All of the 37 states Human Rights Watch studied send black drug offenders to prison at far higher rates than whites. Black and white drug offenders get radically different treatment in the American justice system. This is not only profoundly unfair to blacks, it also corrodes the American ideal of equal justice for all. In these states, black men are sent to prison on drug charges at 27 to 57 times the rate of white men.
Most drug offenders are white.
But blacks comprise the great majority of drug offenders sent to prison. The solution to this racial inequity is not to incarcerate more whites, but to reduce the use of prison for low-level drug offenders and to increase the availability of substance abuse treatment. In seven states, blacks constitute between 80 and 90 percent of all people sent to prison on drug charges. Nationwide, black men are sent to state prison on drug charges at 13 times the rate of white men. Two out of five blacks sent to prison are convicted of drug offenses, compared to one in four whites.