An analysis of imprisoned demographics in the USA
Posted: Sun Mar 19, 2017 8:08 pm
So I was in a debate a few weeks ago on another forum, it was a thread about the various issues that are raging in US politics and one of the guys in the debate claimed that Hispanics and immigrants were given preferential treatment, so I looked into it - the results were surprising.
Regarding hispanic 'preferential treatment', I found this PDF: https://static.prisonpolicy.org/scans/sp/1051.pdf
Compare with : https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14_Summary.pdf
The first PDF is from 2002 and the second link gives us data from 2014. The first sources says Hispanics, who are ambigiously labelled as such, more on that later, account for 15% of inmate population, but in each prison, on average, 1 in 3 prisoners are 'Hispanic', which accounts for 32% of persons held in federal prisons.
The second source is from 2014 ~ and we can see a rise in 'Hispanics' 22% were in custody (compare to previous 15%). This is a rise of 7% in 13 years.
As of 2014, there are 55 million Hispanics in the US. Only 308,000 of them were in custody as of 2014. That's only 0.556% of their population.
Hispanic can refer to any person too, they may be of any race!
Whites make up 63.7% of the whole population and African Americans make up 12.2% of the whole population, whereas Hispanics make up around 16.3%.
Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762156.html
There is a fair amount of inconsistency in measuring Hispanic jail and prison populations, as
they are frequently counted in conflicting or contradictory methods; e.g. Hispanics measured racially as black or white and not as a distinct group. It is commonly suspected that the actual number of Hispanics incarcerated is higher than what is accounted for by reporting agencies.
There are 453,500 whites and 516,900 blacks in jail, but let's look at the proportion of the popualation.
0.23% of the white population is in custody as of 2014.
1.38% of the black population is in custody as of 2014.
So 'Hispanics' are in the middle, 0.556%.
Given the rate of population, the numbers seem to show up how they would be expected. The higher the population, the more people on average will be convicted of a crime.
Each of these demographics make up 1 in 3 people in custody, so no preference shows up there either.
Although 'Hispanics' are sort of inbetween, what is alarming is Hispanics are the fastest growing group being imprisoned, increasing from 10.9% of all State and Federal inmates in 1985 to 15.6% in 2001 (Source One) - but as we know from Source Two: They now make up 22%, this makes sense because the population in 2000 was 35,305,818, which was 55,000,000 by 2010.
As of 2001, 4% of Hispanic males in their twenties and early thirties were in prison or jail - as compared to 1.8% of white males.
I see no preference here either, white population decreased, although it is always the largest amount in population from 211,460,626 to 196,817,552 from 2000-2010 - that's a drop of 14,643,074, funny, because it's only 1 million or so off the rise in 'Hispanic' population, which increased by 15,171,776 over the same period! Joking aside though, if anything it's the whites who are getting preferential treatment, according to these stats.
A smaller percentage of whites were in state prison for violent offenses (48%) than blacks (57%) and Hispanics (59%).
Hispanics are mostly hit with drug dealing and immigration related convictions- Among Hispanics, 57% of federal inmates were convicted drug offenders, and 26% were sentenced for immigration offenses.
That means 175,959 of them were convicted for drugs and 80,262 were convicted for immigration reasons. That's only 0.32% of all Hispanics in the USA were convicted for drugs and a measely 0.15% were convicted for immigration reasons.
The number of white inmates (78,500 prisoners) serving time in state prison for rape or other sexual offenses was more than the combined total of blacks (39,700) and Hispanics (37,300).
As for the ladies, who make up 7% of the prison population:
Fifty percent of the female prison population was white and 21% was black. However, black females were between 1.6 and 4.1 times more likely to be imprisoned than white females across all age groups. Among females in state prisons, 24% were convicted drug offenders and 37% were serving sentences for violent crimes at year end 2013.
There is nothing significant about these numbers when it comes to 'Hispanic' people, they are imprisoned in numbers that would be expected considering the size of the population, which concurs with the rise in population of all demographics (with the exception of black males), but there is a greater rise of 'Hispanics' going to prison than any of the other demographics.
In my opinion, when we look at history, nationalism has always been used by capitalist elites to stir up patriotic feelings and resentment, politics in the Schmittean sense is always about 'friends and enemies', 'us and them' 'us and the other'. When we look away from media hype, which is just confirmation bias, we can see from these stats that are not far off other sources I briefly checked, the error margin was not significant, there is nothing truly significant in regards to preferenetial treatment. I'm not saying that this never happens, no doubt I will be given examples from selected areas where whites or blacks are imprisoned more than hispanics dispropotionately in particular areas, which is why I looked at the whole of the United States for context.
