INTRODUCTION

This project examines racial disparities within the prison systems of Texas and California, analyzing the influence of race intertwined with age, gender, and citizenship status on incarceration rates. The comparative analysis between these two large states, which differ significantly in their political and demographic landscapes, provides a revealing look into how systemic inequalities manifest in incarceration practices. The “Reporting Unit Level Public-Use Data” utilized in this analysis provides a comprehensive view of the demographics within the incarceration systems of Texas and California, highlighting distinct disparities that suggest systemic biases against minority groups. This detailed demographic breakdown serves as a crucial foundation for understanding how racial biases are reflected in the criminal justice practices of these two influential states, setting the stage for a deeper exploration of the underlying causes and implications of such inequalities in subsequent analyses.

The existing literature acknowledges that racial disparities in incarceration are a pervasive issue across the United States, yet there remains a considerable gap in research specifically examining the intersection of race with other demographic factors like age and citizenship, particularly within varying political contexts. The data indicates that Black and Hispanic populations are disproportionately represented in prison populations, a trend that is consistent across different states regardless of their political orientation. This project builds on these findings by providing a detailed, data-driven comparison between Texas and California, offering new insights into how state policies and demographics influence racial disparities in the criminal justice system. The significance of this research lies in its potential to impact policy by illustrating the clear demographic trends in incarceration that reflect racial disparities. This study is crucial for addressing these disparities and advocating for judicial reforms. By analyzing comprehensive data from Texas and California, the findings of this research will contribute to a broader understanding of the systemic issues that lead to racial inequalities in incarceration rates. Ultimately, the goal is to promote a more equitable justice system by highlighting the need for policies that specifically address the root causes of these disparities, ensuring all demographic groups equality.

This research project is important because it seeks to expose and quantify the racial disparities that fill the prison systems in Texas and California, two states with considerable influence on national policies and perceptions of justice. By focusing on the demographics of race, coupled with age, gender, and citizenship status, the study aims to show the systemic inequities that contribute to a disproportionate rate of incarceration among minority groups. With detailed analysis backed by our data, this project will provide empirical evidence that can guide substantial policy reforms. The significance of this work extends beyond academic circles—it is poised to inform public opinion, influence policymakers, and offer actionable insights that could lead to more just and equitable treatment within the criminal justice system. By shedding light on the specific ways in which racial disparities are institutionalized, this research could serve as a catalyst for broader societal change, fostering a criminal justice system that truly upholds the ideals of fairness and equality for all individuals, regardless of their racial or demographic backgrounds.

DATA VISUALIZATIONS

INMATE DEMOGRAPHICS

AGE

When examining the graph comparing juvenile incarceration facilities between Texas and California, we observed a distinct difference in the number of facilities. Texas has over 220 facilities holding juveniles, compared to California’s fewer than 100. This visual difference immediately highlights how each state structures its juvenile justice system, with Texas relying heavily on a widespread network of detention centers. The graph not only showcases the numerical gap but also allows us to question the factors driving such a disparity. This significant difference suggests that Texas prioritizes punitive incarceration measures, targeting a broader range of offenses and younger juveniles, whereas California appears to focus on reducing the number of incarcerated youth by prioritizing alternative approaches.

The graph provides a visual representation of the infrastructural and policy differences. For instance, the sheer number of facilities in Texas aligns with its policies of incarcerating younger offenders and targeting non-violent crimes, such as property and drug offenses. California’s smaller number of facilities, as shown in the graph, reflects its emphasis on rehabilitation and diversion programs, which reduce the need for detention centers. The graph visually underscores the stark difference in how these two states allocate resources toward juvenile incarceration, with Texas appearing to rely on a punitive framework while California invests in alternatives that focus on community-based rehabilitation. This raises questions about the long-term outcomes of these contrasting approaches, both for the youth involved and for the broader public safety outcomes.

Looking at the graph alongside the information from research, we can see how these numbers translate into systemic impacts. For example, Texas’s expansive system accommodates a large number of younger juveniles, with some being held in adult facilities, which could have detrimental effects on their mental health and future opportunities. California’s focus on reducing the number of facilities is tied to its strategy of diverting non-violent offenders away from incarceration and toward programs that address root causes of delinquency. The graph effectively visualizes these differences, highlighting not only the quantity but the philosophy behind each state’s approach.

