Claims that 40 percent of Iowa's incarcerated population is black.
The racial disparities in Iowa’s prisons are more extreme than almost anywhere else in the country, with Black Iowans imprisoned at a rate 11 times that of white Iowans. As part of our series of reports on systemic racism in Iowa, IPR examines how Iowa got here and the role that prosecutors play in these disparities. [...] Census numbers show just 4 percent of the state’s population is Black. But as of 2016, 25 percent of incarcerated Iowans were Black. [...] Effectively one in every five Black Iowans in prison was convicted in Black Hawk County alone.