Poverty plays a major factor into this of course, so in my opinion, no one is getting preferential treatment, it's an economic problem.
I will check out the welfare spending claims later at some point.
Regarding hispanic 'preferential treatment', I found this PDF: https://static.prisonpolicy.org/scans/sp/1051.pdf
Compare with : https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p14_Summary.pdf
The first PDF is from 2002 and the second link gives us data from 2014. The first sources says Hispanics, who are ambigiously labelled as such, more on that later, account for 15% of inmate population, but in each prison, on average, 1 in 3 prisoners are 'Hispanic', which accounts for 32% of persons held in federal prisons.
The second source is from 2014 ~ and we can see a rise in 'Hispanics' 22% were in custody (compare to previous 15%). This is a rise of 7% in 13 years.
As of 2014, there are 55 million Hispanics in the US. Only 308,000 of them were in custody as of 2014. That's only 0.556% of their population.
Hispanic can refer to any person too, they may be of any race!
Whites make up 63.7% of the whole population and African Americans make up 12.2% of the whole population, whereas Hispanics make up around 16.3%.
Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762156.html
There is a fair amount of inconsistency in measuring Hispanic jail and prison populations, as
they are frequently counted in conflicting or contradictory methods; e.g. Hispanics measured racially as black or white and not as a distinct group. It is commonly suspected that the actual number of Hispanics incarcerated is higher than what is accounted for by reporting agencies.
There are 453,500 whites and 516,900 blacks in jail, but let's look at the proportion of the popualation.
0.23% of the white population is in custody as of 2014.
1.38% of the black population is in custody as of 2014.
So 'Hispanics' are in the middle, 0.556%.
Given the rate of population, the numbers seem to show up how they would be expected. The higher the population, the more people on average will be convicted of a crime.
Each of these demographics make up 1 in 3 people in custody, so no preference shows up there either.
Although 'Hispanics' are sort of inbetween, what is alarming is Hispanics are the fastest growing group being imprisoned, increasing from 10.9% of all State and Federal inmates in 1985 to 15.6% in 2001 (Source One) - but as we know from Source Two: They now make up 22%, this makes sense because the population in 2000 was 35,305,818, which was 55,000,000 by 2010.
As of 2001, 4% of Hispanic males in their twenties and early thirties were in prison or jail - as compared to 1.8% of white males.
I see no preference here either, white population decreased, although it is always the largest amount in population from 211,460,626 to 196,817,552 from 2000-2010 - that's a drop of 14,643,074, funny, because it's only 1 million or so off the rise in 'Hispanic' population, which increased by 15,171,776 over the same period! Joking aside though, if anything it's the whites who are getting preferential treatment, according to these stats.
A smaller percentage of whites were in state prison for violent offenses (48%) than blacks (57%) and Hispanics (59%).
Hispanics are mostly hit with drug dealing and immigration related convictions- Among Hispanics, 57% of federal inmates were convicted drug offenders, and 26% were sentenced for immigration offenses.
That means 175,959 of them were convicted for drugs and 80,262 were convicted for immigration reasons. That's only 0.32% of all Hispanics in the USA were convicted for drugs and a measely 0.15% were convicted for immigration reasons.
The number of white inmates (78,500 prisoners) serving time in state prison for rape or other sexual offenses was more than the combined total of blacks (39,700) and Hispanics (37,300).
As for the ladies, who make up 7% of the prison population:
Fifty percent of the female prison population was white and 21% was black. However, black females were between 1.6 and 4.1 times more likely to be imprisoned than white females across all age groups. Among females in state prisons, 24% were convicted drug offenders and 37% were serving sentences for violent crimes at year end 2013.
There is nothing significant about these numbers when it comes to 'Hispanic' people, they are imprisoned in numbers that would be expected considering the size of the population, which concurs with the rise in population of all demographics (with the exception of black males), but there is a greater rise of 'Hispanics' going to prison than any of the other demographics.
In my opinion, when we look at history, nationalism has always been used by capitalist elites to stir up patriotic feelings and resentment, politics in the Schmittean sense is always about 'friends and enemies', 'us and them' 'us and the other'. When we look away from media hype, which is just confirmation bias, we can see from these stats that are not far off other sources I briefly checked, the error margin was not significant, there is nothing truly significant in regards to preferenetial treatment. I'm not saying that this never happens, no doubt I will be given examples from selected areas where whites or blacks are imprisoned more than hispanics dispropotionately in particular areas, which is why I looked at the whole of the United States for context.
Poverty plays a major factor into this of course, so in my opinion, no one is getting preferential treatment, it's an economic problem.
I will check out the welfare spending claims later at some point.