The visual comparison also brings to light the broader implications for state budgets and public safety. While Texas’s large number of facilities may suggest a more comprehensive system, the graph and the data together reveal that this approach does not necessarily result in lower juvenile crime rates. California, despite having far fewer facilities, has experienced similar declines in youth crime over time. The graph’s stark contrast in facility numbers, therefore, emphasizes how infrastructure and policy choices do not always correlate with better outcomes. It suggests that California’s smaller network of facilities, paired with its rehabilitative policies, is equally, if not more, effective than Texas’s punitive model.

The graph not only visualizes the disparity in juvenile detention infrastructure but also serves as a lens to explore the broader systemic differences between Texas and California. It highlights how policy decisions manifest in physical infrastructures, shaping outcomes for incarcerated youth and influencing public safety. This comparison, shown in the graph and research data, forces us to rethink how juvenile justice systems can balance accountability with investment in rehabilitation and community-based alternatives, ultimately shaping the futures of the youth they serve.

GENDER

The most striking gender disparities in incarceration are seen in both states, with men making up the highest jail population. In California, men constitute 86.29% of the incarcerated population, while 13.71% are women. In Texas, the ratio is slightly narrower, at 84.87% men and 15.13% women. This mirrors the general trend seen worldwide of women’s incarceration rates increasing faster than men’s, largely as a function of systemic responses to crime rather than increased female criminality. Progressive policies in California, such as alternative sentencing and rehabilitation, contribute to relatively lower female incarceration rates compared to states with more conservative approaches. By comparison, Texas’s punitive criminal justice system handed down longer sentences for offenses such as drug-related crimes, which likely accounts for the slightly higher number of female inmates. The disparities show how gender interacts with systemic factors and political ideologies in influencing the incarceration trends.

Contrasting political landscapes of California and Texas play significant roles in shaping these disparities. The progressivism in California thus leads to prioritizing reducing mass incarceration, effectively dealing with the roots that cause crimes, and promoting systemic reforms. It goes on to assist in producing lower racial disparities and more equitable outcomes for women, younger people, and non-citizens. Conversely, conservative Texas promotes firm law enforcement measures to instill more punitive approaches within policy, resulting in a larger percentage of incarceration that reinforces racial, gender, and citizenship inequalities. The state’s “law and order” rhetoric and limited systemic reforms reinforce the structural inequalities that drive these disparities.

In summary, the differences in incarceration trends between California and Texas illustrate how systemic inequalities, intersecting with age, gender, race, and citizenship status, are shaped by the states’ political ideologies. California’s progressive policies mitigate some disparities, while Texas’s conservative approach exacerbates inequalities, particularly for marginalized populations. Future research should examine micro-level data to learn more about the points of intersectionality between these factors and which specific offenses are driving the disparities in incarceration. The long-term effects of political reforms on such inequalities could be instructive in understanding how systemic biases occur within criminal justice systems.

RACE

The analysis of prison populations in California and Texas shows racial disparities and deeper problems in the U.S. justice system. The bar graph comparing the racial makeup of inmates in these states shows that Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino and White people are not represented equally in prisons.

In California, Hispanic inmates make up nearly 49% of the incarcerated population, compared to 31.2% in Texas. Texas has a higher percentage of Black or African American inmates, at 28.7%, compared to California’s 21.7%. These differences are the same as national trends, where Black and Hispanic people are disproportionately affected by the justice system. According to the American Journal of Economics and Sociology, incarceration and other interactions with the justice system, such as police stops and probation, are most common among African American and Latino men. This reflects inequalities that continue to worsen racial inequality in incarceration.

Texas and California, are the two largest states in the U.S., and they are both part of two different political parties. Looking into these two states provides interesting insight as they have contrasting political policies and ideas. California is a liberal state that is led by Democrats, and Texas is a conservative state led by Republicans.  Despite these differences, both states show similar patterns of racial inequality in their prison systems. This suggests that racial inequality in incarceration is a national issue, not just state policies or political beliefs.

The overrepresentation of Black and Hispanic people in prisons is tied to historical and structural inequalities, including economic disadvantages and racial profiling. The  U.S. incarcerates a much higher portion of its population than other wealthy countries. For example, people in the U.S. are over ten times more likely to be in prison or jail than those in Denmark, Sweden, or the Netherlands, and four times more likely than people in the United Kingdom (American Journal of Economics and Sociology).

