I posted and then deleted this article because after reading it more carefully I knew the numbers were not right. The original article reported the black people in England and Wales were imprisoned at rates higher than their black American counterparts. This is inaccurate. The article is now appended with the following correction:
According to a range of sources, including the US justice department, about 12% of the US population is black and about 40% to 45% of the US prison population is black. According to Roy Walmsley's World Prison Population List 2009, the US jails 756 of every 100,000 of its population. The corresponding figure for England and Wales is 153. Based on the figures above, America jails 3% of its black population, and England and Wales 1%. This means that a black person in the US is three times as likely to be imprisoned as in England and Wales.
Of course none of that diminishes the fact that blacks in England and Wales, like African Americans, face massive discrimination and are disproportionately incarcerated.
Read the original essay with appended correction in its entirety @ The Guardian
tags: prison industrial complex, crime, criminal justice
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