Incarceration is Not an Equal Opportunity Punishment
February 1, 2003 - 4:35pm
South Africa under apartheid (1993), incarceration rate for Black adult men: 851 per 100,000
On December 31, 2001, there were 1,955,705 people in U.S. prisons and jails. As of December 31, 2001, the U.S. incarceration rate was 709 per 100,000 residents (7 out of every 1,000 Americans). But when you break down the statistics you see that incarceration is not an equal opportunity punishment.
| Select U.S. incarceration rates: Whites: 235 per 100,000 Blacks: 1815 per 100,000 Latinos: 609 per 100,000 Asian: 99 per 100,000 Native: 709 per 100,000 | Race is an important “filter” on who goes to prison: Males: 1,318 per 100,000 White males: 708 per 100,000 Black males: 4,848 per 100,000 Hispanic males: 1,668 per 100,000 |
Break it down by age and race, and you can see what is going on even clearer:
For Black males ages 25-29: 13,391 per 100,000. (That’s 13.4% of Black men in their late 20s)
Or you can make some international comparisons:
South Africa was internationally condemned for its racial policies under apartheid.South Africa under apartheid (1993), incarceration rate for Black adult men: 851 per 100,000
U.S. under George Bush (2001), incarceration rate for Black adult men: 4,848 per 100,000
Select U.S. Incarceration rates from Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2000; Gender and Age & Race statistics from BJS, Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2001, Tables 1 and 15; Calculation for Black adult men uses data from Tables 14 and 15 of the spreadsheet version of Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2001 to count only Black men 18 and older; Statistics as of December 31, 2001 from BJS, Prisoners in 2001. South Africa figures from Sentencing Project, Americans Behind Bars: The International Use of Incarceration. The incarceration rates by race alone were calculated by Mother Jones for the Prisons: Debt to Society, Racial Inequality page.
