According to a new report published in the American Sociological Review, predatory lending that targeted segregated minority communities led to mass foreclosures that fueled the U.S. housing crisis. Poorer minority areas became the focus of these practices in the 1990s with the growth of mortgage-backed securities. This allowed lenders to pool low- and high-risk loans on the secondary market. In addition, financial institutions in these neighborhoods tended to be predatory -- pawn shops, payday lenders and check-cashing services that charge "high fees and usurious rates of interest." If the response to redlining and institutional racism is the proliferation of predatory financial institutions, then it stands to reason that poorer minority populations would be ripe for the picking by predatory mortgage lenders. We're still wondering why those who participated in predatory mortgage lending practices are not in jail. They're in jail in Europe and Australia. Why not here?

Read more at Yahoo News.