Wisconsin #1 in Black Incarceration; How Did We Get Here?
A new report from the UWM Employment and Training Institute shows that Wisconsin leads the nation in incarcerating black males. Based on data from the 2010 U.S. census, Wisconsin incarcerates about one in every eight of its black men between the ages of 18 and 64. This includes individuals held in state and local correctional facilities. The Badger State’s black incarceration rate is, in fact, about one-third higher than that of the second-place state, Oklahoma, and nearly double the national average.
Wisconsin also leads the nation in incarcerating Native-American males, but its white-male incarceration rate (one-tenth of the black rate) closely tracks the national average. Wisconsin’s Hispanic incarceration rate is actually below the national average.
The Milwaukee County data are particularly striking: more than half of the County’s black males between the ages of 30 and 44 have been or currently are housed in a state correctional institution.
Is this a recent phenomenon? I’ve taken a look at some historical data on racial disparities for my three-states research. The following graph indicates that Wisconsin has been above Indiana and Minnesota for some time in black imprisonment (that is, prisoners per 100,000 residents), but that the current wide gap did not really open up until after 1990: