Present day disparities show that the burden of the tough on crime and mass incarceration eras has not fallen equally on all Americans. Though these disparities have narrowed in recent years, there still remains a wide gulf between black and white incarceration rates. Black people are represented in the American criminal justice system in unwarranted numbers given their share of the population.
› Black men comprise about 13 percent of the U.S. male population, but nearly 35 percent of all men who are under state or federal jurisdiction with a sentence of more than one year.
› One in three black men born in 2001 can expect to be incarcerated in his lifetime, compared to one in six Latino men and one in 17 white men.
› Black people are incarcerated in state prisons at a rate 5.1 times greater than that of white people.
› One in 18 black women born in 2001 will be incarcerated sometime in her life, compared to one in 45 Latina women and one in 111 white women.
› Forty-four percent of incarcerated women are black, although black women make up about 13 percent of the female U.S. population.