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Mass Incarceration of Black Youth

S. Boodoo, K. Duarte, K. Ellison, T. Klonaris, and C. Pastore

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Listen to our team’s podcast below! You can also access a transcript of the podcast here and read our team’s letter to the Florida Board of Education here.

Alachua County, FL Incarcerates Black Youths At Alarming Rate

 Content Warning: Police Violence, Sexual Abuse, Racism

Recent trends show the juvenile incarceration rate has steadily declined, falling 50% between 2000-2015 (Rovner, 2016). However, studies depict an alarming patterns of arrest for Black youths. Florida's Alachua County and Gainesville exemplify the nationwide injustices experienced by Black Youths.

In 2018, UF celebrated as its public ranking increased to #8 nationwide (Orlando, 2018). At the same time, the FDJ reported  81% of Black youths in Alachua County were arrested between 2017-2018 (Manaba, 2020). In Gainesville, Black youths off-campus are nine times more likely to be arrested for marijuana than White college students at the University of Florida (Coz, 2016). This is compounded by injustices such as poorly-funded schools, food deserts, and gentrification development on Seminary Lane (Galicza, 2020), all leading to the conclusion that in order to increase carceral profits and ensure a supply of inhumane cheap labor, law enforcement and government agencies are incarcerating Black youths.

(Swirko, 2020)

(Swirko, 2020)

How Communities Fail Black Youths

Communities drive the incarceration rates of Gainesville's Black teens. For example, Black Americans make up 20% of Alachua County, and they are also the group with the highest chance of living in poverty (Smithson, 2018). Why is this happening? Well, Alachua County has been practicing “black taxes”;  Black and White communities pay the same for community services even though Black communities have been assigned lower monetary values. This is true nationwide—predominantly Black neighborhoods (where people who are black represent more than 10% of the neighborhood) are considered less valuable in real estate (Davis, 2018). Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for Blacks is 2.5 times more than Alachua County's White population (Smithson, 2018).

The over-policing and undervaluing of Black communities is just as prevalent in schools. Low funding leads to under-resourcing, which impedes students' learning abilities. Considering the intersections of poorly funded neighborhoods, schools, and low employment, students may exhibit struggling behaviors that need professional care. However, law enforcement usually takes up this role, which results in the school-to-prison pipeline. 

According to the ACLU (2019), Alachua County public schools demonstrate a number of shocking trends:

(Rugh, 2019)

(Rugh, 2019)

  • The student-to-school psychologist ratio is 14,923:1, the highest out of the 54 Florida districts who have school psychologists.

  • The student-to-teacher ratio is 21:1, the highest in the state.

  • At 533:1, it is among the 25% of districts with the biggest student-to-counselor ratios.

  • The student arrest rate is higher than the state average, at 27 for every 1,000 youths.

What Happens When Youths are Incarcerated?

Life behind bars for incarcerated youths is more similar to that of incarcerated adults than assumed. In 2017-18,  904 children were sent to adult courts and prisons, making Florida the state that prosecutes more children as adults for felonies than any other state (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2018). At the local level, it was reported that in 2015, 89% of children who were tried as adults in Alachua County were charged with nonviolent offenses (Gainesville Sun, 2015). Due to the widespread overcrowding within the juvenile justice system, these teens are placed with adults, which leads to them being subjects of possible assault and rape. Adult prisons and jails are simply not equipped to protect young offenders.

Children in adult courts also lose access to services, like specialized counseling and support groups, that are typically provided in the juvenile justice system (Iken, 2016). The teens then get accustomed to this rough environment of the adult prison system. Without any rehabilitation for reentering society, there is a higher likelihood of them returning to the system after being released.

Life After Prison

Many people forget that life after prison does not necessarily get easier. In fact, one of the biggest struggles that previously imprisoned youths have is acclimating to normal life. For example, youths that go to prison are 39% less likely to finish high school than youths from the same neighborhood that have not been imprisoned (Stacy, 2019). Not completing high school is a big hindrance, as many jobs require that you at least have a high school diploma. This then feeds young offenders into a life of crime. For instance, young offenders who were incarcerated are a shocking 67% more likely to land back in jail by the age of 25 than young offenders who were not (Stacy, 2019).

Our Call to Action (Fight the Injustices)

It is crucial to understand that mass incarceration is intersectional with other injustices. Ending mass incarceration for Black youths is not rooted in a single injustice; it is a fight rooted in the many injustices perpetrated within our country’s ties to racial capitalism (Arun, 2021). Addressing these problems, alongside the visibility of the carceral state, is inherently tied to the inequitable distribution of and access to fundamental resources lacking in Black communities: healthcare, public school funding, affordable housing/rent, guaranteed jobs, and a higher minimum wage, just to a few to name. It is also vital that we listen to the demands of our Black communities before creating our own demands for them.

Every single action counts. Click here to see some of our goals and other ways to be involved!

 

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