U.S. Imprisons Black Men at 4 Times S. Africa’s Rate : Crime: Overall American incarceration leads the world. In the past decade it overtook the Soviet Union.

The United States imprisons black males at four times the rate of South Africa and now leads the world in overall incarceration rates, surpassing even the Soviet Union over the past decade, a study reported Friday.

High crime rates and harsher criminal justice policies in the United States account for “the unenviable position of world leadership in incarceration,” according to the study by the Sentencing Project, a nonprofit organization that promotes sentencing reforms and alternatives to imprisonment.

A decade ago, both South Africa and the Soviet Union had higher incarceration rates than the United States, the study said. South Africa’s prison population has increased about 11% over the past 10 years, while the Soviet Union’s has declined dramatically.

The United States, meanwhile, more than doubled its prison roster during the 1980s, and its rate of black imprisonment has soared even faster, according to the study.

“If we continue to pursue the policies of the 1980s in the 1990s, we can expect that black males may truly become the ‘endangered species’ that many have predicted,” the study said.

“This report demonstrates that the extent of criminal justice control in a society cannot necessarily be predicted by the degree to which that society is dedicated to democracy and human rights.”

Among the study’s major findings:

--The United States imprisons 426 persons per 100,000 population, compared with 333 per 100,000 in South Africa and 268 per 100,000 in the Soviet Union.

--Black male incarceration in the United States is 3,109 per 100,000 black males in the general population. That compares with 729 per 100,000 in South Africa. (Black males number 14,625,000 in the United States and 15,050,000 in South Africa.)

--The total cost of incarcerating more than 1 million Americans in prisons and jails amounts to $16 billion annually, with the 454,724 black inmates accounting for nearly $7 billion of the outlay.

--No other nation for which incarceration rates are known approaches the United States, South Africa and Soviet Union, the three countries studied in detail. Rates for Western Europe generally range from 35 to 120 per 100,000, and for most countries in Asia from 21 to 140.

“This report illustrates the long-term effect of the Draconian criminal justice policies the United States has been implementing over the past decade and shows how these policies have failed our people,” said Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), chairman of the House Government Operations Committee and the senior member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

“We’ve got to stop jailing and start rehabilitating,” Conyers said. “We’ve got to stop simply incarcerating and start curing the root problems.”

“This report is talking basically about mandatory minimum sentences,” noted Dan Ermanian, chief spokesman for Atty. Gen. Dick Thornburgh, “and such sentences in the federal system are aimed at armed career criminals and serious drug offenders. This has proven to be an effective element in fighting crime.”

Eramian said the Sentencing Project study failed to note that a large majority of federal and state prisoners are repeat offenders who are incarcerated for violent crimes.

“A disproportionately large number of minorities are victimized by violent crime, and I can’t think of anything worse to those in the minority community than the release of those who have preyed upon them,” he said.

In discussing crime rates as a factor in the higher U.S. incarceration rate, the study noted that it is “problematic” to make international comparisons because of variations in reporting methods and the definition of offenses.

Neverthless, the study acknowledged that U.S. rates of crime for many offenses are substantially higher than in Western Europe, with American murders at least seven times higher than in most European nations.

At least some of the disparity in incarceration rates can be explained by higher crime rates in the United States, the study said. Even so, it said, “there is much evidence that the increase in the number of people behind bars in recent years is a consequence of harsher criminal justice policies of the past decade, rather than a direct consequence of rising crime.”

A greater proportion of offenders are being sent to prison today than 10 years ago. In 1980, for every 1,000 arrests for serious crime, 196 offenders were sent to prison, the study said. That figure had increased 54% by 1987.

“Incarceration rates do not rise or fall directly with crime rates,” the study said. “Although the crime rate has dropped by 3.5% since 1980, the prison population has doubled in that period.”

While the incidence of crime dropped 15% from 1980 to 1984, the number of prisoners in the United States increased by 41%, the study said. Over the following five years, crime rates climbed by 14%, while the number of prisoners rose 52%.

“Any cause and effect relationship is difficult to discern,” the study said.

The war on drugs is probably the largest single factor behind the rise in U.S. prison populations over the last decade, the study noted. While drug arrests and prosecutions have increased each year since 1980, the number of blacks arrested for drug offenses increased at a faster rate.

From 1984 to 1988, the percentage of blacks involved in all drug arrests nationally moved from 30% to 38%. In Michigan, drug arrests overall have doubled since 1985, the study reported, while drug arrests of blacks have tripled.

The Sentencing Project called for establishing a national committee to examine the high incarceration rate, particularly that for black males, and a General Accounting Office study of the social and economic factors related to crime.

It also proposed creating government-funded pilot programs on reducing black incarceration rates, defining drug abuse as a public health and not a criminal justice problem, repealing mandatory sentencing laws and expanding use of alternatives to incarceration.