I like to keep track of incarceration rates, and the data for 2017 is now available. The good news is that the black imprisonment rate has dropped 40 percent from its peak in 2001:
The rate of black incarceration is still 4.7x the rate of white incarceration, but that’s down from 7.1x in 2001. Progress on this front is slow, but at least it’s going in the right direction.
The full 2017 report is here. Keith Humphreys has more to say about it here.
