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RACE: Incarceration rates are significantly higher for African Americans and Latinos than for whites. In 2010, black men were incarcerated at a rate of 3,074 per 100,000 residents; Latinos were incarcerated at 1,258 per 100,000, and white men were incarcerated at 459 per 100,000. African American men are at least six times more likely to be incarcerated than white men. Black females had an imprisonment rate nearly three times that of white females[1] . GENDER: Men make up 90 percent of the prison and local jail population, and they have an imprisonment rate 14 times higher than the rate for women. However, the number of women behind bars is on the rise. There are now more than 200,000 women behind bars and more than one million on probation and parole[1] . 4|A SENTENCE APART | Discussion Guide | www.asentenceapart.com CREATING CONTEXT INCARCERATION RATES IN THE UNITED STATES DEMOGRAPHICS: WHO MAKES UP THE PRISON POPULATION? The United States incarcerates the highest percentage of its population compared to other countries and has had the highest incarceration rates in the world since 2002. According to the International Centre for Prison Studies, the United States tops every other nation in the world by incarcerating 716 per 100,000 people[1] . By this count if you include only the adult population, one out of every 100 Americans is behind bars. Although the prison population has declined for the third year in a row, the latest numbers from the Bureau of Justice Statistics put the prison population at 1,571,013 at the close of 2012 [2] . Coupled with local and city jail numbers, the United States has approximately two million people locked up, accounting for 25 percent of the entire world’s prison population[3] . REFERENCES 1. Tyjen Tsai, Paola Scommegna, U.S. Has World’s Highest Incarceration Rate, http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2012/us-incarceration.aspx WHITE BLACK LATINA WHITE BLACK LATINO 500 1k 1.5k 2k 2.5k 3k 3.5k 47 456 133 3,059 77 1,252 FEMALES MALES Rate of Incarceration Per 100k, by Gender & Race, 2010 Source: Guerino, P., P.M., & Sabol, W. (2011), Prisoners in 2010. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justic Statistics www.sentencingproject.org 20k 40k 60k 80k 100k 120k 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 112,797 107,518 93,234 68,468 43,845 23,099 18,258 Number of Women in Federal & State Prisons, 1980-2010 Source: P., Harrison, P.M., & Sabol, W. (2011). Prisoners in 2010. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics. www.sentencingproject.org MALES FEMALES

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