Racial Disproportion in Us Prisons

Outside the United States, probably the best known characteristics of America's correctional system are that capital punishment continues in use and that American incarceration rates are four to 15 times higher than those in other developed countries. Within the United States, the most notable characteristics are the absolute numbers in confinement and that they are disproportionately black. Blacks in 1991 made up 12 per cent ofAmerica's population but 48 per cent of both prison and jail inmates. l Forty per cent of the occupants of 'death row' on 31 December 1991 were black. In public juvenile facilities in 1989, 48 per cent were black. Americans of Hispanic origin, by contrast, America's second largest minority group, in 1991 constituted 9 per cent of the general population, 13 per cent of the prison population, 14 per cent of the jail population, and 8 per cent of the death row population.