Page 47 - Impact: Collected Essays on the Threat of Economic Inequality

record (without an actual criminal conviction) impacts Black men more significantly .59 Of even more importance, a pair of studies found that Black men without a conviction record or arrest record were less likely to receive a callback than White men with the respective records .60 An additional study in New York City included Latinos and found that “the white applicant with a criminal record...does just as well, if not better, than his minority counterparts with no criminal background .”61
Conclusion
From 2010 to 2013, the median wealth of White households increased from $138,600 to $141,000 .62 During this same time period, the median wealth of Latino households decreased from $16,000 to $13,700, and of Black households from $16,600 to $11,000 .63 While there are many factors that contribute to the racial wealth gap,64 criminal records play a significant role, given the overwhelming numbers of Blacks and Latinos who are introduced to the criminal justice system and leave it with records that choke educational opportunities, housing, employment, financial savings, and intergenerational wealth .
The breadth of collateral consequences that were enacted in the 1980s and 1990s and the easy access to criminal records make moving past a criminal record today more difficult than perhaps at any point in U .S . history, particularly for poor individuals of color . These consequences have unraveled, in very significant ways, some of the historic 1960s laws that strove to make life more bearable, durable, and sustainable for those who were struggling and suffering . One half century later, the multiple stigmas that attach to race and criminal records stand in the way of participating in the Great Society . •
59 This study took place in Minneapolis/St. Paul and examined the impact of a low-level arrest on employment opportunities. The criminal record consisted solely of a disorderly conduct arrest, with no subsequent charge or conviction. The callback rate for White testers who reported the arrest was 34.7 percent while the callback rate for Blacks was 23.5 percent. Christopher Uggen et al., The Edge of Stigma: An Experiential Audit of the Effects of Low-Level Criminal Records on Employment, 52 criminology 627, 637 (2014).
60 pager, supra note 58, at 56 (17 percent of White testers with the record received a callback, compared to 14 percent of Black testers without the record); Uggen, supra note 59, at 638, fig. 3 (34.7 percent of White testers with the arrest record received a callback compared to 27.5 percent of Black testers without the arrest record).
61 Devah Pager et al., Discrimination in a Low-Wage Labor Market: A Field Experiment, 74 am. sociological rev. 777, 785 (2009), available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2915472/.
62 Rakesh Kochar & Richard Fry, Wealth Inequality Has Widened along Racial, Ethnic Lines Since End of Great Depression, pew research cenTer (Dec. 12, 2014), http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealth- gaps-great-recession/.
63 Id.
64 One key factor over the last several years has been the foreclosure crisis that has devastated Black homeowner equity disproportionately. E.g., Kimbriell Kelly et al., Broken by the Bubble: In the Fairwood Subdivision, Dreams of Black Wealth Were Dashed by the Housing Crisis, wash. posT. Jan. 25, 2015, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ sf/investigative/2015/01/25/in-fairwood-dreams-of-black-wealth-foundered-amid-the-mortgage-meltdown/ (Prince Georges County, Maryland, “the wealthiest majority-black county in the United States . . . was also the epicenter for mortgage crises in Maryland”).
Criminal Justice Reform
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