"The hypersegregation of the black poor in ghetto communities has made the roundup easy. Confined to ghetto areas and lacking political power, the black poor are convenient targets. ... The enduring racial isolation of the ghetto poor has made them uniquely vulnerable in the War on Drugs. What happens to them does not directly affect—and is scarcely noticed by—the privileged beyond the ghetto’s invisible walls. Thus it is here, in the poverty-stricken, racially segregated ghettos, where the War on Poverty has been abandoned and factories have disappeared, that the drug war has been waged with the greatest ferocity. SWAT teams are deployed here; buy-and-bust operations are concentrated here; drug raids of apartment buildings occur here; stop-and-frisk operations occur on the streets here. Black and brown youth are the primary targets.[emphasis added -RMF]" -Michelle Alexander "The New Jim Crow"
Is Whatcom county a racist county in a racist state? I won't pretend to have the complete answer in this post. I do know that something Bellingham and Lynden (two of Whatcom County's biggest cities) have in common, is that you can often spend the whole day downtown in either without ever noticing a person of color! And that makes it somehow very different from where my wife and I grew up in Oakland, CA. This post will examine the county jails of WA and question whether or not racial bias is a part of Whatcom County and Washington's law and justice system. Below is a table of WA state jails and their counts of Total Population, Average Daily Jail Populations of 'People of Color' (not white) and the all white populations of those 39 WA counties. City and regional jail data is appended with no additional population data.
Some notes on the data and methodology: I explain below some of the disadvantages of working with Average Daily Population as data points and the problems matching the less granular WASPC with the more granular Census county population data. I will await more data from WASPC before publishing more. Code for this post is here. Analyzing racial composition ratios to look for implicit or explicit racism in the state law enforcement system is tricky, complicated and makes me nervous. My data sources[1,2] and code are public, so if you have some problem or thoughts with this, feel free to comment and link to your own statistical analysis. If you have some links to other statistical discussions on this subject, please let me know.
Personal/Political Note: We are considering voting millions of dollars of sales taxes and bonds for an expanded jail system in Whatcom County this fall, so more information and viewpoints the better. The financing as is proposed now will be to continue 2/10 of 1% of a retail sales tax in perpetuity for public safety, operations, expansion. 1/10 of 1% will be used to bond for the original jail construction. That last 1/10% is said to send $6M /year to the bond holders and will probably sunset at 30 years. Either way, this is hundreds of millions of dollars sent to incarceration and law and justice needs. We aren't King County here. Whatcom County is max 215K people, and that total probably includes Canadian daytime shoppers and guests!
I don't believe in a fascist or comfortable version of democracy. I've spent some time in my life reading the founding fathers and I don't think a comfortable democracy that supports the status quo is what they had in mind. Discussing racism is never comfortable for a county and state as white as Whatcom and Washington. I don't believe that lack of comfort makes the discussion any less urgent, important or necessary.
County.City TotalPop AverageDailyJail PeopleOfColorInJail AllWhiteInCountyPop
1 King 2079967 2031 892 1458264
2 Pierce 831928 1133 489 633432
3 Snohomish 759583 1028 240 609413
4 Spokane 484318 893 185 435049
5 Clark 451008 761 114 393912
6 Thurston 265851 414 92 220470
7 Yakima 247687 792 457 217859
8 Kitsap 254183 435 91 211797
9 Whatcom 208351 408 92 181897
10 Benton 186486 686 70 169791
11 Skagit 120365 238 70 109337
12 Cowlitz 102133 291 35 93845
13 Grant 93147 211 90 86245