Looking at state incarceration rates further highlights these issues. Texas has an incarceration rate of 751 per 100,000 residents, higher than any democratic country in the world, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. California’s incarceration rate is 494 per 100,000 residents, which is also among the highest globally. These numbers show how widespread incarceration is in the U.S., especially for people of color. 

Even though California and Texas have different political views and policies, they both show high amounts of racial inequality within their prison system. Solving these problems will require many solutions, such as reforming the justice system, supporting communities, and creating policies that address economic and racial inequalities.

CITIZENSHIP

Owing to the geographical significance and its relation to citizenship status, we compared citizenship status across states to see if there were visible trends. In order to visualize the population number, jail facilities are represented with scaled dots. The map, therefore, allows us to investigate patterns of incarceration that may be influenced by geographical location of states. 

The map reveals distinct geographical patterns in the conviction rates of non-citizens across the US. States in the Southwest and along the Mexico border  show a higher proportion of non-citizen inmates, which can be seen by the larger dots. This concentration may reflect immigration rates and the impact of immigration enforcement policies, including ICE’s involvement with local law enforcement. In comparison, states with smaller immigration rates, like in the Midwest, Northwest, and Northeast, tend to have fewer non-citizen inmates. An example of this is West Virginia, which has the smallest foreign born population compared to other states at only 1.8%, and has no dots represented on the map compared to its surrounding states.

The stark contrast between southern bordering states and those that are not, also introduces the absence of immigration status records by California. Throughout Alameda, Fresno, and Los Angeles County over 23,000 inmates are listed as having “Unknown Citizenship,” in comparison to Texas which remains the only state that records and keeps immigration statuses of those entering the criminal justice system. This adds some uncertainty to incarceration rates and trends within criminal offenses by non-citizens versus citizens. 

Less direct views at immigrant criminality highlight the common notion that non-citizen incarcerated individuals commit or otherwise are more likely to put Americans at risk than their citizen counterparts. However, the data depicts that it is native-born Americans that have the highest rate of criminal convictions in comparison to non-citizens. This suggests there is no relationship between immigration status and crime unveiling the underlying socioemotional effects that come with the rather right leaning population’s beliefs and immigrant criminality rates. 

PRISON CONDITIONS

FACILITY CAPACITY STATUS

These graphs compare the facility-rated capacity and the greatest number of inmates held in California and Texas jails in 2019. Both graphs show a positive trend, indicating that as facility-rated capacity increases, more inmates are held. However, Texas appears to have significantly more jails with lower rated capacities, creating a clustering effect toward the lower end of the graph. This suggests that Texas relies more heavily on smaller jails, while California has fewer but larger facilities. The graph shows that 17.1% of Texas jails are over capacity while a more significant 33.3% of California jails are over capacity. Despite these differences, both states struggle with jail overcrowding, particularly in facilities with a rated capacity of 2,500 inmates or fewer. 

California and Texas hold vastly different political standpoints. While California’s more progressive reforms have been said to decrease the incarceration rates, the state’s overcapacity rate underscores ongoing struggles. While Texas has seemingly more conservative and strict policies, they face a significantly lower overcapacity rate which reflects the structural limitations within these jails. This difference may also be due to the generally larger population of California since there are also less jails in California than in Texas by ½ times. It is true that there are more larger facilities in California, however, the percentage of these in relation to smaller facilities is still not that significant. Despite the differences overall, there is a clear highlighting of the broader national crisis that there is persistent overcrowding.

This national overcrowding issue may also be a result of mass incarceration. Historically, American jails may stem from the “War on Drugs” in the 1980s and 1990s which resulted in mandatory minimum sentences and heavily crowded jails, all while ineffectively preventing decreased drug use rates. The overcrowding issue is not one that is new, in 2011, California’s overcrowding led to the Supreme Court case of Brown v Plata, arguing that overcrowding in prisons was a key factor contributing to bad mental and physical health in inmates.This ultimately decreased prison populations by around 46000. This trend was also seen in Texas where efforts were also made in order to decrease incarceration numbers. Unfortunately, there continues to be issues of mass incarceration nationwide.

Overcrowding affects not only prisons themselves, but the general population as well. Public health risks, for example COVID-19, are likely to spread faster in overcrowded jails, and nearby areas as well. Where there are more inmates, there are less resources for each one, resulting in an increased risk of sickness and various other health issues. While one may assume that these impacts will be confined to the prisons, so many people walk in and out of jails every day, the guards, freed inmates, other workers etc, if something were to happen within the jail, the effects would spill out to reach surrounding areas and further.

