Council on Criminal Justice releases “Justice System Disparities: Black-White National Imprisonment Trends, 2000 – 2020”

Three years ago, as flagged in this post, the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) released a notable report detailing notable modern changes in the modern demographics of prison, jail, probation, and parole populations titled “Trends in Correctional Control by Race and Sex.”  Today, CCJ has released another important data report looking a racial disparity data under the title “Justice System Disparities: Black-White National Imprisonment Trends, 2000 – 2020.”  The full report is available at this link, and here is what’s listed as “key findings” in the first few pages of the full report:

• Over the first two decades of the 21st century, the disparity in Black and White state imprisonment rates (the ratio of Black-to-White rates) fell 40%; in 2020, Black adults were imprisoned at 4.9 times the rate of White adults, down from 8.2 times in 2000.
  o The Black imprisonment rate fell faster than the White imprisonment rate (47% vs. 11%).
  o The number of Black people in prison decreased by 27%, while the number of White people in prison increased by 4%.

• Half of the disparity reduction occurred in the first five years of the 20-year period, as the rate of narrowing slowed in more recent years. In 2020, responses to the COVID19 pandemic led to an unprecedented 15% drop in state prison populations, but that historic decline did not result in a change in Black-White imprisonment disparities.

• Black-White disparities in state imprisonment rates fell across all four offense categories—violent, property, drug, and public order—with the largest decrease occurring for drug crimes. Disparity in drug imprisonment rates fell by 75%; that drop accounted for about half of the overall decrease in the Black-White imprisonment rate disparity.

• Black-White disparity in new court commitments to prison per arrest fell to near parity for property and drug crimes in 2019. Disparities in arrest rates per resident for these offense categories fell to about 2-to-1. Disparity in prison admission for
  technical violations per person on parole also fell. In combination, these results suggest that Black adults are overrepresented in prison admissions relative to White adults because they are arrested at higher population-based rates, not because their arrests are more likely to result in imprisonment.

• Racial disparity in violent crime imprisonment rates arose from racial differences in offending rates (as indicated by accounts of victims of violent crimes, most of which are intra-racial); admissions per arrest; and length of stay.

• The Black-White disparity in prison admission rates declined, while disparity in length of stay in prison increased. Disparity in admissions rates fell from 7.2 in 2000 to 3.2 in 2020. Expected length of stay in prison for Black adults increased from 2.2 years to 2.5 years, while for White adults it fell from 2 to 1.8 years. Despite these changes, racial differences in prison admissions rates accounted for nearly three quarters of the Black-White imprisonment rate disparity in 2020.

• In 2000, Black people on parole were more likely to be returned to prison for breaking the rules of their supervision (“technical violations”) than White people; by 2020 White people were more likely to be returned to prison for this reason. The changes in technical violation rates contributed to decreasing the disparity in total admissions.

• Racial disparities in imprisonment will persist without significant reductions in:
  o The disparity in rates of violent offending;
  o The disparity in prison time served; and/or,
  o The role of criminal history in sentencing and release decisions