“According to the US Census Bureau, the US population in 2000 was 281,421,906. Of that, 194,552,774 (69.1%) were white; 33,947,837 (12.1%) were black; and 35,305,818 (12.5%) were of Hispanic origin. Additionally, 2,068,883 (0.7%) were Native American, and 10,123,169 (3.8%) were Asian.”
Source: US Census Bureau, Department of Commerce, Census 2000 Redistricting Data (P.L. 94-171) Summary File for states, Population by Race and Hispanic or Latino Origin for the United States: 2000 (PHC-T-a) Table 1.http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t1/tab01.txt
“Most drug offenders are white. Five times as many whites use drugs as blacks. Yet blacks comprise the great majority of drug offenders sent to prison. The solution to this racial inequity is not to incarcerate more whites, but to reduce the use of prison for low-level drug offenders and to increase the availability of substance abuse treatment.”
Source: Human Rights Watch, “Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs” (Washington, DC: Human Rights Watch, 2000), from their website at http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/drugs/war/key-facts.htm
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“Because of their extraordinary rate of incarceration, one in every 20 black men over the age of 18 is in a state or federal prison, compared to one in every 180 whites.” In five states, between one in 13 and one in 14 black men are in prison.
Source: Human Rights Watch, “Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs” (Washington, DC: Human Rights Watch, 2000).
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2000/usa/Rcedrg00-01.htm#P149_24292
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“When incarceration rates by State (excluding Federal inmates) are estimated separately by gender, race, and Hispanic origin, male rates are found to be 10 times higher than female rates; black rates 5-1/2 times higher than white rates; and Hispanic rates nearly 2 times higher than white rates.” Source: Harrison, Paige M., & Beck, Allen J., PhD, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2005 (Washington, DC: US Dept. of Justice, May 2006) (NCJ213133), p. 10.
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/pjim05.pdf
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(2005) Of the 253,300 state prison inmates serving time for drug offenses at yearend 2005, 113,500 (44.8%) were black, 51,100 (20.2%) were Hispanic, and 72,300 (28.5%) were white.
Source: Sabol, William J., PhD, and West, Heather C., Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2007 (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, December 2008), NCJ224280, p. 21, Appendix Table 10.http://www.ojp.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/p07.pdf
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“At the start of the 1990s, the U.S. had more Black men (between the ages of 20 and 29) under the control of the nation’s criminal justice system than the total number in college. This and other factors have led some scholars to conclude that, “crime control policies are a major contributor to the disruption of the family, the prevalence of single parent families, and children raised without a father in the ghetto, and the ‘inability of people to get the jobs still available.’”
Source: Craig Haney, Ph.D., and Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D., “The Past and Future of U.S. Prison Policy: Twenty-five Years After the Stanford Prison Experiment,” American Psychologist, Vol. 53, No. 7 (July 1998), p. 716.http://www.csdp.org/research/haney_apa.pdf
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“The racially disproportionate nature of the war on drugs is not just devastating to black Americans. It contradicts faith in the principles of justice and equal protection of the laws that should be the bedrock of any constitutional democracy; it exposes and deepens the racial fault lines that continue to weaken the country and belies its promise as a land of equal opportunity; and it undermines faith among all races in the fairness and efficacy of the criminal justice system. Urgent action is needed, at both the state and federal level, to address this crisis for the American nation.”
Source: Summary and Recommendations from “Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs” (Washington, DC: Human Rights Watch, June 2000)
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/drugs/war/key-reco.htm
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/2000/usa/Rcedrg00.htm#P103_18435
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“In 2001, the chances of going to prison were highest among black males (32.2%) and Hispanic males (17.2%) and lowest among white males (5.9%). The lifetime chances of going to prison among black females (5.6%) were nearly as high as for white males. Hispanic females (2.2%) and white females (0.9%) had much lower chances of going to prison.”
Source: Bonczar, Thomas P., US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Prevalence of Imprisonment in the US Population, 1974-2001,” NCJ197976 (Washington DC: US Department of Justice, August 2003), p. 8.
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“Due to harsh new sentencing guidelines, such as ‘three-strikes, you’re out,’ “a disproportionate number of young Black and Hispanic men are likely to be imprisoned for life under scenarios in which they are guilty of little more than a history of untreated addiction and several prior drug-related offenses… States will absorb the staggering cost of not only constructing additional prisons to accommodate increasing numbers of prisoners who will never be released but also warehousing them into old age.”
Source: Craig Haney, Ph.D., and Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D., “The Past and Future of U.S. Prison Policy: Twenty-five Years After the Stanford Prison Experiment,” American Psychologist, Vol. 53, No. 7 (July 1998), p. 718.
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