Grim Picture Painted for State’s Black Men : Study: Assembly panel finds a few notes of optimism among bleak portrait of arrests and unemployment.

In the first comprehensive look at the status of black men in California, preliminary findings by the Assembly’s Commission on the Status of African American Males show snapshots of a group facing grim and deteriorating conditions.

Drawing from sources including the U.S. Census, the state attorney general’s office and the California Department of Education, the preliminary study offers an array of conclusions. Its bottom line: The erosion of semiskilled jobs in which blacks were disproportionately employed has set in motion a downward slide in the income, education and opportunities for black men.

A draft of the report is to be released next week. Among its findings:

* One-sixth of California’s 625,000 black men age 16 and older are arrested each year, records that hinder future job prospects. The report also suggests that black men who are picked up on drug charges may be more likely than whites or Latinos to be released for lack of evidence.

* Almost 4 of 10 felons entering state prison are black men.

* Black men remain three times more likely than whites to drop out of high school.

* Those with less than a high school education are twice as likely to be unemployed as white men with the same education.

* On a positive note, black families are almost as likely as white families to own a home in the Golden State. Male black college graduates are just as likely to be employed as white men, even if they are only half as likely to earn more than $60,000.

“One thing is clear: In the end, black males get on one of two tracks,” said the study’s author, UCLA associate political science professor Franklin Gilliam Jr. The study, due to be completed next year, will be used by the Assembly to propose policies and legislation to address the situation of black men--who make up 3% of the state’s population.

“Discrimination and racism have a lot to do with these problems. This country has not finished its work in creating equal opportunity,” said the commission’s chairwoman, Assemblywoman Barbara Lee (D-Oakland).

Ako Kambon, executive administrator of the Ohio Commission on African American Males, which conducted a similar study, said all taxpayers pay for the problems.

“It’s not only a moral issue. It’s an economic issue,” Kambon said.

The California study said that the nationwide cost of incarcerating black men in 1988 totaled $7 billion.

The economic factors are just as dramatic on the individual level.

The net financial worth of African Americans in the state averages $9,359 compared to $44,980 for whites. More than a third of black men in California grow up in poverty, the study found. About 31% of black families in California make less than $15,000 a year, compared to 16% of whites and a quarter of Latino families. Conversely, white and Asian families are three times more likely than blacks to earn more than $100,000 a year.

Income and educational levels, the study said, are directly related to marital status. Blacks are three times more likely than whites to grow up in households headed by a single woman. (Blacks are twice as likely as Latinos, and five times more likely than Asian Americans to grow up in such households.) Only 45% of African American households in California include married couples, compared to 67% for whites and Latinos and 77% for Asian Americans. Therefore, only 43% of black male children under 21 live with both parents, compared to 71% of Latinos and 80% of whites.

More than 72% of the households headed by black, single women earn less than $30,000 per year, compared to less than 60% of households headed by white and Asian single women. (For Latina-headed households, the situation is even worse, with more than 74% earning less than $30,000.) Forty percent of California’s households headed by single black or Latina women live in poverty.

Black men have California’s highest high school dropout rate, 32%. Between 1985 and 1991, black male dropout rates declined faster than the rate for non-black males, but a large gap remains. In 1990-91, the black male high school dropout rates were almost triple the rates for whites and Asians. Black male dropout rates are significantly higher in Southern California than Northern California, the study found. A roughly equal proportion of black and white men report some college attendance. But whites graduate from college and professional schools at about twice the rate of blacks.

Overall, black male unemployment in California is about twice what it is for white and Asian males but roughly the same as for Latinos. Blacks are also more likely to be unemployed for longer periods of time. Almost a quarter of black men in California over 16 years of age have been unemployed for more than two years, compared to about 12% of white men and 10% of Asian and Latino men. Even for those with jobs, black men are concentrated in lower prestige occupations, and they are about twice as likely as all other men to work in the public sector and half as likely as white and Asian men to be self-employed.

Among college and professional school graduates, there is little difference in terms of employment levels across racial and ethnic groups. Four of five black men who have a college or professional degree are employed.

Perhaps the most dramatic findings in the preliminary report were drawn from the state attorney general’s 1992 data.

Those figures indicated that 92% of black men who are released after being arrested on drug charges are let go for lack of evidence or inadmissible evidence, compared to 64% of whites and 81% of Latinos.

The report’s lead researcher, Gilliam, suggested that racism is to blame for the discrepancy. “White people don’t want to feel that visceral fear of black crime. One way to do that is to round up and arrest black men,” he said.

The attorney general’s data, however, has been questioned. In 1992, The Times spent several months analyzing Los Angeles County adult felony arrest data kept by the state attorney general’s office that showed apparent racial discrepancies in arrest practices of the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Instead of proving that arrests of blacks differed from those of other racial and ethnic groups, the investigation indicated that the state’s database was so flawed that no meaningful conclusions could be drawn from it, said Richard O’Reilly, Times director of computer analysis.

Gilliam contended that although the attorney general’s data is incomplete, at least 260,000 felony arrests were recorded in 1992, a number large enough to draw accurate conclusions.

Among the other attorney general’s findings that appeared in the commission’s preliminary report:

* Between 1960 and 1988, the relative proportion of new black felons jumped to 38% from 22%, while the proportion of white felons dropped from 58% to 31%.

* Black men account for a third of the state’s adult homicide arrests and 40% of felony narcotics arrests.

* Homicide is the cause of death for 60% of black men who die between ages 15 and 24.

Troubled Portrait

According to an Assembly committee report, black men in California are more likely than whites, Latinos and Asian Americans to be raised in poverty by single mothers, drop out of high school or remain unemployed for long periods. Here are some of the report’s findings:

EMPLOYMENT

Percentage of men unemployed more than two years:

Blacks: 22.8

Asians: 10.4

Latinos: 10.6

Whites: 12.4

FAMILY STATUS

Percentage of male children under 21 who live with:

BOTH PARENTS MOTHER ONLY FATHER ONLY Blacks 42.9% 49% 8.2% Asians 89.5% 6.9% 3.7% Latinos 71% 21.5% 7.5 Whites 79.8% 15% 5.2

FAMILY EARNINGS

UNDER $15,000- $30,000- $60,000- $15,000 $30,000 $60,000 $100,000 Blacks 30.7% 25.2% 29.5% 11.5% Asians 18.5% 16.8% 32.6% 21.7% Latinos 25.1% 29.1% 32.5% 10.6% Whites 15.9% 19.2% 35.3% 20.3%

Source: Census Bureau, 1990