Race and Corrections

While looking at the massive number of people incarcerated in the United States, it is easy to see that a major disparity presents itself when looking at the races of those incarcerated. The numbers are astonishing: “Though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately 32 percent of the US population, they comprised 56 percent of all incarcerated people in 2015” (“Criminal Justice Fact Sheet”, n.d.). These questions arise: Is our criminal justice system discriminatory? Or, do minorities actually engage in more crime than whites? The statistics are clear:

300,000 Americans in prison, more than half of that number were minorities" ( Michelle 44 ) . The United states has the highest ratc of incarceration in the world mostly duc to drug and murder convictions. For many decades

“It is said that no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones” –Nelson Mandela. Life in prison is unimaginable to most of the population of this world. Prison is a place of great diversity. An article from crimemuseum.com states the ratio of races in prison populations from 2007: “Statistics from 2007 indicate that 93% of the prison population is made up of males, and 7% of inmates were female. Comparisons with data from 1995 and 2000 indicate that those numbers remain nearly constant from year to year. Out of those locked up, 33% were White, 39% were Black, and about 20% were Hispanic” (“Prison”, 2017, p. 1). In prison, there is

All societal groups are affected by the issue of imprisonment, but it is a far more likely occurrence among marginalized cultural groups, particularly African Americans. As the United States celebrates the nation's triumph over race with the selection of Barack Obama as the first African American male president, a majority of young black males in major American cities are locked behind bars, or categorized felons for life (Alexander, 2010, p. 1). Bonczar and Beck (1997) report that:

The trend of African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 has seen a dramatic increase of incarceration. Attention has been focusing on areas of housing, education, and healthcare but the most prominent problem for African American males is the increase in the incarceration rate. African American males between the ages of 25 and 29 incarceration rate has been thought, by many, to be caused by economic factors such as under employment or unemployment, poor housing, lack of education, and lack of healthcare. Yet, others believe it is due to the imbalance of minorities within the criminal justice system, such as judges, lawyers, and lawmakers.

Racial and ethnic minorities account for thirty percent of the U.S. population but they make up sixty percent of those incarcerated. 1 out of 15 black men are incarcerated and only 1 out of 106 white men will be prisoned in their lifetime. When it comes to confrontations

Today, one in every 100 U.S. residents are incarcerated, and this rate is even more stark for people of color; one in 15 black men age 18 and over was incarcerated in 2008, compared to one in 54 white men and one in 36 Hispanic men.142 A DOJ study found that if incarceration rates remain unchanged, 6.6 percent of U.S. residents born in 2001 will go to prison at some time during their lifetime.143 People of color are most likely to spend time in prison: one in three African-American men born in this year is expected to go to prison; one in six Hispanic men will go to prison; and one in 17 white men will spend time in prison. The incarceration rate of people sentenced to more than a year of prison more than tripled over the past 30 years, growing

African Americans now constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated; that is 60% of 30% of the African American population. African Americas are incarcerated at nearly six times the rate of whites. “Between 6.6% and 7.5% of all black males ages 25 to 39 were imprisoned in 2011, which were the highest imprisonment rates among the measured sex, race, Hispanic origin, and age groups." (Carson, E. Ann, and Sabol, William J. 2011.) Stated on Americanprogram.org “ 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 likely to be sentenced to prison.” Hispanics and African Americans make up 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population. (Henderson 2000). Slightly 15% of the inmate population is made up of 283,000 Hispanic prisoners.

The alarming percentage of incarcerated minorities has brought about many questions and concerns in society today. Statistics show the percentage of incarcerated minorities to be higher in those who did not graduate from high school. It is also believed the law is more firm on minority races when it comes to sentencing. Drug sentencing disparities have proven and issue and a main reason for incarceration of the minority races. The time these people spend incarcerated, and how they spend it, affects their ensuing opportunities and remittance into society.

While the number of women incarcerated is relatively low, the racial and ethnic disparities are startling. African American women are three times more likely than white women to be incarcerated, while Hispanic women are 69 percent more likely than white women to be incarcerated.

Incarceration rates are a definite proof that racial discrimination occurs. “Incarceration rates in the United States have risen sharply since 1980”, stated Filip Spagnoli, “the racial distribution of inmates in the U.S. is highly negative for black Americans. Whereas they only make up 12% of the total U.S. population, they represent more than 40% of inmates”

The population at large in the United Stated is very different than the population of the prison system. Racial inequality in the criminal justice system is often ignored because it does not affect most people. If there is to be a change in racial inequality, this issue is one that must be addressed. According to Inequality and Incarceration, “497 out of 100,000 Americans are imprisoned.” This means there is “less than one percent of people” in the United States that are imprisoned. This may seem like an insignificant amount.

Minorities are being sentence to jail for harsher punishment more than whites in the United States. In this disparity of the justice system, young white males between the ages of 18-29 were 38% less likely to be sentences to prison than black men of the same age group (Kansal, 2005). According to Kansal (2005) “ Young uneducated or unemployed African American and Hispanic males are more likely to serve longer sentences and, have a

There are so many more African-Americans than whites in our prisons that the difference cannot be explained by higher crime among African- Americans - racial discrimination is also at work, and it penalizes African- Americans at almost every juncture in the criminal justice system.1

In 2010, the number of Hispanic men incarcerated per 100,000 U.S. residents was 2.6 times greater than that of white men, and the number of black men incarcerated was 6.4 times greater (Light, 2015). Considering that only 13% of the United States