Blacks are incarcerated nationally at a rate of 1,547 per 100,000 black residents. In some states, the black rate of incarceration reaches extraordinary levels (Table 3). In Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Texas, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia, blacks are incarcerated at rates that exceed 2,000 per 100,000. The lowest incarceration rate for blacks, 570 in North Dakota, exceeds the highest rate for whites, 440 in Arizona.
These rates of incarceration reflect a marked increase since the late 1980s. Although rates increased for both whites and blacks in most states between 1988 and 1996, the black rate in most states increased more than the white rate. The national black rate of incarceration increased 67 percent, from 922 per 100,000 black residents to 1547, while the white rate increased 28 percent, from 134 to 188 per 100,000 white residents (Table 4). In nine states --Iowa, Kentucky, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin -- the black rate of incarceration doubled. In another twenty-six states, the rate increased by fifty percent or more. In contrast, the white rate increased by fifty percent in fifteen states; in only two states (South Dakota and Washington) did the white rate double. As a result, the ratio of the rates of black to white incarceration increased from 6.8 to 8.2.
http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/Rcedrg00-01.htmRacially Disproportionate Incarceration Rates
The strikingly disproportionate rate of disenfranchisement among African American men reflects their disproportionate rate of incarceration. The rate of imprisonment for black men in 1996 was 8.5 times that of white men: black men were confined in prison at a rate of 3,098 per 100,000 compared to a white rate of 370.34 Even more strikingly, in the past ten years the black men’s rate increased ten times the white men’s increase.35
http://www.hrw.org/reports98/vote/usvot98o-02.htm