US incarceration rates in 2010

This bar chart explains US incarceration rates based on race and ethnicity from 2010. It shows that blacks are disproportionately imprisoned as compared to all other races. It shows that black individuals are over five times more likely to be incarceration than white individuals. It also shows that American Indian or Alaskan Native are the second most commonly incarcerated ethnicities which is somewhat surprising to me because I feel like this population is so commonly overlooked in research and most commonly put into an “other” category. Often statistics and research leaves them out and only chooses to include Latinx, Black, Asian, and White groups in their research so it is interesting to understand the racial profiling and potential targeting that leads to incarceration that American Indians and Alaskan Natives are subject to as well. This goes for Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders as well, coming in as the third most commonly incarcerated ethnicity in 2010. Higher incarceration rates of people of color is indicative of many social justice issues in the US. Such as being indicative of issues regarding over policing minority and lower income communities as well as issues of racial profiling. Racial profiling issues can be  connected back to the war on drugs period in American history in which minority populations and people of color were tied to drug scares and labeled as dangerous criminals. Unfortunately, the implications of this war on drugs still exists today and can be seen in greater incarceration rates of people of color in the US.

88 thoughts on “US incarceration rates in 2010

  1. You make a really interesting point about racial profiling and potential targeting. I was surprised to read that American Indian or Alaskan Natives were the second most commonly incarcerated ethnicities and that Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders were the third most commonly incarcerated. It’s important to identify these potentially targeted groups so we can better understand racism, xenophobia, and their consequences in our country and then make a plan to combat it.

  2. I love how you addressed this issue! Especially since this has been an ongoing issue. Racism in our country is not just shown throughout incarceration and crime rates, but also in police brutality. Even with the Black Lives Matter movement 2 years ago, there are still 100’s of black citizens being brutally murdered each year over small crimes if even that. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

  3. I also did my blog post on incarceration rates among youth of different races in the US, and the difference between POC youth and white youth that face incarceration and are arrested is staggering. Race should not be a factor within justice system, and everyone should be deemed innocent until proven guilty. Thank you for writing about this, and bringing it to attention.