Issues

As you know we are doing a story on Taliek who left a gang to continue with his education. So, I researched the statistics on African American males being incarcerated because if Taliek had stayed in the gang, he could've been one of these statistics. 

I found that approximately 12%-13% of the American population is African-American. African Americans, however, make up 40.1% of the almost 2.1 million male inmates in jail or prison (U.S. Department of Justice, 2009). This means that the percent of blacks incarcerated was five times greater than the resident population in 2009.

Here are some general statistics of African American males being incarcerated:

• A black male born in 1991 has a 29% chance of spending time in prison at some point in his life.
• Nearly one in three African American males aged 20–29 are under some form of criminal justice supervision whether imprisoned, jailed, on parole or probation.
• One out of nine African American men will be incarcerated between the ages of 20 and 34.
• Black males ages 30 to 34 have the highest incarceration rate of any race/ethnicity.

Prison vs. College

Many institutions researched the prison vs college rate on African Americans going to prison vs how many of them attend college. The justice department found that in 2003, 193,000 black college-age men were in prison, while 532,000 were attending college. While it sounds good, they also found that more black male high school dropouts aged 20–35 were in custody than in paid employment.

It's a good thing that Taliek won't become one of these statistics.