Title: Gap between number of blacks, whites in prison narrows | Pew Research Center
Headings: The gap between the number of blacks and whites in prison is shrinking
The gap between the number of blacks and whites in prison is shrinking
Content: The racial and ethnic makeup of U.S. prisons continues to look substantially different from the demographics of the country as a whole. In 2017, blacks represented 12% of the U.S. adult population but 33% of the sentenced prison population. Whites accounted for 64% of adults but 30% of prisoners. And while Hispanics represented 16% of the adult population, they accounted for 23% of inmates. Another way of considering racial and ethnic differences in the nation’s prison population is by looking at the imprisonment rate, which tallies the number of prisoners per 100,000 people. In 2017, there were 1,549 black prisoners for every 100,000 black adults – nearly six times the imprisonment rate for whites (272 per 100,000) and nearly double the rate for Hispanics (823 per 100,000). For all three of these groups, imprisonment rates have declined substantially since 2007. The rate has declined 31% among blacks, 14% among whites and 25% among Hispanics. Experts have offered a range of explanations for the pronounced drop in the black imprisonment rate. Note: