Locking Them Up

The province of Florida likes to lock people up. In fact if you lot alive inwards Florida you lot accept over twice equally much run a jeopardy of beingness thrown inwards jail or prison theatre equally mortal who lives inwards North Dakota. You tin go double your chances 1 time again past times beingness black. Florida loves locking-up African Americans.

Vera's Incarceration Rates interactive map visualizes the jail together with prison theatre populations for every U.S. county. The map allows you lot to explore how local incarceration rates accept changed over fourth dimension past times providing information well-nigh jail together with prison theatre incarceration rates for every yr since 1970.

The map provides bivariate choropleth views of incarceration rates at both province together with county level. You tin go explore the prison theatre together with jail incarceration rates for private states together with counties inwards much to a greater extent than item past times selecting them on the map together with and together with hence clicking the 'full profile' option. After selecting a pose down or province you lot tin go stance the demographics of the prison theatre together with jail population over time. This allows you lot to explore inwards to a greater extent than item the racial together with sex mix of incarceration rates for the selected province or county together with how this has changed over fourth dimension since 1970.


You mightiness accept noticed inwards the Incarceration Rates map that the southern states accept really high rates of incarceration. We've already touched on the brain argue for that - they similar to lock-up African Americans. Last yr The Pudding explored the legacy of slavery on modern incarceration rates inwards the United States. The Pudding's The Shape of Slavery allows you lot to stance the 1860 distribution of slaves inwards the southern states amongst introduce solar daytime incarceration rates inwards each state.

The NAACP reports that 21% of the entire world's prison theatre population is living inwards American jails. This propensity to lock upward its citizens affects African Americans to a greater extent than than most other Americans. The NAACP says that African Americans are incarcerated at nearly 5 times the charge per unit of measurement of white Americans.

There is a geographical element at play inwards these incarceration rates. The Prison Policy Initiative states that "the South has consistently had a higher charge per unit of measurement of incarceration than the other regions of the United States". The Pudding decided to explore if at that spot was whatsoever connecter betwixt the high charge per unit of measurement of incarceration inwards southern states together with the legacy of slavery. By mapping 150 years of census together with incarceration information they wanted to meet if historic incarceration rates differ betwixt the sometime slave states together with the non-slave states of the north.

They do. The Pudding concludes that "we however meet the shadow of the undeniable, institutionalized, strategic racism of the 100 years afterwards the Civil War".