A new study from The Urban Institute details a disturbing trend in our American prison system: inmates are serving increasingly longer sentences. The study also found that Black men are serving most of these long sentences. Ryan King, a senior fellow at the non-profit and an author of the report, discussed the report’s findings with Newsweek:
“The key interesting finding—maybe not necessarily surprising to folks—is that time served and length of stay is growing and continues to grow, and importantly the people who are serving particularly long sentences, those prison terms are getting longer and longer.”
However, it appears that people of color—Black men, in particular—are overwhelmingly enduring the brunt of this trend.
What King was shocked to discover, though, was the intensity of racial disparities among people who had been serving the longest amount of time behind bars. In 35 of the 44 states included in the study, black men accounted for majority overall prison population in regards to longest time served. However, lack of race and ethnicity documented by state prisons made it difficult for researchers to determine the overall percentage of people serving the longest sentences based on race.
This is particularly sad when you notice stats about the people who are serving these long sentences. A big chunk of them—nearly 40 percent—have been incarcerated before the age of 25. This is particularly upsetting because these folks are not getting the type of second and third chances most young people should be afforded. The report notes:
Though youth ages 18 to 24 are considered adults in the eyes of the law, a growing body of scientific research suggests that a person’s brain is still developing well into his or her twenties. This means that 18- to 24-year-olds are particularly amenable to change and likely to age out of criminal behavior but do not receive the same protections as youth under 18.
These young people are still given extremely long sentences, including life without parole. And even those given a chance at parole are often blocked by parole boards that, decades later, continue to judge them solely by their original offense.
The Urban Institute also notes that there’s a need for better demographics recording in prisons. While doing research for the report, they found that some did not keep race and ethnicity info on file. Universal state-level tracking and oversight of inmate racial data would be a helpful step in creating an even more accurate picture of how race influences a defendant’s experience in the criminal system.