Characteristics of Inmates - Race, Ethnicity, Age, And Gender

In 2003 some 1.3 million men and 92,785 women were serving sentences in state and federal prisons, according to Paige M. Harrison and Allen J. Beck in Prisoners in 2003 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, November 2004). (See Table 5.1.) Expressed in percentages of total prisoners 35% were non-Hispanic whites, 44% non-Hispanic African-Americans, 19% were Hispanics, and 1.9% were of other races (Asians, American Indians, Alaskan Natives, Native Hawaiians, and other Pacific Islanders). About 93% were men.

Among white prisoners, 8.6% were women, among African-Americans 5.9%, and among Hispanics 6.4%. The age group with the highest number of male prisoners in 2003 was twenty-five to twenty-nine years old (231,400). Women were most numerous in the thirty-five- to thirty-nine-year-old age group across all races. Among men, whites were more numerous in the group aged thirty-five to thirty-nine years (75,400), while African-Americans (111,400) and Hispanics (54,700) were more predominant in the twenty-five- to twenty-nine-year-old age group.

The largest overall number of prisoners were African-Americans. Among men, African-Americans outnumbered whites in every age group except those aged forty-five to fifty-four and fifty-five and older. Among women, whites were more numerous than African-Americans in every age category except those aged eighteen and nineteen.

According to Prisoners in 2003, incarceration rates (measured as the number of prisoners per 100,000 residents of a gender/age group) indicate that, overall, 465 white males aged eighteen and older were in prison per 100,000 resident males of the same age group. For African-Americans this number was 3,405, for Hispanics 1,231. The rates for women were thirty-eight for whites, 185 for African-Americans, and eighty-four for Hispanics. Whites and African-Americans in this context are non-Hispanic. (See Table 5.2.) These data, translated into percentages, indicate that 9.3% of African-American males aged twenty-five to twenty-nine were in prison in 2003 compared to 1.1% of white males in that age range and 2.6% of Hispanic males.

A somewhat expanded data set, prisoners under the jurisdiction of state and federal correctional authorities (a grouping that includes people on probation and parole), shows correctional population trends for men and women since 1995. (See Table 5.3.) These data, reported in Prisoners in 2003, indicate that 1,368,866 men and 101,179 women made up the correctional population in 2003. Men increased 2% from 2002 to 2003 with an annual average rate of 3.3% from 1995 to 2003. The female correctional population increased by 3.6% from 2002 to 2003 and grew 5% on average each year from 1995 to 2003. Numbers for prisoners sentenced to more than one year show that the male correctional population in this category grew 1.9% from 2002 to 2003 while the female population increased by 4.2%. The incarceration rate for men was 789 per 100,000 residents in 1995 and 915 in 2003. The corresponding rate for women was forty-seven in 1995 and sixty-two in 2003.

TABLE 5.1
Number of state and federal prisoners, by gender, race, Hispanic origin, and age, 2003
SOURCE: Paige M. Harrison and Allen J. Beck, "Table 11. Number of Sentenced Prisoners under State or Federal Jurisdiction, by Gender, Race, Hispanic Origin, and Age, 2003," in Prisoners in 2003, Bureau of Justice Statistics, November 2004, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/p03.pdf (accessed April 2, 2005)

	Number of sentenced prisoners
	Males				Females
	Totala	Whiteb	Blackb	Hispanic	Totala	Whiteb	Blackb	Hispanic
Total	1,316,495	454,300	586,300	251,900	92,785	39,100	35,000	16,200
18–19	25,200	7,100	12,600	4,900	1,100	400	500	200
20–24	208,300	59,400	99,900	46,200	11,100	4,400	4,200	2,300
25–29	231,400	63,100	111,400	54,700	13,900	5,600	5,300	2,600
30–34	221,000	70,300	100,000	47,900	17,200	7,200	6,500	3,100
35–39	209,400	75,400	91,900	37,800	18,800	7,800	7,300	3,200
40–44	182,300	71,700	78,100	27,900	15,600	6,800	5,800	2,500
45–54	178,400	74,800	73,900	24,800	12,400	5,400	4,700	1,800
55 or older	57,700	31,900	17,200	7,200	2,600	1,400	700	300
Note: Based on custody counts by race and Hispanic origin from National Prisoner Statistics (NPS-1A) and updated from jurisdiction counts by gender at yearend. Estimates by age were derived from the National Corrections Reporting Program, 2002. Estimates were rounded to the nearest 100.
aIncludes American Indians, Alaska Natives, Asians, Native Hawaiians, and other Pacific Islanders.
bExcludes Hispanics.

TABLE 5.2
Number of sentenced state or federal prisoners per 100,000 residents, by gender, race, Hispanic origin, and age, 2003
SOURCE: Paige M. Harrison and Allen J. Beck, "Table 12. Number of Sentenced Prisoners under State or Federal Jurisdiction per 100,000 Residents, by Gender, Race, Hispanic Origin, and Age, 2003," in Prisoners in 2003, Bureau of Justice Statistics, November 2004, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/p03.pdf (accessed April 1, 2005)

	Number of sentenced prisoners per 100,000 residents of each group
	Males				Females
Age	Totala	Whiteb	Blackb	Hispanic	Totala	Whiteb	Blackb	Hispanic
Total	915	465	3,405	1,231	62	38	185	84
18–19	597	266	2,068	692	28	15	80	39
20–24	1,996	932	7,017	2,267	112	71	286	138
25–29	2,380	1,090	9,262	2,592	147	99	406	152
30–34	2,074	1,042	7,847	2,440	164	109	456	181
35–39	1,895	1,017	6,952	2,226	170	106	491	209
40–44	1,584	873	5,854	1,995	133	82	386	192
45–54	899	501	3,500	1,329	60	36	190	97
55 or older	208	141	747	397	8	5	22	16
Note: Based on estimates of the U.S. resident population on July 1, 2003, using intercensal estimates for July 1, 2002 (by gender, race, and Hispanic origin) and adjusted to the July 1, 2003, estimates by gender.
Includes American Indians, Alaska Natives, Asians, Native Hawaiians, and other Pacific Islanders.
Excludes Hispanics.