According to a paper published a few years ago, "The Growth, Scope, and Spatial Distribution of People With Felony Records in the United States, 1948–2010," there are 19 million people in the United States with a current or past felony conviction.¹ Here's what that looks like as a share of the adult population:
It will surprise no one to know that although felony convictions have gone up for everyone, they are far higher in the Black community than the white community. As of 2010, about 23 percent of black people had a felony conviction on their record compared to 6 percent of white people.
¹As of 2010, anyway. The number is probably in the ballpark of 25 million now, or about 12% of the adult population.
What then happened circa 1980? That appears to be the inflection point for the curves. The lead hypothesis suggests that violent felonies at least should be in decline within a generation of the phase-out of leaded gasoline, but it isn't clear we see that here. Are violent felonies a sufficiently small fraction of overall felonies that they don't move the needle much?
The War on Drugs and especially the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, which increased penalties for, marijuana possession, cultivation, and distribution.
Crime was still rising in the '80s. The phase-out of leaded gasoline was gathering steam in the '80s, but the maximally poisoned cohort -- mine 🙁 -- was hitting their peak crime years. There was hysteria and over-reaction. Sentencing got harsher. More things turned a misdemeanor into a felony.
The drop started in the '90s. It's taken three decades to start to roll back the legacy of the massive freakout that society suffered.
Nobody thanks the Clean Air Act for lowering the crime rate. Politicians and law enforcement still attribute the drop to their own actions, despite the evidence that few of those helped and many made things worse.
I'm sure, when the EPA finally gets around to regulating endocrine disruptors and the other chemicals that decades of research say make lab rats get fat, the people currently lecturing fat people about their lack of will power will take credit for the obesity epidemic going away.
Crack cocaine was an early 80s thing - I'd expect that it contributed very heavily toward the felony increase during that time.
Is it Reagan? He did "birth" the conservative movement.
Perhaps the late boomers getting convicted on drug charges?
Increased gun availability?
Keep in mind that felony doesn't always mean "violent" either
It would be interesting to see a graph of felony combined with growth in gun ownership and immigration convictions along with drug convictions.
I wonder with the growth of legal weed if these stats would have changed had pot been legal say from 1980 on......
Gun ownership declined while gun availability surged.
Most of this is drugs and gang related boom around drugs which negros get apprehended for. Something changed in the US culturally after 1980, not for the better. I could argue is started in 1973, which is one of the largest inflections points in history(credit bubble, single mothers boom, drug use, crime wave exploded)
Yes, something changed culturally. For instance, people started using "Black" and "African American" instead of "negro."
The huge rise in felony convictions had a lot to do with the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. That was quite a shift in the culture, too.
Interesting. Maybe at some point liberals will stop criminalizing everything?
Liberals? This is all the lagacy of Saint Raygun and his damned war on drugs.
One more messed up thing today that can be traced back to his Presidency.
Newishly elected Multnomah County DA on decriminalization:
"Past punitive drug policies and laws resulted in over-policing of diverse communities, heavy reliance on correctional facilities and a failure to promote public safety and health. It’s time to move beyond these failed practices, expand access to treatment and focus our limited law enforcement resources to target high-level, commercial drug offenses."
He was elected with 77% of the vote.
On the flip side, we have red states like Florida, rushing to criminalize protesting as felonies that carry prison sentences.
The Portland DA: the Other Mike Schmidt.
I will be happy just as long as the DA doesn't take after his distant cousin, erstwhile Milwaukee conservative radio talker & part-time fishmonger J. Alan Schmidt*.
*Later going by Jeff Schmidt. With a J. Pointedly not Geoff ("GHEE-off").
What's with the chart with different left and right percentages that make black and white felony records look about equal? Is this a test Kevin??
The rate of increase from 1948 was about the same.
I think the big change was that lots of Americans WANTED more felony convictions, so they got them. In cases like this, representative democracy works all too well.
This.
Yes, because homicide spiked throughout the late 60s, 70s, and 80s. Strange how putting violent criminals in jail for long periods reduced crime. (And yes, I think there is something to the ambient lead theory too, but nothing is mono-causal in society).
Just slightly off topic
17 year old killed by officers who will NOT be charged
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/no-charges-officer-who-fatally-shot-tennessee-high-school-student-n1265045
17 year old? With a hand gun is AUTOMATICALLY a felon in Tenn.
Cop clearly said show your hands - PLURAL - and the kid did not comply keeping one hand on the gun in his pocket. And THIS took place in a SCHOOL.
Why are we so dismissive of life? 17 year old's with guns in school
You CAN NOT expect NOT to be shot if you do this type of stuff
It's not JUST the police. WE are to blame. We allow the NRA to subsidize politicians who favor gun laws that protect an industry.
We should be asking why this kid brought it to school - how did he get it?
Kids with guns.
This is asking for heartbreak
I know this seems like crazy-talk, but there are more ways of disarming a person than shooting them dead.
Hard to imagine it isn't mostly the drug laws.
But also the late 70's inflation and failure to adjust nominal felony thresholds turned a lot of misdimenors into felonies.
Not if you've spent some time with the National Crime Victimization Surey.
Interesting how the two curves, while on rather different places on the y-axis, have broadly the same shape.
Nixon set up the war on drugs to criminalize those who didn't vote for him--and to take away their right to vote (felons ya' know). And Reagan ran with that.
& Hillary Clinpton & Denento Joe Biden made it permanent with the 1990s greatest sin, the DEFINITELY NOT SUPPORTED BY BERNIE SANDERS Climpton-Gore Crime Bill.
Was it? What am I missing? By the chart both groups start around 5%, white people end at 6%, black people at 23%, yet by the line trend it looks like they wind up basically the same. If the right axis was the same as the left, the green line would be basically flat, that seems more illustrative of the data...
Yeah, the dual scales contribute to very wrong interpretations. This technique is highly recommended in that modern classic, "How to Lie with Statistics" which came out in 1954 and has never been out of print.
I'm very surprised that Kevin didn't take the next step. He got to this:
"As of 2010, about 23 percent of black people had a felony conviction on their record ..."
The next step is to split that into black male and black female populations. I don't know if that's easily doable, but it's clear that there is a big difference. (For example, at https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/wo.pdf , males are violent offenders at a rate six times that of women.
So it's quite possible that something like **40 percent** of black males in the U.S. have a felony conviction.
If you want an explanation of why, for example, in 2008 only 32% of blacks were married, or why black poverty is so high (look at how families headed by single mothers do, financially, compared to families with two parents), or a host of other social ills, the percentage of black males with felony convictions is a really good place to start.
"Unmarried" is not a good proxy for "single parent family". Many unmarried adults do not have children. Many unmarried couples are just as firmly committed to each other and to raising their children in a two parent household as any legally married couple. Finally, "married" does not mean "living together". In many single parent households, the parent either is married, but separated, or at least was married when the children were born but is now divorced.