The Urban Institute study found that 1 in 5 people in jail for at least 10 years is a Black man incarcerated before the age of 25. (Image courtesy of Masasi eHarare).
The average amount of time inmates spend in prison has increased in recent years, according to a recent study from Washington, D.C.-based think tank Urban Institute.
The study, released June 19, explored patterns of long-term incarceration by race, age and gender, and found that the average amount of time served behind bars has increased by at least five years between 2000 to 2014. Researchers also discovered stark racial disparities among those serving the longest terms: Black men.
In 35 of the 44 states featured in the study, Black men comprised a majority of the overall prison population when it came to the longest time served. In fact, the percentage of Black men serving the longest 10 percent of prison sentences was larger than racial disparities in the overall prison population. In Pennsylvania, for instance, where Black Americans account for 49 percent of the state prison population, 60 percent of those serving the longest prison terms were Black.
Ryan King, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and one of the study’s authors, told Newsweek that determining the overall percentage of inmates serving the lengthiest sentences based on race was tough because of the lack of racial/ethnic documentation of inmates by state prisons.
“We were limited because the state data reporting is poor on race and ethnicity,” King said. “Some states tend to be pretty good for white and Black [documentation], but a lot of them don’t count ethnicity at all. So, you’re not able to look at white, Black [and] Latino ratios.”
However, King added that even with the limited data, researchers were still able to discern “significant racial disparities in prisons” and even starker disparities as the length of prison stints increased.
Among other things, the study found that the longest prison terms are getting longer and that the increase in time spent has been the sharpest among those serving time for violent offenses. Research also found that in 35 of the states analyzed in the study, there was at least 1 in 10 inmates who had served at least 10 years behind bars.
The average longest prison time also varied from state to state, with the average longest sentence served by violent offenders in California starting at 4.6 years in 2000, and then jumping to 8.2 years by 2014. Meanwhile in Arizona, the average longest prison sentence served was 4.3 years in 2000 but later increased to just 5.7 years in 2017.
“The key interesting finding — maybe not necessarily surprising to folks — is that time served and length of stay is growing and continues to grow, and importantly, the people who are serving particularly long sentences, those prison terms are getting longer and longer,” King told Newsweek.
The study’s other key findings included:
- Nearly 2 in 5 people serving the longest prison terms were incarcerated before age 25.
- One in 5 people sentenced to prison for at least 10 years is a Black man incarcerated before age 25.
- A growing number women in prison have served more than 10 years behind bars.
