STUDIES SOUND ALARM ON PLIGHT OF BLACK MEN

Poorly Educated, African American Males Falling Behind More Than Any
Other Group.

BALTIMORE -- The plight of black men in the United States is far more
dire than is portrayed by common employment and education statistics,
a flurry of new scholarly studies warns, and it has worsened in
recent years even as an economic boom and welfare reforms brought
gains to black women and many other groups.

Focusing more closely than ever on the life patterns of young men,
the studies, by experts at Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and other
institutions, show that the huge pool of poorly educated black males
is becoming ever more disconnected from mainstream society, and to a
far greater degree than comparable white or Hispanic males.

Curtis Brannon of Baltimore has fathered four children with three
women. Brannon, here with his son Curtis Jr., quit school in 10th
grade to sell drugs and has spent time in jail. In 2004, 72 percent
of black, male high school dropouts in their 20s were jobless.

Especially in the country's inner cities, the studies show, finishing
high school is the exception, legal employment is scarce and prison
is almost routine, with incarceration rates climbing for blacks even
as urban crime rates decline.

Although the deep problems afflicting poor black men have been known
for decades, the new data paint the most alarming picture yet of
ravaged lives and, the scholars say, of a deepening national calamity
that has received too little attention.

"There's something very different happening with young black men, and
it's something we can no longer ignore," said Ronald Mincy, a
professor of social work at Columbia University and editor of "Black
Males Left Behind." "Over the last two decades, the economy did
great," Mincy said, "and low-skilled women, helped by public policy,
latched onto it. But young black men were falling farther back."

Many of the studies go beyond the traditional approaches to looking
at the plight of black men, especially when it comes to determining
the scope of unemployment. For example, official unemployment rates
can be misleading because they do not include those not seeking work
or incarcerated.

"If you look at the numbers, the 1990s was a bad decade for young
black men, even though it had the best labor market in 30 years,"
said Harry Holzer, an economist at Georgetown University and a
co-author, with Peter Edelman and Paul Offner, of "Reconnecting
Disadvantaged Young Men."

The high rate of incarceration and the attendant flood of
ex-offenders into neighborhoods have become major impediments, Holzer
and his co-authors say. Men with criminal records tend to be shunned
by employers, and young black men with clean records suffer by
association, studies have found.

It is not simply that conditions for many young black men have failed
to improve; in fact, they have steadily worsened.

The share of young black men without jobs has climbed relentlessly,
with only a slight pause during the economic peak of the late 1990s.
In 2000, 65 percent of black male high school dropouts in their 20s
were jobless -- that is, unable to find work, not seeking it or
incarcerated. By 2004, the share had grown to 72 percent, compared
with 34 percent of white dropouts and 19 percent of Hispanic
dropouts. Even when high school graduates were included, half of
black men in their 20s were jobless in 2004, up from 46 percent in 2000.

Incarceration rates climbed in the 1990s and reached historic highs
in the past few years. In 1995, 16 percent of black men in their 20s
who did not attend college were in jail or prison; by 2004, 21
percent were incarcerated. By their mid-30s, six in 10 black men who
have dropped out of school have spent time in prison.

In the inner cities, more than half of all black men never finish
high school. Curtis Brannon of Baltimore quit school in 10th grade to
sell drugs, fathered four children with three women and has spent
several stretches in jail for drug possession, parole violations and
other crimes.

"I was with the street life, but now I feel like I've got to get
myself together," he said. "You get tired of incarceration."

A group of men, including Brannon, gathered at the Center for
Fathers, Families and Workforce Development, one of a number of
private agencies that are trying to help men build character and
workplace skills.

Joseph Jones, director of the center, says the breakdown of families
is the main problem.

"Many of these men grew up fatherless, and they never had good role
models," said Jones, who himself overcame addiction and prison time.
"No one around them knows how to navigate the mainstream society."