Black’s Prison Disparity Grows In Iowa
The proportion of blacks being admitted to Iowa prisons has reached its highest point in at least 14 years, in spite of efforts by Gov. Chet Culver to bring more balance to one of the most pronounced disparities in the country. This report from the Des Moines Register.
A state analyst confirmed Tuesday that the proportion of blacks being sent to prison is worsening again. Blacks account for 24.3 percent of all new Iowa prison admissions in fiscal year 2009. The percentage of prisoners incarcerated for drug crimes who are black is 28.4 percent in the current fiscal year, which ends June 30. That’s the highest level since 1996 …
Tuesday’s news was discouraging for drug policy officials and black leaders in Iowa, where disproportionate minority confinement has been a problem for at least the last 25 years.The new findings come as Iowa’s long-growing prison population is leveling off, in part because new prison admissions for drug-related crimes are declining for the fifth straight year. “If drug offenses are on the decline in general, you have to wonder why that is” that the percentage of blacks being admitted to Iowa’s prisons is rising, said state Rep. Deborah Berry, D-Waterloo. “I certainly want to find out more” …
A state law that passed in 2005 greatly altered Iowa’s prison admissions. From 2000 to 2004, the numbers of whites behind bars had shot up substantially. But the new law restricted sales of the cold medicine used to make methamphetamine, and subsequently led to a sharp decline in arrests of meth makers, who were primarily white. “Now that the meth manufacturing has dropped, the African-American percentage is rising again,” said Phyllis Blood, an analyst who tracks the prison population for Iowa’s Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning. “Not necessarily as much in raw numbers, but as a percentage of the total prison population.”
In fiscal year 2009, 2,212 people have been admitted to Iowa prisons. Of those, 1,603 were white and 537 were black, state figures show. Blacks made up 2.6 percent of Iowa’s population in 2007, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
The article in the Des Moines Register has more detail and background.