Prison: A Lost Generation

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Civil rights activists and social scientists have long warned that poor education, drug abuse, high crime rates and widespread violence have made young black men an endangered species. Last week a report issued by the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based organization that promotes research on criminal justice, found that approximately 609,000 African-American males between the ages of 20 and 29 -- almost 1 of every 4 -- are either in prison, on probation or on parole. Comparable figures for whites are 1 in 16 and for Hispanics 1 in 10.

Only 436,000 black males in the same age group are enrolled in college or any other form of higher education. Warns Marc Mauer, the study's author: "We now risk the possibility of writing off an entire generation of black men from leading productive lives."