Invest More in Education, Not Incarceration

June 27 - July 3, 2007 by Maya Harris, The Post Newspaper

Last month, it was reported that over the next five years, California will allocate more resources in the state budget for its prisons than for its public universities.

It has been projected that spending on incarceration will increase by 9 percent annually, while spending on higher education will rise by only 5 percent. By the 2012-2013 fiscal year, $15.4 billion will be spent on incarcerating Californians, as compared to $15.3 billion spent on educating them.

What does that say about California's priorities and political leadership? Particularly in view of the fact that we know how the investment - or disinvestment - in one system correlates with the other?

The benefits that flow from investing in education are clear. According to a recent report by Northeastern University, the median annual earnings in 2004-2005 of young black men with a bachelor's degree were 2.5 times those of high school graduates and 14.5 times higher than those of high school dropouts. A black male with no high school diploma will spend most of his adult life in low-income status.

More educational opportunity translates into better economic opportunity.

At the same time, the link between the lack of educational attainment and the likelihood of incarceration could not be more direct. The same study found that a young black male with no high school diploma is 60 times more likely to end up behind bars than one who earned a bachelor's degree.

Despite this knowledge, we continue to feed the prison system at the expense of funding education - with predictable results.

African Americans represent 44 percent of those incarcerated in state and federal prison cells, yet account for only 12 percent of the American population. About one in every 265 whites is incarcerated in local, state or federal prison. By contrast, of the 36 million African Americans in this nation, almost one million of them are in prison. Put another way, that translates into about one in every 36 black people you know behind bars somewhere in America, the vast majority of whom have no high school diploma.

Something is clearly wrong when the government's most effective affirmative action program is the preference people of color receive when entering not college, but the criminal justice system.

Over 50 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court stated in its landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision: "Today, education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments... It is the very foundation of good citizenship... In these days, it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education."

Those words are as true today as they were a half century ago. The only difference is, today, we know what to do to make schools succeed. And we know - and study after study demonstrates - that when we give all students the educational tools they need, they succeed.

We need to reverse our priorities and redirect our resources. Invest more in higher education than incarceration. It's not only the right thing to do, it will pay off in the long run.