Nationwide, prison populations have declined nearly 5% from their peak, and 16 states have seen double-digit declines. It is unclear, though, how decarceration has affected racial disparities. Using national data, we find substantial variation in state prison populations from 2005–2018, with increases in some states and declines in others. However, although declines in the overall state prison population were associated with declines for all groups, states with rising prison populations experienced slight upticks in prison rates among the white population, while rates among Black and Latinx populations declined. As a result, greater progress in overall decarceration within states did not translate to larger reductions in racial disparities. At the same time, we do not find evidence that a decline in prison populations is associated with a rise in jail incarceration for any racial/ethnic group. In additional exploratory analyses, we suggest that recent incarceration trends may be driven by changes in returns to prison for probation and parole violations, rather than commitments for new crimes. Our results make clear that while efforts to reverse mass incarceration have reduced the size of prison populations in some states, they have not yet made substantial progress in resolving the crisis of race in American criminal justice.

在全国范围内，监狱人口比高峰期下降了近5％，而16个州的监狱犯罪率下降了两位数。但是，目前尚不清楚开ation如何影响种族差异。使用国家数据，我们发现2005-2018年州监狱人口的差异很大，有些州有所增加，而另一些州则有所下降。然而，尽管下降的总体状态监狱人口用拒绝对所有群体相关，与各国上涨白人中的监狱人口的监狱收费略有上升，而黑人和拉丁裔人口的监狱收费有所下降。结果，各州在整体监禁方面取得的更大进步并未转化为种族差距的更大减少。同时，我们没有找到证据表明任何种族/族裔群体的监狱人口减少都与监狱监禁的增加有关。在其他探索性分析中，我们建议，最近的监禁趋势可能是由于缓刑和假释违反监狱收益的变化，而不是针对新罪行的承诺所致。我们的结果表明，尽管为扭转大规模监禁所做的努力减少了某些州的监狱人口，