U.S. incarceration rates by race
Whites: 393 per 100,000
Latinos: 957 per 100,000
Blacks: 2,531 per 100,000
Gender is an important "filter" on the who goes to prison or jail
Females: 123 per 100,000
Males: 1,348 per 100,000 (Over 80% Blacks and Latinos)
Look at just the males by race, and the incarceration rates become even more frightening
White males: 717 per 100,000
Latino males: 1,717 per 100,000
Black males: 4,919 per 100,000
If you look at males aged 25-29 and by race, you can see what is going on even clearer
For White males ages 25-29: 1,666 per 100,000.
For Latino males ages 25-29: 3,606 per 100,000.
For Black males ages 25-29: 12,603 per 100,000. (That's 12.6% of Black men in their late 20s.)
Or you can make some international comparisons:
South Africa under Apartheid was internationally condemned as a society.
South Africa under apartheid (1993), Black males: 851 per 100,000
U.S. under no aparthied (2006) Black males: 4,919 per 100,000
8 in 10 young black men
caught in justice system
Nearly 40 percent of black men between age 20 and 29 are under control of the criminal justice system -- almost eight times the rate for white males in their 20s
Some interesting aspects of this study of prison statistics are these:
California, which has the sixth largest economy in the world, (including its Silicon Valley), and a population that is 52% nonwhite, and is supposedly on the cutting edge of racial and social tolerance, has a prison population that is 69% nonwhite. And, of course, with a Black population that is only 7%, it has a prison population that is 32% Black. And this large population of Black inmates has helped this enlightened state to be the sixth state in incarceration rates.
While California is enlightened, its prison growth rate places it 18 among the states in prison spending; most of those in prison are there for drug offenses—selling and using; California is rated number three among the states for incarcerating drug offenders and 45th among the states in spending on education. And among states that have a large racial disparity between those who are incarcerated and their numbers in society, California ranks 47th, so there are other states that are more vicious to their Black minority populations than California.
Texas for instance,ranks number three in spending on prisons, while it is ranked 20th on education spending, and ranks 15th in incarcerating drug offenders. It ranks number one in putting citizens to death. Texas has a Black population of 11% but a Black prison population of 44%.
And in Florida, even though the state ranks 49th in incarceration rates and 28th in prison spending, Florida has a Black population that equals 14%, yet a Black prison population that is 54%. Blacks in that state have a majority only in the prison population. Florida ranks 18th in spending on education.
The states that have the largest Black prison populations are these:
State…………………Black Population………….Black Prison Pop.
Georgia 29% 64%
Ohio 12% 52%
Iowa 2% 24%
Minnesota 3% 37%
Wisconsin 6% 48%
Illinois 15% 65%
Missouri 11% 45%
Arkansas 16% 52%
Louisiana 33% 76%
Mississippi 36% 75%
Alabama 26% 65%
Tennessee 16% 53%
Kentucky 7% 36%
Indiana 8% 42%
Michigan 14% 55%
South Carolina 30% 69%
North Carolina 22% 64%
Virginia 20% 68%
Pennsylvania 10% 56%
New York 15% 51%
Delaware 19% 63%
Maryland 28% 77%
Connecticut 9% 47%
New Jersey 13% 64%
Rhode Island 4% 30%
The states where Blacks are not being placed in prison as a matter of course are Hawaii, Maine, New Hampshire, and Idaho, even though their general populations are small.
Most of the states with a majority of Black prisoners are found in the south. However, Maryland, which isn’t generally viewed as a southern state, has the largest percentage of Black prisoners—77%. But Wisconsin, with a tiny Black population of 6%, has a Black prison population of 48%. And Mississippi, with the largest Black population of 36%, has a Black prison population of 75%.
Majority of Blacks in prison crimes are:
Murder, rape, arson, grand theft auto, stealing, drug dealing or drug abuse and gangs.
Majority of Whites in prison crimes are:
Credit card fraud, arson, stealing, murder less then 20 percent; however convicted murder and rape for black prisoners are over 80 percent including murder on law enforcements officers.