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: At the end of 2017, there were 100,000 more white inmates than Hispanic inmates (436,500 vs. 336,500), down from an inmate difference of 169,400 in 2007 (499,800 white inmates vs. 330,400 Hispanic inmates). Overall, there were 1,439,808 sentenced prisoners in the U.S. at the end of 2017, or about 6% fewer than the 1,532,851 at the end of 2007. Apart from blacks, whites and Hispanics, these totals include inmates from other races and those from mixed racial and ethnic backgrounds. The figures only count people in federal and state correctional facilities, including those held in privately run prisons that contract with the government; they exclude most inmates held in locally run jails. 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.