The Crime Report (3/1/21)
The burden of lost economic opportunity falls hardest on Black and Hispanic individuals who are disproportionately represented in the justice-involved population, according to a study of formerly incarcerated New Yorkers by the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law.
The stiff barriers to employment and housing after prison exacerbate a “racial wealth gap,” concluded the authors, after an analysis linking the amount of time spent behind bars to lost economic opportunities….
The authors, Ames Grawert, Cameron Kimble and Jackie Fielding noted that Black and Latinx New Yorkers, who make up the largest contingent of the formerly imprisoned population, bear the heaviest burden of economic losses.
They argued that closing the racial wealth gap requires additional emphasis on both diverting individuals from the justice system and expanding economic opportunities for the formerly incarcerated.
The imbalance between the money spent on mass incarceration and funds for social services underlined the authors’ assessment.
In 2019, between policing, jails, prisons, probation, and parole, New York State as a whole spent $18.2 billion on the carceral system, according to a new report by the Center for Community Alternatives.
To put this into contrasting perspective, New York also spent just $6.2 billion that year on mental health services, public health, youth programs and services, recreation, and elder services, the Brennan Center report said.
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