Incarcerated Black Men Over the past two decades, the criminal justice system in the United States has undergone tremendous expansion. There are now over a million black men in prison and one in four black men will go to prison in their lifetime. Knowing these statistics, this is a burden on the black community as many families are left with a single family home, unemployment rates for black men are increasing, they can't vote and now they make it look like it's fun to go to prison. in prison have drastic effects on the black community. The first and arguably most important effect is that it intensifies the problem of single-parent households within the black community. When these men are sentenced to prison, they often leave behind a wife/girlfriend and/or children. If they have already had children, they must spend several years of their youth without a main father figure. Moreover, the absence of this man is felt even more when the woman must assume all the financial responsibilities alone. This poses even more problems as women are underpaid compared to men in the workforce, childcare costs need to be taken into account and many of these women lack the necessary skills to get a job that would allow them to earn a decent wage, which could enable them to support themselves and their needs. the children. The incarceration of black men has done much to ensure that households headed by black women are now equal to poverty. The imprisonment of black men also has a lot to do with rising unemployment rates for black men. As these men re-enter the workforce, they likely now have fewer skills than when they first entered prison. There are few, if any, programs that train these men to effectively reenter society. As jobs continue to move more and more to the suburbs, these men, originally from the inner city, find themselves with few options for paid employment for their livelihood. Rates of return to prison for convicts are so high not because these men want to return to a life of crime, but because few employment options are available, they tend to use their limited skills to obtain employment. money they need to survive. If more efforts do not provide these men with additional training realistically designed to help them obtain paid employment for a living, prison return rates for convicts and unemployment among black men will continue to rise. increase..