CHAPTER 19
As your authors state, there are four Black males in prison for every three Black males in college. This has not always been the case – in 1980 there were three times more Black males in college than in prison. What happened? How did this trend shift so dramatically and with such devastating consequences?
There is no question that people of color are overrepresented in the criminal justice system, especially in the correctional system. In 2019, 33% of those incarcerated were Black (1096/100,000 Black U.S. residents); 23% of those incarcerated Hispanic (524/100,000 Hispanic U.S. residents) and 31% of those incarcerated were White (214/100,000 White U.S. residents).
In 2019, Black females had an incarceration rate of 88/100,000 (down from 133/100,000 in 2018), White females (48/100,000) (up 1 point from 2018). Hispanic females were incarcerated at a rate of 63/100,000 (d0wn 14 points from 2018).
1% of Black males in the U.S. aged 20-64 were serving a prison sentence in a state or federal prison in 2019.
1% of Hispanic males in the U.S. aged 20-54 were serving a prison sentence in a state or federal prison in 2019.
Interesting fact – States with the highest Black to White prison population ratio are disproportionately located in the Northeast and Midwest, including Iowa, Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut and Wisconsin – not in the South as most people believe.
The same holds true for the Hispanic to White prison population ratio with Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York and New Hampshire topping the list.
In 2019, 33% percent of prison and jail inmates incarcerated in the United States were Black, compared to their 13.4% share of the overall U.S. population. Hispanics constitute 23% of the prison and jail population compared to their 18.5% share of the U.S. population. Whites make up 60% of the U.S. population but only 31% of the U.S. prison population
A Black male born in 2001 has a 32% chance of spending time in prison at some point in his life, a Hispanic male has a 17% chance and a White male has a 6% chance.
If this trend continues approximately 1/3 of all Black children born today will be incarcerated at some time during their lifetimes. This is life for many minority children and their families – visiting a relative in prison is something that they have grown up with.
The issues of race and ethnicity are complex. Race is commonly defined as “a biological concept that divides humankind into categories related to skin color and other physical features”. However the implications of race are far from simple. Race affects not only how others define us but how we define others. Race affects social programming, political posturing, and our general concept of who we are.
Ethnicity as a concept is defined as “a method of distinguishing people according to their cultural characteristics – language, religion, traditions, etc”. Ethnicity is usually a self-definition that individuals choose; not just based on skin color and physical features, and allows further group delineation within racial groups.
The interplay between the criminal justice system and minority groups in the
is extremely complex focusing on the following two concepts:
Discrimination – which occurs when groups are treated differentially without regard to their behavior or qualifications. For example, when minority groups are routinely sentenced to prison in comparison to non- minority groups, regardless of their criminal history, discrimination may have occurred.
Disparity – which is the difference between groups that transcends regular factors of age, race, sex, socioeconomic status, etc. For example, a single judge who decides to “get tough on crime” and as a result sentences everyone who appears before him in court to the maximum sentence possible. His actions are not predicated by factors of age, race, sex, socioeconomic factors, etc. His “justice” is applied to all who appear before him but when you look at his actions “in relation to every other judge in the state his sentences are “out of the norm” thus indicating sentencing disparity.
Racial disparity in the criminal justice system exists when the proportion of racial or ethnic groups within the control of the system is greater than the proportion of such groups in the general population. Illegitimate or unwarranted disparity results in the dissimilar treatment of similarly situated people based on race or ethnicity.
Given the predominantly minority composition of the population in prisons and jails contrasted with the predominantly non-minority custodial security staff and managers, sensitivity to perceived racial bias is especially critical in institutional corrections. Disparate treatment may exist in the form of accessibility to programming, health care, educational opportunities, and inmate jobs within prison facilities. The following are critical points in the incarceration process that must be reviewed on a regular basis in an attempt to minimize racial and ethnic disparity in correctional institutions.
Inmate risk assessment and classification.
Assessment of inmates’ drug and alcohol dependency.
Assessment of inmates’ mental health needs
Inmate access to libraries, gyms, and other facilities in the institution.
Inmate access to treatment for alcohol and chemical dependency.
Inmate access to physical and mental health services.
Inmate access to religious and counseling services.
Inmate access to educational and skill development services.
Inmate access to work and educational release programs.
Consideration of dietary and religious preferences in menu development and preparation.
11. Development of rules for inmate behavior.
12. Application of the disciplinary system for inmates.
13. Inmate eligibility for parole.
14. Inmate access to community services upon release from prison.
So, what do you think?
Regardless of our own opinions about issues of race, ethnicity, disparity and discrimination, one thing is clear minority groups are overrepresented in our prisons and it is clear that the long term impact of such incarceration patterns promises to be devastating not only to the families of those incarcerated, but to the community they came from and to society as a whole if such patterns polarize our attitudes to such an extent that we lose the values that our society is based on – liberty and justice for all.
One final note – although we discussed ethnic disparity in this lecture we really know very little about the American criminal justice system’s treatment of ethnic minorities. Establishing and maintaining a national data base on ethnic disparity issues will be a challenge to develop and maintain since we do not routinely collect ethnic data on society at large and/or those individuals who come in contact with the criminal justice system, but it needs to be done to determine the magnitude of such discrimination/disparity.