Analyzing Incarceration

This afternoon, I spent time studying 20+ years of arrest and incarceration data for the State of Florida. Because, you know, I like to have fun on Saturdays. Feel free to share the graphic I created below, as it warrants an honest and broader discussion.

What initially caught me off guard were the arrest patterns that seemingly discredit a certain level of racial bias. This isn’t to suggest there aren’t other factors, like aggressive, unwarranted, and racially motivated stops. There most certainly are. But what I often hear among members of the white community is that crime is more prevalent in the black community, as if this were a given, as if it were a matter of fact, which it most certainly is not, as you can see below. What the data DOES show is that we have a more systemic problem in the matter of conviction and sentencing patterns, something many Americans refer to as the tragic Pipeline to Prison.

Consider that when roughly 65% of so-called crimes are committed by white Floridians, consistently over multiple decades, the prison population still has 7% more black residents. I’d say that’s a problem. And this is just the data for my state. How about the other 49?