#incaceration

Racial disparities among the incarcerated are glaring: one in every 36 Latino man and one in every 15 black man is a prisoner compared with one in every 106 white man. Four percent of Native American adults are under correctional control. Data comparing apartheid era black incarceration rates in South African with current black male incarceration rates in the US provides a jarring perspective. According to the Prison Policy Institute, in 1993, during the apartheid era in South Africa, black men were incarcerated at a rate of 853 per 100,000 total black male population. In 2010, under the Obama administration, US black men were incarcerated at a rate of 3,074 per 100,000.

Louisiana is the world's prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana's incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran's, seven times China's and 10 times Germany's