Despite these issues, both California and Texas have brought up reforms in hopes of mitigating the overcrowding issue. However, with Texas operating at 17.1% over capacity and California at 33.3%, further policy changes are urgently needed. As the graphs show, both states continue to struggle with facility overcrowding despite political differences, highlighting the need for a comprehensive changel of the criminal justice system that balances public safety with humane treatment and equity.

CONVICTION STATUS

The graph shows a comparison of Texas and California with their amount of convicted and unconvicted inmates. California has a significantly less percentage of their inmates being unconvicted, while Texas has ~77.13% unconvicted, California has ~64.99% unconvicted which is significantly less than Texas. However, this still reveals a significant issue: a large portion of the incarcerated population remains unconvicted. 

California and Texas lay on opposing sides of the political spectrum, with California being more liberal and Texas more conservative. California’s more progressive political climate allows for some more reforms to be made addressing this issue, which is likely the cause of the over 10% difference in unconvicted incarcerations. Texas has harsher policies which may leave many unconvicted individuals incarcerated before trial, however, policies like the Pretrial Services Program shows the work towards reform. Unfortunately, despite these reforms, both California and Texas jails remain majority unconvicted, pointing to a more national issue within the criminal justice system. While the graph shows a difference between California and Texas, the difference is not too significant and continues to show the overall trend reflecting challenges that demand reform, despite the politics of a state.

The Innocence Project and Exonerations Report highlight a racial disparity in convictions, stating that Black Americans are 7 times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of murder and 19 times more likely to be wrongfully convicted in drug-related cases. This could be due to a variety of reasons ranging from biases in policing, juries, or just due to difficulties in identifying individuals of a different race. Racial stereotyping and biases serve as a basis for why reform is necessary and relevant. It is important to protect those who are impacted by disproportionate incarcerations, especially before they have even been convicted.

In California, reforms like Proposition 25 in 2020 have been brought up in order to mitigate these issues. Proposition 25 vowed to replace cash bail with a risk assessment to determine pretrial incarceration. This is especially important to those who may not have enough money to pay bail, forcing them to remain incarcerated despite the possibility that they may be innocent. This proposition ultimately failed as many believed that the current system could be altered in order to decrease instances like the one above from occurring. Although Proposition 25 was not passed, it brought up a general consensus that work must be done regarding pretrial incarceration. More reforms have been introduced, such as AB 61, which reemphasizes the 48 hour rule where defendants must be taken to court within 48 hours, making sure that they do not spend unnecessary time in prison.

Texas, being more conservative, has a little more work to be done regarding the issue of criminal justice. The state has one of the highest incarceration rates in the country, and the reliance on cash bail results in a reality where many people, specifically those from disadvantaged communities, are incarcerated before their trials with no means of leaving, simply due to their financial status. Our graph supports this, as we see a larger percentage of unconvicted individuals in their jails. However, Texas has introduced some reforms, like the Pretrial Services Program, which may slightly decrease the amount of detained individuals pretrial. This reform uses a risk assessment to help determine whether an unconvicted individual should be detained. Additionally, The Innocence Project of Texas has been established and put in place to address wrongful convictions. Unfortunately, The Innocence Project and similar programs remain underfunded in Texas, limiting their ability to make big changes.

On the other side, reforms and policies can also increase rates of incarceration, as many attempt to tighten regulations on crimes. This results in mass incarcerations which also disproportionately impact minorities and disadvantaged communities. The use of cash bails has been a known contributor to the increase in mass incarcerations. In the United States, there are the highest rates of incarceration in the world. Policies and reform which decrease the amount of unconvicted incarcerations would be helpful in lessening mass incarcerations.

Despite these challenges, both California and Texas have introduced reforms in an attempt to decrease the number of wrongful convictions and unconvicted incarcerations. More policy changes are required to make meaningful change though, as the criminal justice system continues to be harmful for marginalized communities and minorities.

As the graph shows, there is a slight difference between California and Texas in incarcerated unconvicted people, which may be due to the more progressive political nature of California as a whole, however, both states incarcerate a large number of unconvicted individuals, and it is important to acknowledge the need for comprehensive reforms to ensure justice and address racial disparities in the system.