BLACK MEN, 4% OF STATE POPULATION, MAKE UP 40% OF PRISON POPULATION

From Associated Press and Indianapolis Star Dispatches

INDIANAPOLIS -- While black men make up only 4 percent of Indiana's
population, a review of state records has found that they account for
nearly 40 percent of its prison inmates.

A review by The Indianapolis Star found that in mid-August more than a
quarter of the 7,800 black men in state prisons were there on drug-related
charges.

Whether the high incarceration rate is a result of a lack of job
opportunities or prejudice in the criminal justice system, some say a
prison record makes it that much harder for a black man to make an honest
living.

"There's lots of young boys out there who really do want to work and do
what they've got to to survive -- but keeping it honest," said Nita Harlan,
whose 21-year-old nephew has trouble finding a job because he has a prison
record.

"But when you've got people that look down on you because you've done
something wrong, they still have that control over you. It makes them
angry," she said.

Indiana is not alone with the high incarceration rate of blacks. The U.S.
Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that 12 percent of the nation's
black men were held in prison or jail in 2001, compared with 4 percent of
Hispanic men and 1.8 percent of white men.

While some say the disparity shows evidence of discrimination by police and
courts, others say the causes are more subtle.

Society might be predisposed to view young black men as criminals because
so many are arrested, creating an ongoing cycle, said Ken Adams, a
criminal-justice professor at Indiana University-Purdue University
Indianapolis.

"In the context of a criminal justice system, they have to be very careful
about how they let that filter into their views," Adams said.

Police and prosecutors deny that race affects their judgment.

"I tend to view things from the perspective of the law-abiding, decent
person who has to live next door to the drug dealers," Marion County
Prosecutor Scott Newman said. "Many of those folks are African American as
well."

Though poverty, divided families and drug use are cited as reasons so many
young black men end up in jail or prison, the roots of the problem may go
even deeper.

Positive male role models in real life can be hard to find and the images
television and other media offers black youths are often negative.

"You try to do right, but they tell you you're nothing but a thug or a
gorilla," said Abu X. Henderson, who heads his Indianapolis neighborhood
association. "Someone keeps telling you this, pretty soon you'll begin to
believe it."

Mitchell McNair, Harlan's nephew, received a four-year suspended sentence
and two years of probation in March 1999 for carrying a handgun without a
license.

Harlan said the restrictions placed by the courts made it hard for him to
hold a job. He also couldn't afford to pay for a court-ordered drug
treatment program after he got out of jail, she said.

"When young men like that are trying to change their lives around and
instead they get messed around by the system," Nita Harlan said, "they have
nowhere else to turn."