Title: Mass incarceration in America, explained in 22 maps and charts - Vox
Headings: Mass incarceration in America, explained in 22 maps and charts
Mass incarceration in America, explained in 22 maps and charts
I. America is now the world's leader in incarceration
The number of US prisoners exploded after the 1970s
The US leads the world in incarceration
Global incarceration rates, per 100,000 people
II. The racism of America's criminal justice system
Black Americans are much more likely to be incarcerated
Incarceration rates per 100,000 US residents, by race and ethnicity
Black Americans are disproportionately arrested for drugs
Black defendants get longer sentences for the same crimes
Black Americans receive longer sentences than white Americans for the same crime
In three states, more than one-fifth of the black electorate will be disenfranchised in 2016
Felon disenfranchisement of the black electorate in 2016
III. Mass incarceration is mostly a state and violent crime problem
States, not the federal government, hold most prisoners — and usually for violent offenses
State and federal prisoners in 2013, by type of offense
About half of federal prisoners are drug offenders
To really end mass incarceration, the US will need to cut back on some violent prisoners
IV. High crime and drug use led to "tough on crime" policies
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Crime was very high in the 1970s through early 1990s, leading to an overreaction from policymakers
US murder rates per 100,000 people
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The South led the way in mass incarceration
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Americans don't know crime has plummeted
V. The policies behind mass incarceration
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Prisoners serve much more time for the same crimes
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Life sentences have been on the rise
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Prosecutors put more people in prison
Prosecutors are driving mass incarceration
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Mandatory minimum sentences elevated the punishment for drugs
VI. Mass incarceration isn't effective
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Incarceration long ago reached the point of diminishing returns
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The prison population is getting older
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States that cut incarceration don't have more crime
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Mass incarceration has consumed state budgets
Average annual cost per prison inmate, by state
VIII. Federal and state lawmakers are moving to reform
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States embraced reforms after the Great Recession
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The juvenile justice system has shrunk by roughly half

Content: And unlike regimes like China, it makes less use of punitive punishments like the death sentence and forced evictions . But that doesn't explain the whole difference; studies have shown that US prison sentences are simply much longer than other nations'. Map credit: German Lopez/Vox
II. The racism of America's criminal justice system
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Black Americans are much more likely to be incarcerated
Incarceration rates per 100,000 US residents, by race and ethnicity
Incarceration rates per 100,000 US residents, by race and ethnicity
Mass incarceration is, predominantly, black incarceration. Black people are nearly six times as likely to be incarcerated as white people, and nearly three times as likely to be incarcerated as their Latino counterparts. Why? A review of the research by the Sentencing Project concluded that higher crime rates in black communities explained about 61 to 80 percent of black overrepresentation in prisons. This means that other factors, such as racial bias or past criminal records influencing prison sentences, were behind as much as 39 percent of the disparate rates of imprisonment for black people.