Are efforts to reduce incarceration increasing racial disparities in America?

In partnership with the Department of Justice and the Vera Institute of Justice, the Possibility Lab examined whether and how reform efforts aimed at reversing mass incarceration have affected the racial composition of people in America’s prisons and jails. In detailed national data, we find substantial variation in state prison population changes from 2005-2018, with increases in some states and declines in others. Although declines in the overall state prison population were associated with declines for all groups, states with rising prison populations experienced slight upticks in prison rates among the white population, while rates among Black and Latinx populations declined. As a result, greater progress in overall decarceration did not translate to larger reductions in racial disparities. 

Black Americans make up about a third of the U.S. prisoner population, and are incarcerated at more than 5 times the rate of whites.

Our results make clear that while efforts to reverse mass incarceration have reduced the size of prison populations in some states, they have not yet made substantial progress in resolving the crisis of race in American criminal justice. 

Recent decarceration efforts provide critical opportunities to successfully divert people from the prison system and decrease the amount of time that incarcerated individuals will serve. However, efforts that successfully accomplish these goals might not automatically yield changes in the racial composition of prisoners. Indeed, some types of reform might plausibly result in overall reductions of the prison population, while at the same time actually increasing racial disproportionality. Understanding the racial effects of downsizing is therefore critical, with implications for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers alike.

This project was made possible with funding from the National Institute of Justice.