Becky Pettit on the Prison Population, Survey Data and African-American Progress

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4.7 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 31 December 2012

⏱️ 63 minutes

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Summary

Becky Pettit of the University of Washington and author of Invisible Men talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the growth of the prison population in the United States in recent decades. Pettit describes the magnitude of the increase particularly among demographic groups. She then discusses the implications of this increase for interpreting social statistics. Because the prison population isn't included in the main government surveys used by social scientists, data drawn from those surveys can be misleading as to what is actually happening among demographic groups, particularly the African-American population.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.
0:06.4	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
0:11.0	Our website is econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this podcast, and find links
0:16.3	and other information related to today's conversation.
0:19.0	You'll also find our archives where you can listen to every episode we've ever done going
0:23.3	back to 2006.
0:25.4	Our email address is mailadycontalk.org.
0:27.9	We'd love to hear from you.
0:32.9	Today is December 17, 2012, and my guest is Becky Pettit, Professor of Sociology at the
0:39.1	University of Washington.
0:41.0	Her latest book is Invisible Men, Mass Incarceration and the Myth of Black Progress.
0:46.4	Becky, welcome to Econ Talk.
0:48.5	Thank you.
0:49.6	Your book's about the growth of the prison and jail population in America.
0:53.2	It's impact on people's lives and how it affects our understanding of social statistics.
0:57.8	Let's start with some basic facts.
1:00.0	What has happened to the prison population in the United States over the last 30 or 40
1:03.7	years?
1:04.7	Over the last 35 years, the prison population has quintupled.
1:11.7	We now have approximately 2.3 million Americans who are in prisons or jails on any given day.
1:18.7	That number has been about the same for the last four years.
1:22.3	So after several decades of an increase, we have leveled off at about 2.3 million.
	...

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