Ezra Klien has a new website called Vox that does a great job of telling big stories in short bites. Last week they published a chart detailing the correlation between race, education level, and a person’s likelihood of spending time in prison. And it’s shocking.
According to statistics from the Brookings Institute, black male Americans born between 1975 and 1979 have just over a 20% chance of going to jail. That’s much higher than his white counterpart, who has a less than 5% chance of going to jail.
Those statistics are for male Americans of all educational levels, though. The numbers for male Americans who do not complete their high school education are nearly unbelievable. A white male American who does not complete high school still has a less than 20% chance of going to jail, but a black male American who does not complete high school has a 70% chance of going to jail.
These are interesting stats, especially considering the broader school-to-prison pipeline issue that has gained steam in recent years. For more information on the school-to-prison pipeline, click here.