As of 2022, Black people were more likely than those of other races to be imprisoned in the United States. In that year, the rate of imprisonment for Black men stood at 1,826 per 100,000 of the population. For Black women, this rate stood at 64 per 100,000 of the population.

In 2022, about 1,826 Black men per 100,000 residents were imprisoned in the United States. This rate was much lower for Black women, at 64 per 100,000 residents. The overall imprisonment rate in 2022 stood at 355 per 100,000 Americans.

As of February 2025, El Salvador had the highest prisoner rate worldwide, with over 1,600 prisoners per 100,000 of the national population. Cuba, Rwanda, Turkmenistan, and the United States, rounded out the top five countries with the highest rate of incarceration. Homicides in El Salvador Interestingly, El Salvador, which long had the highest global homicide rates, has dropped out of the top 20 after a high number of gang members have been incarcerated. A high number of the countries with the highest homicide rate are located in Latin America. Prisoners in the United StatesThe United States is home to the largest number of prisoners worldwide. More than 1.8 million people were incarcerated in the U.S. at the beginning of 2025. In China, the estimated prison population totaled 1.69 million people that year. Other nations had far fewer prisoners. The largest share of the U.S. prisoners in federal correctional facilities were of African-American origin. As of 2020, there were 345,500 black, non-Hispanic prisoners, compared to 327,300 white, non-Hispanic inmates. The U.S. states with the largest number of prisoners in 2022 were Texas, California, and Florida. Over 160,000 prisoners in state facilities were sentenced for rape or sexual assault, which was the most common cause of imprisonment. The second most common was murder, followed by aggravated or simple assault.

This statistic shows the share of the United States prison population that was Black in 2014, by state and the length of time inmates have served. In 2014, 58.7 percent of the prison population in Alabama was Black. For those inmates who had served 10 years or more, that figure rose to 67 percent.

Created for the 2023-2025 State of Black Los Angeles County (SBLA) interactive report. To learn more about this effort, please visit the report home page at https://ceo.lacounty.gov/ardi/sbla/. For more information about the purpose of this data, please contact CEO-ARDI. For more information about the configuration of this data, please contact ISD-Enterprise GIS. table name indicator name Universe source race notes timeframe source url

traffic_stops Traffic stops Traffic violation stops; ORI CA019xxxx (LA County Law Enforcement Agencies) CA DOJ Race is perceived by officer; any one race is alone or in combination with another race 2019 Annual Download from LAC Open Data

perceived_neighborhood_safe_2018 Perceived Their Neighborhood to Be Safe from Crime Estimate (%) Adults (Ages 18 Years and Older) LAC Health Survey

2018 https://www.publichealth.lacounty.gov/ha/LACHSDataTopics2018.htm

jail_pop_per100k_2016jail_pop_per100k_2019jail_pop_per100k_2021 Jail population rate per 100k population Average daily number of people held in jail in a given year; population denominator is ages 15 - 64 Vera Institute

2016 2019 2021 https://github.com/vera-institute/incarceration-trends/blob/master/README.mdhttps://trends.vera.org/state/CA/county/los_angeles_county

prison_pop_per100k_2016 Prison population rate per 100k population Point in time count of people in prison on December 31 of a given year; population denominator is ages 15 - 64 Vera Institute

2016 https://github.com/vera-institute/incarceration-trends/blob/master/README.md

arrests_adult_felony Total Felony Arrests - Adult Los Angeles County Arrests CA DOJ The subjectivity of the classification and labeling process must be considered in the analysis of race/ethnic group data. 2017-2021 https://openjustice.doj.ca.gov/data

arrests_adult_misdemeanor Total Misdemeanor Arrests - Adult Los Angeles County Arrests CA DOJ The subjectivity of the classification and labeling process must be considered in the analysis of race/ethnic group data. 2017-2021 https://openjustice.doj.ca.gov/data

domestic_violencedv_maledv_female Percent of Adults (Ages 18 Years and Older) Who Reported Ever Experiencing Physical and/or Sexual Violence by an Intimate Partner.
Adults/td> Los Angeles County Health Survey Overall and broken down by gender 2018 https://www.publichealth.lacounty.gov/ha/HA_DATA_TRENDS.htm

Data was collected for each of the 50 states from the year 2019. For each state, the following information is given: total population, total White population, total Black population, total Hispanic population, median household income, total prison population, total parole population, total amount of law enforcement employees, the violent crime rate, and the GDP.

