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A Racial Shift in Drug-Crime Prisoners Fewer Blacks and More Whites, Says Sentencing Project

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

A Racial Shift in Drug-Crime Prisoners Fewer Blacks and More Whites, Says Sentencing Project By Darryl Fears Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, April 15, 2009; Page A04 For the first time since crack cocaine sparked a war on drugs 20 years ago, the number of black Americans in state prisons for drug offenses has fallen sharply, while the number of white prisoners convicted for drug crimes has increased, according to a report released yesterday. The D.C.-based Sentencing Project reported that the number of black inmates in state prisons for drug offenses had fallen from 145,000 in 1999 to 113,500 in 2005, a 22 percent decline. In that period, the number of white drug offenders rose steadily, from about 50,000 to more than 72,000, a 43 percent increase...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on April 15, 2009 (boomark / email).