![]() The war on drugs has been waged primarily in communities of color where people of color are more likely to receive higher offenses. African American women are three times more likely than white women to be incarcerated, while Hispanic women are 69 percent more likely than white women to be incarcerated.ħ. While the number of women incarcerated is relatively low, the racial and ethnic disparities are startling. As the number of women incarcerated has increased by 800 percent over the last three decades, women of color have been disproportionately represented. According to the Sentencing Project, even though African American juvenile youth are about 16 percent of the youth population, 37 percent of their cases are moved to criminal court and 58 percent of African American youth are sent to adult prisons.Ħ. African American youth have higher rates of juvenile incarceration and are more likely to be sentenced to adult prison. Harsh school punishments, from suspensions to arrests, have led to high numbers of youth of color coming into contact with the juvenile-justice system and at an earlier age.ĥ. Of those students, black and Hispanic students made up more than 70 percent of arrested or referred students. The data showed that 96,000 students were arrested and 242,000 referred to law enforcement by schools during the 2009-10 school year. According to recent data by the Department of Education, African American students are arrested far more often than their white classmates. Currently, African Americans make up two-fifths and Hispanics one-fifth of confined youth today.Ĥ. ![]() Black and Hispanic students represent more than 70 percent of those involved in school-related arrests or referrals to law enforcement. Students of color face harsher punishments in school than their white peers, leading to a higher number of youth of color incarcerated. African Americans were twice as likely to be arrested and almost four times as likely to experience the use of force during encounters with the police.ģ. A report by the Department of Justice found that blacks and Hispanics were approximately three times more likely to be searched during a traffic stop than white motorists. Individuals of color have a disproportionate number of encounters with law enforcement, indicating that racial profiling continues to be a problem. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime. The incarceration rates disproportionately impact men of color: 1 in every 15 African American men and 1 in every 36 Hispanic men are incarcerated in comparison to 1 in every 106 white men.Ģ. The prison population grew by 700 percent from 1970 to 2005, a rate that is outpacing crime and population rates. While people of color make up about 30 percent of the United States’ population, they account for 60 percent of those imprisoned. In light of these disparities, it is imperative that criminal-justice reform evolves as the civil rights issue of the 21st century.īelow we outline the top 10 facts pertaining to the criminal-justice system’s impact on communities of color.ġ. ![]() Further, racial disparities in the criminal-justice system threaten communities of color-disenfranchising thousands by limiting voting rights and denying equal access to employment, housing, public benefits, and education to millions more. Today people of color continue to be disproportionately incarcerated, policed, and sentenced to death at significantly higher rates than their white counterparts. Yet decades later a broken criminal-justice system has proven that we still have a long way to go in achieving racial equality. ![]() This month the United States celebrates the Selma-to-Montgomery marches of 1965 to commemorate our shared history of the civil rights movement and our nation’s continued progress towards racial equality. For a more recent version of this information, see “ 8 Facts You Should Know About the Criminal Justice System and People of Color ” by Jamal Hagler. ![]()
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