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Sorry I wasn't being very clear, I meant that the proportion of blacks that were slaves was far higher than the proportion that are now imprisoned. Or even that

• jMyles 10y ago
  > I meant that the proportion of blacks that were slaves was far higher than the proportion that are now imprisoned. My comment was about black men (ie, adult males) under correctional custody or supervision (ie, probation or parole). I think it's likely that the ratio is close to the 1850 number - by 1850 there were quite a lot of free black men. But that's not really the issue - I'm more inclined to take issue with > trying to paint our present situation as almost as bad as where we were just 150 years ago doesn't really make sense I think the prison system is very, very bad. A horrifically ugly mark on our history. As bad as slavery, and as impactful on black families in many places. Life as a black family in a radically abolitionist state - say, Kansas - was almost surely less disrupted by slavery in 1850 than it is by the prison state today.