The December 2021 Mandate Letter tasked the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada with the development of Canada’s Black Justice Strategy (the Strategy) to address the overrepresentation of Black people in the criminal justice system, including as victims of crime. An external Steering Group composed of nine experts and leaders from Black communities across Canada was established in February 2023 to provide advice to the Minister of Justice on the development of the Strategy. From March 2023 to February 2024, Steering Group discussions centered around five key issues, or pillars, that inform Black people’s experiences with the criminal justice system: Pillar 1 - Social Determinants of Justice (Employment and Income; Housing; Education; Health and Mental Health; Child Welfare; and Immigration and Settlement); Pillar 2 - Policing; Pillar 3 - Courts and Legislation ; Pillar 4 - Corrections; and Pillar 5 - Parole, Re-entry and Reintegration. In Fall 2023, 12 Black-led community-based organizations (CBOs) used the Framework developed by the Steering Group to guide community consultations, to lead engagements and consultations with Black communities in nine provinces and territories. The CBOs provided reports to the Steering Group detailing the outcomes of the consultations and engagement. Justice Canada also provided the Steering Group with the outcome of the online survey, which was developed to gather insight from community members who were unable to participate in CBO-led consultations and engagement. The report of the external Steering Group (the Report) builds on the Framework and is informed by the Steering Group discussions as well as the outcomes of community engagements and consultations. The Report identifies five principles to guide practical actions and policies in achieving justice for Black communities in Canada: Sankofa, Africentrism, the Principle of Restraint, Evidence-based Decision Making, and Reparative Justice. Five priority areas that inform the recommendations are as follows: Decarceration, Legislative Change, Targeted Resourcing, Structural Change, and Collaboration with Provinces, Territories and Municipalities. In relation to decarceration, the Report recommends reducing the incarceration rate of Black and Indigenous people by 50% of the current rate by 2034. The Report identifies eight overarching structural and accountability recommendations, described as actions that do not fit within only one specific pillar but that are intended to drive systemic change. In addition to the overarching recommendations, there are 106 recommendations under the five pillars, organized as short, medium, or long-term.

This dataset tracks annual black student percentage from 2009 to 2021 for Northern State Prison vs. New Jersey and Office Of Educational Services Department Of Corrections School District

Association between examined potential predictors and incarceration among Black/ African American and Hispanic/Latino mSTUDY participants.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, local jail incarceration rates fell across the board in the United States. In June 2019, the local jail incarceration rate for Black inmates was *** per 100,000 residents. This decreased the following year, where the jail incarceration rate was at *** per 100,000 residents.

This dataset tracks annual black student percentage from 2019 to 2023 for Marquette Branch Prison vs. Michigan and Michigan Department Of Corrections School District

This dataset tracks annual black student percentage from 2008 to 2013 for East Jersey State Prison High School vs. New Jersey and Office Of Educational Services Department Of Corrections School District

Despite making up approximately 10-12 pecent of the total population of the United States in the period between 1933 and 1970, Black people comprised roughly 20-30 percent of arrests made in these years. Today, Black people still have the highest incarceration rates relative to their population, however these rates have been declining in the past two decades.

