From The Sentencing Project:
When former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin
killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck in 2020, the
world witnessed the most racist elements of the U.S.
criminal legal system on broad display. The uprisings
that followed Floyd’s death articulated a vision for
transforming public safety practices and investments.
Almost one year later, Chauvin was convicted for Floyd’s
death, a rare outcome among law enforcement officers
who kill unarmed citizens. The fight for racial justice
within the criminal legal system continues, however.
The data findings featured in this report epitomize the
enormity of the task.
This report details our observations of staggering
disparities among Black and Latinx people imprisoned
in the United States given their overall representation
in the general population. The latest available data
regarding people sentenced to state prison reveal that
Black Americans are imprisoned at a rate that is roughly
five times the rate of white Americans. During the
present era of criminal justice reform, not enough
emphasis has been focused on ending racial and ethnic
disparities systemwide.
Going to prison is a major life-altering event that creates
obstacles to building stable lives in the community,
such as gaining employment and finding stable and
safe housing after release. Imprisonment also reduces
lifetime earnings and negatively affects life outcomes
among children of incarcerated parents.1
These are individual-level consequences of imprisonment but
there are societal level consequences as well: high
levels of imprisonment in communities cause high crime
rates and neighborhood deterioration, thus fueling
greater disparities.2
This cycle both individually and societally is felt disproportionately by people who are Black. It is clear that the outcome of mass incarceration today has not occurred by happenstance but has been designed through policies created by a dominant white culture that insists on suppression of others.
Read the full report here.
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