Report shows racial disparity narrowing in U.S. prison system

Racial disparities have narrowed across the U.S. criminal justice system over 16 years, though black people are still significantly more likely to be behind bars than white people, new federal figures show.

Racial gaps broadly declined in local jails, state prisons, and among people on probation and parole, according to the study released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Council on Criminal Justice. The divide in state imprisonment rates dropped for all major crimes but was most pronounced for drug offenses, a key factor for the racial shift. Black people were 15 times more likely than white people to be in state prisons for drug crimes in 2000, but that dropped to five times as likely by 2016, the most recent year available.

Many don’t realize how much the racial gap has narrowed, not only in incarceration but in parole and probation, said Adam Gelb, president and chief executive of the politically diverse council that launched in July to seek solutions to criminal justice issues. “Most people think this is a bad problem that’s getting worse,” said Gelb, whose group brought together governors of both parties, police and Black Lives Matter organizers. “It turns out it’s a bad problem that’s getting a little better, and for very complex reasons that we need to understand at a much deeper level.”

Critics contend minorities’ disproportionate involvement in the criminal justice system reflects systemic racial bias. Researchers have blamed prejudice by police, prosecutors, judges and juries; racial differences in crimes; and get-tough sentencing laws during the 1980s and ’90s. While racial inequity in arrests and incarcerations narrowed, the length of prison sentences increased across all crime types for black people and partially offset benefits, according to the report co-authored by Georgia State professor William Sabol, former director of the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. Among the report’s other findings, based on numbers from the bureau, the FBI and other national statistics:

■ African American men were in state prisons at nine times the rate of white inmates in 2000, dropping to six to one by 2016.

■ Black women were imprisoned at a rate of six for every white inmate in 2000, which fell to twoto-one by 2016.

■ Disparities between Hispanics and white people also shrank across all categories since 2000.

AP FILE Inmates walk through the yard at a prison. Racial disparities have narrowed across the U.S. criminal justice system since 2000, a new study shows.