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From 1980 to 2008, the number of people incarcerated in America quadrupled-from roughly 500,000 to 2.3 million people
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Today, the US is 5% of the World population and has 25% of world prisoners.
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Combining the number of people in prison and jail with those under
parole or probation supervision, 1 in ever y 31 adults, or 3.2 percent
of the population is under some form of correctional control
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African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population
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African Americans are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites
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Together, African American and Hispanics comprised 58% of all
prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up
approximately one quarter of the US population
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According to Unlocking America, if African American and Hispanics were
incarcerated at the same rates of whites, today's prison and jail
populations would decline by approximately 50%
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One in six black men had been incarcerated as of 2001. If current
trends continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spend
time in prison during his lifetime
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1 in 100 African American women are in prison
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Nationwide, African-Americans represent 26% of juvenile arrests, 44%
of youth who are detained, 46% of the youth who are judicially waived to
criminal court, and 58% of the youth admitted to state prisons (Center
on Juvenile and Criminal Justice).
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About 14 million Whites and 2.6 million African Americans report using an illicit drug
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5 times as many Whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet
African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the
rate of Whites
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African Americans represent 12% of the total population of drug users,
but 38% of those arrested for drug offenses, and 59% of those in state
prison for a drug offense.
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African Americans serve virtually as much time in prison for a drug
offense (58.7 months) as whites do for a violent offense (61.7 months)
- In 2002, blacks constituted more than 80% of the people sentenced under
the federal crack cocaine laws and served substantially more time in
prison for drug offenses than did whites, despite that fact that more
than 2/3 of crack cocaine users in the U.S. are white or Hispanic
- The problem begins with police activity. According to Justice Department
data cited in the report, police arrested black youth for drug crimes
at more than twice the rate of white youth between 1980 and 2010,
nationwide. Yet a 2012 study from the National Institute on Drug Abuse
found that white high-school students were slightly more likely to have
abused illegal drugs within the past month than black students of the
same age.
- Racial disparities within the justice system have been exacerbated by
the war on drugs, the report argues. The drug war led the country’s
population of incarcerated drug offenders to soar from 42,000 in 1980 to
nearly half a million in 2007. From 1999 to 2005, African Americans
constituted about 13 percent of drug users, but they made up about 46
percent of those convicted for drug offenses, the report points out.
- While people of color make up about 30 percent of the United States’ population, they account for 60 percent of
those imprisoned. The prison population grew by 700 percent from 1970
to 2005, a rate that is outpacing crime and population rates. The
incarceration rates disproportionately impact men of color: 1 in every 15 African American men and 1 in every 36 Hispanic men are incarcerated in comparison to 1 in every 106 white men.
- African American youth have higher rates of juvenile incarceration and
are more likely to be sentenced to adult prison. According to the Sentencing Project,
even though African American juvenile youth are about 16 percent of the
youth population, 37 percent of their cases are moved to criminal court
and 58 percent of African American youth are sent to adult prisons
- The war on drugs has been waged primarily in communities of color where
people of color are more likely to receive higher offenses.According to
the Human Rights Watch,
people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than
whites, but they have higher rate of arrests. African Americans
comprise 14 percent of regular drug users but are 37 percent of those arrested for drug offenses. From 1980 to 2007 about one in three of the 25.4 million adults arrested for drugs was African American.
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- Once convicted, black offenders receive longer sentences compared to
white offenders. The U.S. Sentencing Commission stated that in the
federal system black offenders receive sentences that are 10 percent longer than white offenders for the same crimes. The Sentencing Project reports
that African Americans are 21 percent more likely to receive
mandatory-minimum sentences than white defendants and are 20 percent
more like to be sentenced to prison.
- Voter laws that prohibit people with felony convictions to vote
disproportionately impact men of color. An estimated 5.3 million
Americans are denied the right to vote based on a past felony
conviction. Felony disenfranchisement is exaggerated by racial
disparities in the criminal-justice system, ultimately denying 13 percent of
African American men the right to vote. Felony-disenfranchisement
policies have led to 11 states denying the right to vote to more than 10 percent of their African American population
- “The 1,217 deadly police shootings from 2010 to 2012 captured in the
federal data show that blacks, age 15 to 19, were killed at a rate of
31.17 per million, while just 1.47 per million white males in that age
range died at the hands of police,” a new ProPublica report explains,
noting that if whites were killed at the same ratio there would have
been another 185 white deaths, just during that three-year period, just
of those in that narrow age range.
- 2007 investigation by Colorlines and the Chicago Reporter in 10 major
cities. An NAACP report of Oakland, California, found that 37 of 45
police-involved shootings were of blacks, while zero were of whites.
“Although weapons were not found in 40 percent of cases, the NAACP
found, no officers were charged,” Mother Jones reported.
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