Color as a Crime: Prison Racism in the United States

Published at: 16/05/2025 10:19 PM

In the United States, black people are more likely to be incarcerated than white people. In that country, the racial composition of the prison population does not match that of the general population, since according to the United States Census Bureau, approximately 12% of the population of the North American nation is black and they represent 40% of that country's prisoners. This number includes Hispanics and Native Americans and Alaska Natives, who also represent a larger proportion of the prison population compared to their percentage of the general population.

According to a report by the Criminal Justice Council and published in 2022, it was detailed that “the proportion of black Americans recently sentenced to prison for more than 10 years increased from approximately 13% in 2005, to 25% in 2021 and during that same period, white Americans taken to prison for long sentences increased from approximately 12% to 15%.”

In addition, in that report, they explained that according to the type of crime, “black people were more likely than white people to receive long prison sentences for violent crimes such as murder, rape and sexual assault, as well as robbery and burglary. Regarding drug convictions, there was a change between 2005 and 2019: in 2005, white people were more likely to receive long prison sentences, but by 2019, black people represented the largest proportion.”

In the same vein, political analyst Nina Mast, representative of the Economy Police Institute, published a study in 2024, which reflected distortions in the amount of incarceration and in which she stated that “the United States is known for its exorbitant incarceration rates and these distortions in the southern states are particularly extreme: 13 of The 16 southern states and Washington have incarceration rates much higher than the country's average, so we have Louisiana and Mississippi at the top of the list with rates that exceed 1000 people incarcerated per 100,000 inhabitants, followed by Arkansas and Oklahoma. It's no accident that these states are home to the majority of the black American population and have the highest incarceration rate in the world.”

Reinforcing Mast 's thesis , North American social researchers Crittenden, Koons-Witt and Kaminski concluded in a study that “the white population is underrepresented in prisons in all southern states and in Washington. In state and federal prisons, black men are more likely to be assigned to low-wage or unpaid agricultural and prison maintenance jobs, while white men receive higher-paying and in-demand jobs.”

These researchers referred to data on women's prison work at the state level and explained that “incarcerated women report similar dynamics with respect to race: white women are assigned more attractive jobs, in addition to suffering gender discrimination in vocational training opportunities and sexual abuse by prison officials who control their work assignments.”

With regard to long prison sentences, racial inequality continues to increase in the United States, according to a report by the Working Group on Long Sentences, chaired by former Attorney General Sally Yates and former Republican congressman Trey Gowdy, evidence that black Americans are increasingly likely to receive long sentences You condemn white people.

In the same way, Amy Fettig, member of the working group and executive director of the Sentencing Project, a non-profit organization that advocates for the reduction of prejudice in the criminal justice system, explained that “people of color are receiving harsher sentences for the same crime, not only within the state prison system but also in the system of juvenile justice”.

Fettig added that “although crime decreased, extreme convictions increased, the severity of our convictions is not related to public safety, it's politics in the United States and it's racism, from any point of view, if you don't take racism into account, you couldn't explain this event.”

It is regrettable and shameful that in these times, the racial divide in the North American empire has deepened, reducing the value of human beings according to their race; it seems that they are still stuck in times of slavery.

AMELYREN BASABE/Mazo News Team