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: Ten years earlier, there were 592,900 black and 499,800 white prisoners – a difference of 93,100. ( This analysis counts only inmates sentenced to more than a year.) The decline in the black-white gap between 2007 and 2017 was driven by a 20% decrease in the number of black inmates, which outpaced a 13% decrease in the number of white inmates. The gap between white and Hispanic imprisonment also narrowed between 2007 and 2017, but not because of a decrease in Hispanic prisoners. Instead, the number of white prisoners fell while the number of Hispanic inmates increased slightly. 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.