On the Racial Disproportionality of United States' Prison Populations

Abstract

One of the most distressing and troublesome aspects of the operation of the criminal justice system in the United States is the severe disproportionality between blacks and whites in the composition of prison populations. Although blacks comprise roughly one-eighth of the population, they represent about one-half of the prison population. Thus, the race-specific incarceration rates (the ratio of prisoners to population within each racial group) are grossly disproportionate. This disproportionality has been a source of major concern, largely because it suggests the possibility of gross injustice in the criminal justice system. The racial differences in imprisonment are reflected in Table 1, which presents demographic-specific incarceration rates (in units of prisoners per 100,000 persons within each indicated demographic group) in state prisons (not including federal prisons or local jails) for blacks and whites and their total.1 This table highlights the great sensitivity of in-