14 Franklin 87809 192 16 79825
15 Chelan 74588 265 70 69971
16 Lewis 75128 205 26 69831
17 Island 79275 54 12 68398
18 Clallam 72715 125 17 63811
19 GraysHarbor 70818 145 20 62130
20 WallaWalla 59844 71 5 55150
21 Mason 60711 115 13 53587
22 Whitman 46827 41 7 39843
23 Kittitas 42522 92 19 39082
24 Stevens 43650 41 2 39015
25 Douglas 39804 NA NA 37288
26 Okanogan 41290 166 63 34008
27 Jefferson 30228 48 8 27593
28 Asotin 22189 58 6 20944
29 Klickitat 20861 47 12 19370
30 Pacific 20561 42 5 18480
31 Adams 19179 26 18 17372
32 SanJuan 16015 2 0 15129
33 PendOreille 12985 28 1 11855
34 Skamania 11340 25 5 10549
35 Lincoln 10250 23 5 9668
36 Ferry 7667 33 2 5862
37 Wahkiakum 4067 7 0 3807
38 Columbia 3985 10 1 3761
39 Garfield 2215 10 3 2114
40 Aberdeen NA 12 1 NA
41 Auburn NA NA NA NA
42 Enumclaw NA 20 3 NA
43 Fife NA 203 84 NA
44 Forks NA 28 3 NA
45 Grandview NA 8 5 NA
46 Issaquah NA 62 10 NA
47 Kent NA 117 41 NA
48 Kirkland NA 16 1 NA
49 Lynnwood NA 40 17 NA
50 Marysville NA 44 11 NA
51 Nisqually NA NA NA NA
52 OakHarbor NA NA NA NA
53 Olympia NA 25 NA NA
54 Puyallup NA 49 10 NA
55 Renton NA NA NA NA
56 SCORE NA 618 269 NA
57 Sunnyside NA 45 27 NA
58 Toppenish NA 20 18 NA
59 Wapato NA 59 25 NA
60 YakimaCity NA 60 7 NA
A long list of data like that can be overwhelming. Let's look at some stacked horizontal bar charts. Click to Enlarge the Charts!:
Here's are some tables that look at race and incarceration in Whatcom County and all of WA state. "POC" = 'People of Color' defined by WASPC (e.g Black, Hispanic, Native American, Other/Asian):
Jail Year White Black Hispanic NatAmerican Other UnRace POC
Whatcom 2014 251 21 0 65 6 65 92
Whatcom 2013 281 22 31 73 3 4 129
Whatcom 2012 303 27 36 87 5 4 155
Whatcom 2011 274 24 31 85 5 4 145
Whatcom 2010 304 22 26 78 4 NA 130
Year White Black Hispanic NatAmerican Other UnRace POC
1 2014 8642 1924 849 604 408 202 3785
2 2013 8330 1857 557 575 378 517 3367
3 2012 8695 1945 403 585 398 579 3331
4 2011 8698 2061 666 607 415 328 3749
5 2010 8113 1889 1721 535 481 0 4626
Looking at volume data like this can confusing because it doesn't necessarily tell us what we want to know for each county: Is the percentage of people of color higher in a specific county jail than that county population? Is a particular racial identity over represented in that jail? To do this, I merge 2014 county population data from the Census with WASPC ADP (Average Daily Populations) for white : nonwhite populations in WA county jails. I derive the ratio K where
K = (PCTNotWhiteJail - (1 - PCTWhitePop))
such that K=0 would represents a ratio of White:NotWhite in the county jail equal with the county population ratio for White:NotWhite. If K is negative, that county jail has a larger percentage of those white than the local county population. Unfortunately, that's not the case for most counties in WA. The summed counties of WA have a 10% K ratio indicating that state jail system incarcerates "People of Color" at a higher ratio than the representation of "People of Color" in the state.
t1 =sum(NotWhiteAloneInJail)/sum(AverageDailyJailPopulation)
t2 = sum(AllWhiteInPop)/sum(TotalPopulation)
K = t1 - (1 - t2)
K = .107124
Matching the ratio of any particular race from the more granular Census racial categories with the less granular WASPC racial categories will have to be saved for another post and more data. Statistically, using average daily population as data points is poor and inaccurate statistical practice. I have asked the WASPC for the raw data and will republish this paper when I receive such. For now, averages as data points is all I have. There are lots of problems with a generalized statistic such as this, not the least of them being that counties lease beds from others and at least two counties (Douglas, Chelan) share a regional jail. However, at least 15 counties have K ratios over 9.9%. In the case of Whatcom County, clearly we are incarcerating both black and Native American at rates much higher than their representation in the general population. For city and some regional jails (bottom of this list), I do not compute K.
