Prison and marriage in the USA

This piece from the Economist proposes a link between the levels of incarceration among black men and the decline in marriage levels among black women in the USA. To the extent that marriage is generally a social and personal good (and that is, of course, a matter of considerable debate), this points to a pernicious side effect of the approach to sentencing in the USA.

A point to note is that a decline in marriage does not entail a decline in co-habitation and long-term partnerships. The article also reports that 96% of married black women in the USA are married to black men. Again, this may overstate the ethnic exclusivity of the long term relationships of black women as it measures just marriage rather than partnerships.