Under Trump’s Leadership Black Prison Rate Is Lowest In 31 Years
Michael Cantrell
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One of the main topics during Thursday evening’s final presidential debate was that of race, and naturally, this turned the discussion to each candidate’s ideas and policies for criminal justice reform.
President Donald Trump really shined during this particular moment due to the fact that he has worked so hard on the First Steps Act, which has helped reduce the number of black individuals and those belonging to other minority groups in prison.
In fact, the number of black people incarcerated during Trump’s administration has hit the lowest its been in 31 years, which is quite an accomplishment. For Hispanics, it’s gone down 24 percent.
“Across the decade from 2009 to 2019, the imprisonment rate fell 29% among black residents, 24% among Hispanic residents and 12% among white residents. In 2019, the imprisonment rate of black residents was the lowest it has been in 30 years, since 1989,” said the report.
Explaining the rate, Justice said, “At year-end 2019, there were 1,096 sentenced black prisoners per 100,000 black residents, 525 sentenced Hispanic prisoners per 100,000 Hispanic residents and 214 sentenced white prisoners per 100,000 white residents in the U.S. Among sentenced state prisoners at year-end 2018 (the most recent data available), a larger percentage of black (62%) and Hispanic (62%) prisoners than white prisoners (48%) were serving time for a violent offense.”
For its report, the DOJ counts those in prison for more than a year.
The report itself did not give specifics as to why these numbers have been so low, but the record speaks for itself. President Trump has made this a pretty high priority and he’s done far more than Biden has on this issue and he’s only had three and a half years in office while the former vice president has served 47 years in government.
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