and Optimal Health: This section aims to understand how African-American males define success, optimal health (physical, emotional, mental, etc.), and understand what they need in order to thrive, rather than merely survive.
- Competition/Winning/Skills and Creative Talents: This section aims to understand how African-American males define and value competition. They talked about their personal talents and abilities and how those helped them compete in life.
- Existing Resources for African-American Males: African-American males discussed the quantity and quality of resources available to them, both via online/digital tools and in their respective home communities.
The Philadelphia African American Leadership Forum finds in their latest report, How African American-Led Organizations Differ From White-Led Organizations, that nonprofit organizations led by African Americans in Philadelphia are smaller, have fewer financial resources, and are more dependent on government grants than their white-led counterparts. These circumstances leave African American-led nonprofits more vulnerable to changes in government funding and to financial recessions. Participants in the study acknowledged the need to diversify their funding streams.