U.S. Incarceration Peaks at 2.3 Million; Black Men Incarcerated at Six Times White Rate

The U.S. prison population peaked at approximately 2.3 million people in 2008, the highest incarceration rate in the world. Black men were incarcerated at a rate six times higher than white men. One in nine Black men between ages 20 and 34 was behind bars. Michelle Alexander's 'The New Jim Crow,' published in 2010, synthesized the structural analysis of mass incarceration as racial control.