The attached article is a report by the Sentencing Project. Among the information presented are data on racial disparities within the corrections system. After you read the report, please answer the following:

1. What information do you find troubling, and why?

2. What can be done to reduce racial disparities in corrections, and in the justice system overall?

Sentencing policies of the War on Drugs era resulted in dramatic growth in incarceration for drug offenses. Since its official beginning in the 1980s, the number of Americans incarcerated for drug offenses has skyrocketed from 41,000 in 1980 to nearly a half million in 2014. Furthermore, harsh sentencing laws such as mandatory minimums keep many people convicted of drug offenses in prison for longer periods of time: in 1986, people released after serving time for a federal drug offense had spent an average of 22 months in prison. By 2004, people convicted on federal drug offenses were expected to serve almost three times that length: 62 months in prison. At the federal level, people incarcerated on a drug conviction make up half the prison population. At the state level, the number of people in prison for drug offenses has increased ten-fold since 1980. Most of these people are not high-level actors in the drug trade, and most have no prior criminal record for a violent offense. 

Attachments:

• 1523031764-Trends-in-US-Corrections.pdf