Prison Spending Hurts Schools and Black Students, Report Says

Pointing to a dramatic shift in public spending over the last 16 years, a new study says that political decisions that have reduced funding for higher education--while increasing spending on prisons--have disproportionately harmed African Americans in California.

The study, the latest in a series by the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, a San Francisco-based public policy group, found that in 1980-81, 9.2% of the state’s general fund went to higher education and only 2.3% to corrections.

But in 1996-97, prisons have the larger slice, 9.4%, while higher education got 8.7%, the study said.

California’s prisons now have twice as many blacks as its four-year public universities, 45,000 compared to 27,500, notes the report--called “From Class Rooms to Cell Blocks: The Effects of Prison Building on Higher Education and African American Enrollment”--to be released at UCLA today.

At the same time, increasing tuition costs are putting higher education out of reach of many Californians, particularly African Americans, the study asserts.

“Since 1980, California has made policy and fiscal decisions that increasingly favor locking people up rather than providing them with higher education,” the report says. It urges a freeze on funding for prison construction and a cap on the prison population, more alternatives for nonviolent offenders, passage of bond measures to renovate and expand the UC and Cal State systems, and aggressive efforts to promote minority enrollment in the state’s universities.

Its release just two weeks before election day is not a coincidence. The report’s authors hope to influence public debate over several issues on the statewide ballot, including Proposition 209, which would ban affirmative action in state government.

The study was assailed Tuesday as “mindless drivel” by a spokesman for Gov. Pete Wilson, whose policies were criticized in the report as a major reason for the erosion in higher education funding.

Defending the level of state spending on prisons, Sean Walsh, the governor’s press secretary, said the governor “makes no apologies for putting rapists, child molesters and murderers behind bars for very long periods of time. . . . We have a priority on keeping our sons and daughters safe so they can attend our public colleges and universities as opposed to heading for an early grave.”

He noted that the state froze student fees for the past two years and that total higher education spending rose an average of 8.3% in each year.

But Joni Finney, associate director of the California Higher Education Policy Center, a think tank in San Jose, said the report makes solid points.

“I think higher education has taken a beating compared to other state services because we have another revenue source--and it’s called tuition. . . . We are the budget balancer,” she said.

“Unless we get other areas of state government under control and stop throwing money at problems, we are going to sacrifice educational opportunity.”

Citing figures from the California Postsecondary Education Commission, the study from the San Francisco research group said the state needs $1 billion a year to expand and maintain existing college and university facilities. About 450,000 new students are expected to enroll over the next decade.

Among the report’s other findings:

* Fee increases at the University of California have far outpaced the growth in median household income, a disparity that has been a greater burden for black families than white families. UC fees consume 35% of whites’ and 57.5% of blacks’ median household earnings, according to the center’s analysis of census data.

“That is a huge number,” said Vincent Schiraldi, the center’s executive director. “Basically, that means it is out of reach for a whole bunch of African Americans in this state.”

* Between 1980 and 1995, the number of black men in prison has increased more than 500%--from 8,139 to 41,434. The number of black men in public higher education, meanwhile, has risen only 30%, from 8,066 to 10,479.

* As a result, almost four times as many African American men are in prison now (41,434) as are enrolled in public higher education (10,474). By 2001, the ratio could be 7 to 1 if current trends continue, the study warned.