Uneven Justice: State Rates of Incarceration by Race and Ethnicity is a new report by The Sentencing Project that exam­ines the racial and eth­nic dynam­ics of incar­cer­a­tion in the U.S. with tables by state and by race. The report notes that African Americans are incar­cer­at­ed at near­ly 6 times the rate of whites and Hispanics are incar­cer­at­ed at near­ly dou­ble the rate of whites. One in nine (11.7%) African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 is cur­rent­ly incar­cer­at­ed in a prison or jail.

The report extends the find­ings of pre­vi­ous analy­ses by incor­po­rat­ing jail pop­u­la­tions in the over­all incar­cer­a­tion rate and by assess­ing the impact of incar­cer­a­tion on the Hispanic com­mu­ni­ty, rep­re­sent­ing an increas­ing share of the prison pop­u­la­tion. The report notes: ​“In 2005, Hispanics com­prised 20% of the state and fed­er­al prison pop­u­la­tion, a rise of 43% since 1990. As a result of these trends, one of every six Hispanic males and one of every 45 Hispanic females born today can expect to go to prison in his or her life­time. These rates are more than dou­ble those for non-Hispanic whites.”

​“Racial dis­par­i­ties in incar­cer­a­tion reflect a fail­ure of social and eco­nom­ic inter­ven­tions to address crime effec­tive­ly and also indi­cate racial bias in the jus­tice sys­tem,” stat­ed Marc Mauer, Executive Director of The Sentencing Project. ​“The broad vari­a­tion in the use of incar­cer­a­tion nation­al­ly sug­gests that pol­i­cy deci­sions can play a key role in deter­min­ing the size and com­po­si­tion of the prison pop­u­la­tion.”

(“Uneven Justice: State Rates of Incarceration By Race and Ethnicity,” The Sentencing Project, July 2007). Read the report. See Studies and Race.

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