Race and Corrections

Prisons in most countries incarcerate disproportionate numbers of minorities. In few places are the problems of race and corrections more apparent than in the United States, where some current forecasts suggest that by 2020 almost two out of three African men and one out of four Hispanic men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four will be in prison (Donziger 1996: 106). In 2000, the U.S. penal population moved beyond 2 million for the first time. Since 1989, the number of black prisoners has surpassed that of white prisoners (Wacquant 1999: 63). According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (2001), “At yearend 2000, there were 3,457 sentenced black male inmates per 100,000 black males in the United States, compared to 1,220 sentenced Hispanic male inmates per 100,000 Hispanic males and 449 white male inmates per 100,000 white males.” In addition, minority women of all racial and ethnic groups are filling the U.S. prisons most rapidly of all (U.S. Department of Justice 1999: 7–10). Despite these figures, there is little consensus among criminologists about why minorities are disproportionately likely to be incarcerated.