County.City PCTNotWhiteInJail PCTWhiteInPop K
1 Ferry 6.1% 76.5% -17.5%
2 Wahkiakum 0.0% 93.6% -6.4%
3 Stevens 4.9% 89.4% -5.7%
4 SanJuan 0.0% 94.5% -5.5%
5 PendOreille 3.6% 91.3% -5.1%
6 WallaWalla 7.0% 92.2% -0.8%
7 Franklin 8.3% 90.9% -0.8%
8 Mason 11.3% 88.3% -0.4%
9 Benton 10.2% 91.0% 1.3%
10 Clallam 13.6% 87.8% 1.4%
11 GraysHarbor 13.8% 87.7% 1.5%
12 Pacific 11.9% 89.9% 1.8%
13 Whitman 17.1% 85.1% 2.2%
14 Clark 15.0% 87.3% 2.3%
15 Snohomish 23.3% 80.2% 3.6%
16 Cowlitz 12.0% 91.9% 3.9%
17 Kitsap 20.9% 83.3% 4.2%
18 Columbia 10.0% 94.4% 4.4%
19 Asotin 10.3% 94.4% 4.7%
20 Thurston 22.2% 82.9% 5.2%
21 Lewis 12.7% 92.9% 5.6%
22 Jefferson 16.7% 91.3% 7.9%
23 Island 22.2% 86.3% 8.5%
24 Whatcom 22.5% 87.3% 9.9%
25 Spokane 20.7% 89.8% 10.5%
26 Kittitas 20.7% 91.9% 12.6%
27 Skamania 20.0% 93.0% 13.0%
28 King 43.9% 70.1% 14.0%
29 Lincoln 21.7% 94.3% 16.1%
30 Klickitat 25.5% 92.9% 18.4%
31 Pierce 43.2% 76.1% 19.3%
32 Chelan 26.4% 93.8% 20.2%
33 Skagit 29.4% 90.8% 20.2%
34 Okanogan 38.0% 82.4% 20.3%
35 Garfield 30.0% 95.4% 25.4%
36 Grant 42.7% 92.6% 35.2%
37 Yakima 57.7% 88.0% 45.7%
38 Adams 69.2% 90.6% 59.8%
39 Aberdeen 8.3% NA% NA%
40 Auburn NA% NA% NA%
41 Douglas NA% 93.7% NA%
42 Enumclaw 15.0% NA% NA%
43 Fife 41.4% NA% NA%
44 Forks 10.7% NA% NA%
45 Grandview 62.5% NA% NA%
46 Issaquah 16.1% NA% NA%
47 Kent 35.0% NA% NA%
48 Kirkland 6.2% NA% NA%
49 Lynnwood 42.5% NA% NA%
50 Marysville 25.0% NA% NA%
51 Nisqually NA% NA% NA%
52 OakHarbor NA% NA% NA%
53 Olympia NA% NA% NA%
54 Puyallup 20.4% NA% NA%
55 Renton NA% NA% NA%
56 SCORE 43.5% NA% NA%
57 Sunnyside 60.0% NA% NA%
58 Toppenish 90.0% NA% NA%
59 Wapato 42.4% NA% NA%
60 YakimaCity 11.7% NA% NA%
In her work "The New Jim Crow", Michelle Alexander defines an apartheid racial caste system which she labels as 'mass incarceration' This 'caste system' functions to racially oppress people of color and take as "collateral damage" those white prisoners caught in this system. With ratios of imprisonment in many counties in WA so clearly over represented by 'minority' racial populations, Ms. Alexander's framework has relevance for crime, law, and social justice in WA and Whatcom County. Below are some additional charts. Data in these charts is derived from the WASPC. In the following three charts, 'Percentage ADP (Average Daily Population)' gives the percentage (listed on the horizontal axis in decimal) of Black, Hispanic, Native American in all WA county jails. Click to Enlarge the Charts!
Native Americans are very clearly over represented in some of the county jails, particularly in Yakima and Whatcom which are much smaller counties by population than Spokane, Snohomish, and King. This chart compares those five counties for imcarceration of Native Americans by volume. The years 2010 - 2014 are represented bottom to top and left to right.
Both the nominal ADP (average daily population) and the percentage ADP (SpecificRace.ADP/ADP.Total) of some racial minorities is much smaller in some counties than others because of various factor like county size and the ratio of that jail population to that counties population. The following two charts look at Average Daily Population and Black.ADP/ADP (percentage) for Black Americans. In the second charts we can see that jails like SCORE and KING County have nearly 30% or more of their populations from Black Americans. Matching the ratio of any particular race from the more granular Census racial categories with the less granular WASPC racial categories will have to be saved for another post and more data.
The next two charts give us representation of ADP for mid to small sized counties close to Whatcom in size and location. The first excludes those who are white.
1 comment:
Thanks for working these numbers and for the previous post
Post a Comment