NJ Leads The Country In Racial Disparity In Incarceration Rates

NEW JERSEY — New Jersey leads the country with the largest racial disparity in its incarceration rates, according to a report released this month from the research and advocacy group, the Sentencing Project.

New Jersey incarcerates Black people 12.5 times more than white people, making it the largest disparity in the country. The report attests some of the large disparity not only to New Jersey's high rate of incarceration of Black people, but also to the low rate of incarceration of white people.

The report reads in part:

"In New Jersey, for example, Blacks are incarcerated at a rate over twelve times that of whites even though the Black incarceration rate is 19% below the national average. The high rate of Black/white racial disparity in New Jersey reflects a particularly low incarceration of whites: 81 per 100,000, or nearly one-third the national average."

The recent report shows little to no change from a similar 2016 report that, again, found New Jersey had the highest racial disparity in incarceration rates. This year's report notes that in response to the 2016 report, the New Jersey state legislature quickly adopted “racial impact” legislation to mitigate the identified disparate impact of proposed crime legislation on Black and Latinx individuals going forward. Since the bill’s passage two years ago, however, only one racial impact statement has ever accompanied a bill, according to media reports.

The report gave room to highlight some of the state's actions to counter the disparity and push criminal reform.

The report reads in part:

"Like most states, New Jersey experienced a steady rise in incarceration from the 1970s through the 1990s. Between 2000 and 2019, however, the state has reduced its prison population by 38%. Table 4 shows that the state’s decarceration so far appears to have had the greatest benefit to Black and Latinx individuals. The overall depopulation of New Jersey prisons has includes a 39% reduction in African American prisoners, a 45% reduction in Latinx prisoners, and a 30% reduction in white prisoners."

Under recommendations for states across the country, the report suggests mitigating the racial injustice of the war on drugs, enacting proportional sentencing and measuring the impact of crime policies on demographic groups.

Read the full report, recommendations and methodology.