Race and Incarceration: Understanding the Connections
by Cynthia Holder Rich

There is racial disparity in the criminal justice system in the United States. A substantial body of research shows that a disproportionate number of racial ethnic minorities are incarcerated. How and why this disparity exists is less well known. Legislative policies and/or decision making, racial bias by individuals in law enforcement or court systems, and systemic racism are just a few of the possible reasons for the disproportion.

Whatever the causes, our faith calls us to explore this justice issue and advocate for reforms that will provide for the equal treatment of all of God’s children.

Race to Imprisonment
First, let’s define the scope of our subject—the illegitimate racial disparity in the criminal justice system. Why do people of differing racial backgrounds, but otherwise comparable life situations, find themselves with dissimilar—and thus, for some, unjust—outcomes in their interfaces with law enforcement and the courts in the U.S.?

As Janet Wolf explored (pp. 6–8), greater numbers of Americans are being imprisoned than ever before. There are a number of reasons that have been identified for this huge increase:

• efforts to declare “war on crime”;
• mandatory sentencing laws, including “three-strikes laws”—state laws (in place in 24 states) that require longer incarceration sentences to people convicted for the third time;
• the “war on drugs” (which has increased incarceration on drug offenses while actual drug use has decreased);
• changes in the way we understand the purpose of criminal justice, from a focus on rehabilitation to one of risk management;
• the rise of prisons as a growth industry (and significant employment source in many communities) in the U.S. economy;
• and even the U.S. practice of electing judges, which brings political pressure to bear on candidates to be tough on crime.

The trend is one that impacts all communities. Here, we’ll look at how the increase falls harder on some groups than others.

Proportionally, the number of African Americans and Hispanic/Latino persons in prison in the U.S. is much greater than numbers within the general population would predict. The Sentencing Project pairs statistics of the Census Bureau with those from the Bureau of Justice to report that while African Americans make up 13 percent of the overall population, they account for 38 percent of prison and jail populations. Similarly, Latinos are 15 percent of the overall population, and 19 percent of the prison and jail population.

Reasons for this are deep and complex, and stem from the relationships people of different racial and cultural backgrounds have built for centuries—with bricks both painful and positive—in North America. While time and space do not permit a thorough review of this issue, a few key issues are presented here for reflection and discussion.

Is incarceration concentrated in specific neighborhoods? To find out, read the full text of this article in the May/June 2010 issue of Horizons.

Call 866/802-3635 or subscribe to Horizons or order the May/June 2010 issue (HZN-10-220; $4 plus shipping).

Cynthia Holder-Rich is Lilly Research Fellow at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. She is a member of the PC(USA) Advocacy Committee for Racial Ethnic Concerns, and presents and publishes on issues of race and culture in the Christian community.

Photo by Erika Kyte /Getty Images.

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