Wisconsin’s Incarceration Problem (Blogging Blue)

http://bloggingblue.com/2013/12/wisconsins-incarceration-problem/

President Obama pardoned 13 people last week and commuted the sentences of eight others. Each of these commuted sentences was related to violations concerning crack cocaine. President Obama was able to do so by invoking the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. Prior to the passage of the FSA, possession of crack cocaine held a far more stiff sentence than possession of powder cocaine. This was widely believed to be aimed at incarcerating African Americans because for those who use cocaine, blacks are more likely to be caught with crack whereas whites are generally caught with the powder form.

The US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, both per capita and in real numbers. Although we are only 5% of the world’s population, we possess 25% of the world’s prison population. Globally speaking, comparable countries incarcerate at a rate of 100 people per 100,000, but the US rate is 500 per 100,000. These rates are even more alarming when broken down by race:

Race Rate (Per 100,000)

Black 3,074

Latino 1,258

White 459

Wisconsin is no exception. Wisconsin ranks #1 in the country for our rate of incarcerating African Americans. The state’s incarceration rate is 12.8%, meaning that one in eight black men are currently in state prison. In Milwaukee, the numbers are even more stark. More than half of the black men in Milwaukee have been incarcerated at one point or another, leaving them virtually unemployable as more and more employers run routine background checks. 2/3s of them are in the cities 6 poorest zip codes.

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This is a disgrace!!!! Looking back on 2013 & further--this is a shame!!!