In 1980, the National Institute of Justice awarded a grant to the Cornell University College of Human Ecology for the establishment of the Center for the Study of Race, Crime, and Social Policy in Oakland, California. This center mounted a long-term research project that sought to explain the wide variation in crime statistics by race and ethnicity. Using information from eight ethnic communities in Oakland, California, representing working- and middle-class Black, White, Chinese, and Hispanic groups, as well as additional data from Oakland's justice systems and local organizations, the center conducted empirical research to describe the criminalization process and to explore the relationship between race and crime. The differences in observed patterns and levels of crime were analyzed in terms of: (1) the abilities of local ethnic communities to contribute to, resist, neutralize, or otherwise affect the criminalization of its members, (2) the impacts of criminal justice policies on ethnic communities and their members, and (3) the cumulative impacts of criminal justice agency decisions on the processing of individuals in the system. Administrative records data were gathered from two sources, the Alameda County Criminal Oriented Records Production System (CORPUS) (Part 1) and the Oakland District Attorney Legal Information System (DALITE) (Part 2). In addition to collecting administrative data, the researchers also surveyed residents (Part 3), police officers (Part 4), and public defenders and district attorneys (Part 5). The eight study areas included a middle- and low-income pair of census tracts for each of the four racial/ethnic groups: white, Black, Hispanic, and Asian. Part 1, Criminal Oriented Records Production System (CORPUS) Data, contains information on offenders' most serious felony and misdemeanor arrests, dispositions, offense codes, bail arrangements, fines, jail terms, and pleas for both current and prior arrests in Alameda County. Demographic variables include age, sex, race, and marital status. Variables in Part 2, District Attorney Legal Information System (DALITE) Data, include current and prior charges, days from offense to charge, disposition, and arrest, plea agreement conditions, final results from both municipal court and superior court, sentence outcomes, date and outcome of arraignment, disposition, and sentence, number and type of enhancements, numbers of convictions, mistrials, acquittals, insanity pleas, and dismissals, and factors that determined the prison term. For Part 3, Oakland Community Crime Survey Data, researchers interviewed 1,930 Oakland residents from eight communities. Information was gathered from community residents on the quality of schools, shopping, and transportation in their neighborhoods, the neighborhood's racial composition, neighborhood problems, such as noise, abandoned buildings, and drugs, level of crime in the neighborhood, chances of being victimized, how respondents would describe certain types of criminals in terms of age, race, education, and work history, community involvement, crime prevention measures, the performance of the police, judges, and attorneys, victimization experiences, and fear of certain types of crimes. Demographic variables include age, sex, race, and family status. For Part 4, Oakland Police Department Survey Data, Oakland County police officers were asked about why they joined the police force, how they perceived their role, aspects of a good and a bad police officer, why they believed crime was down, and how they would describe certain beats in terms of drug availability, crime rates, socioeconomic status, number of juveniles, potential for violence, residential versus commercial, and degree of danger. Officers were also asked about problems particular neighborhoods were experiencing, strategies for reducing crime, difficulties in doing police work well, and work conditions. Demographic variables include age, sex, race, marital status, level of education, and years on the force. In Part 5, Public Defender/District Attorney Survey Data, public defenders and district attorneys were queried regarding which offenses were increasing most rapidly in Oakland, and they were asked to rank certain offenses in terms of seriousness. Respondents were also asked about the public's influence on criminal justice agencies and on the performance of certain criminal justice agencies. Respondents were presented with a list of crimes and asked how typical these offenses were and what factors influenced their decisions about such cases (e.g., intent, motive, evidence, behavior, prior history, injury or loss, substance abuse, emotional trauma). Other variables measured how often and under what circumstances the public defender and client and the public defender and the district attorney agreed on the case, defendant characteristics in terms of who should not be put on the stand, the effects of Proposition 8, public defender and district attorney plea guidelines, attorney discretion, and advantageous and disadvantageous characteristics of a defendant. Demographic variables include age, sex, race, marital status, religion, years of experience, and area of responsibility.

This dataset tracks annual black student percentage from 2011 to 2022 for Walton County Jail Program vs. Florida and Walton School District

How does a criminal record shape interactions with the State and society? We present evidence from a nationwide field experiment in the United States, showing that prospective applicants with criminal records are about five percentage points less likely to receive information from college admission offices. However, we demonstrate that bias does not extend to race. There is no difference in response rates to Black and White applicants. We further show that bias is all but absent in public bureaucracies, as discrimination against formerly incarcerated applicants is driven by private schools. Examining why bias is stronger for private colleges, we demonstrate that the private-public difference persists even after accounting for college selectivity, socio-economic composition and school finances. Moving beyond the measurement of bias, we evaluate an intervention aimed at reducing discrimination: whether an email from an advocate mitigates bias associated with a criminal record. However, we find no evidence that advocate endorsements decrease bureaucratic bias.

According to a survey conducted in 2023, 53 percent of Black adults agreed that the prison system needs to be completely rebuilt to ensure equality for all people, regardless of race or ethnicity, in the United States. In comparison, 35 percent of Black adults said that the prison system requires major changes to ensure equality, while eight percent said that only minor changes are required. Only three percent of Black adults were found to believe that the prison system requires no changes at all.

This dataset tracks annual black student percentage from 1997 to 2023 for Brevard County Jail Complex vs. Florida and Brevard School District