This morning I bemoaned America’s use of the criminal justice system to manage and punish unfairly the poorest people in America – a population Michelle Alexander describes as those from “ghetto neighbourhoods” and mostly African American.
Well, it seems Britain’s criminal justice is even more punitive to Black people – within its criminal justice system and particularly in its prisons.
From yesterdays Guardian:
“The proportion of black people in prison in England and Wales is higher than in the United States, a landmark report released today by the Equality and Human Rights Commission reveals.
The commission’s first triennial report into the subject, How Fair is Britain, shows that the proportion of people of African-Caribbean and African descent incarcerated here is almost seven times greater to their share of the population. In the United States, the proportion of black prisoners to population is about four times greater.”
Prison Photography 
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October 12, 2010 at 2:09 am
Russell Bennett
Are there any comparative stats showing what proportions of the relevant populations (white, mixed, black, asian, chinese) actually commit crime?
If a greater proportion of black people commit crime than white people, then a colourblind justice system would reflect that with the statistics shown above.
October 20, 2010 at 5:50 am
Marc
That has to be one of the worst data charts done, it starts at 50%, so if i read it ‘correctly’ then the prison population looks to be about 72% white, 5% mixed, 15-17% black, etc. If read the other way, then it looks like Asian and Chinese are basically incarcerated all the time. Poorly made stats and poorly made charts will always have the sky falling.