Communities of color make up a disproportionate share of the American imprisoned population, according to a new study highlighting racial and ethnic disparities among Black, Latino and white incarcerated Americans.
A report out today from The Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C.-based research and advocacy center, found that Black Americans are incarcerated at nearly 5 times the rate of white Americans, whereas Latino Americans are imprisoned 1.3 times the rate of white Americans.
According to the report, Black Americans are incarcerated at a state average of 1,240 per 100,000 residents, whereas Latino Americans are imprisoned at a rate of 349 per 100,000 residents. White, non-Latino Americans, meanwhile, are incarcerated at 261 per 100,000 residents.
Wisconsin leads the nation with the highest rate of imprisonment of Black Americans, with 2,742 per 100,000 Black residents incarcerated in state prisons. Among the country’s Latino population, Arizona has the highest incarceration rate, with 742 per 100,000 Latino Americans imprisoned.
A national view of U.S. incarcerated populations by race and ethnicity shows high rates of disparity among the country’s communities of color and white Americans, especially among Black communities.
While Black Americans are on average 4.8 times more likely to be incarcerated than white Americans, in some states such as New Jersey, Black Americans can be up to 12.5 times more likely to be incarcerated than white Americans. Hawaii demonstrates the lowest differential of Black to white American imprisonment, as shown by the map below. However, Black Americans in Hawaii are still over twice as likely to be incarcerated than white residents.
While Latino individuals are on average 1.3 times more likely to be incarcerated than whites in the U.S., in some states such as Massachusetts, Latino populations are up to 4.1 times more likely to be incarcerated than whites.
In 20 states, including Oklahoma, North Carolina and New Hampshire, the data in the report shows the likelihood of imprisonment is higher for whites compared to the Latino population. However the report emphasizes the unreliability of ethnicity data possibly contributing to an underestimation of Black and Latino American data.
“An example lies in Florida, which claims that 13% of its prison population is Latinx though more than one quarter of its residents are Latinx,” (a gender neutral term for ‘Latino,’ according to the report. “There are most assuredly more Latinx people in prison than are officially reported but the exact number is unknown.”
When it comes to incarceration, the U.S. is a world leader with 1.2 million people in state prisons across the country. According to the report, imprisonment is a life-altering event that can create negative impacts on the individual and societal level.
Individuals released from incarceration may have difficulty gaining employment, finding stable housing and experience reduced lifetime earnings. Additionally, high levels of incarceration within communities can result in increased crime rates and contribute to neighborhood deterioration, according to the study.
Although the U.S. remains a world leader in imprisonment, The Sentencing Project reports that nine states have been successful in decreasing their incarcerated population by more than 30% in recent years as a result of policy reforms and reduced prison admissions and lengths of stay. These states include Alaska, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Alabama, Rhode Island, Vermont, Hawaii and California.
The report cites a number of causes for racial disparity within U.S. prisons. According to the report, the nation’s history of white supremacy over Black people created a legacy of racial subordination that impacts their criminal justice outcomes today.
The report also asserts that communities of color, especially Black Americans, are negatively affected by biased policies and practices including police-citizen relations, pre-trial detention, the weight criminal history records can carry in sentencing and unequal prosecutorial charging.
The Sentencing Project recommends policymakers mitigate racial injustice within the criminal justice system by decriminalizing low-level drug offenses leftover from the war on drugs, enacting proportional sentencing by revising systems that deny an individualized approach to sentencing, and measuring the future impact of crime-related policies on demographic groups through racial impact legislation.
