Prison, Drug Crimes and Racial Disparities

Here are some facts posted recently by Protestants for the Common Good.

• The United States leads the world in the number - 2.3 million - and percentage of residents it holds in prison. One in every 38 individuals is involved with the criminal justice system through probation, parole, prison or jail.
  
• About 78 percent of Illinois drug offenders are African-American, vastly higher than their 15 percent share of the overall population.
  
• A Human Rights Watch study from 2000 found that Illinois ranked first in the country with respect to racial disparities in prison sentences for drug crimes.
  
• The number of African-Americans admitted to prison in Illinois for drug offenses grew from 1,421 in 1990 to 9,088 in 2000 - a six-fold increase. During this same period, there was virtually no change in the number of whites admitted to prison.
  
• This difference exists despite the fact that rates of illicit drug use vary little by ethnicity.

Is incarceration the new slavery?