Wait, what? This isn’t some misleading title, despite the serious f$%k up that is the U.S. prison system and law enforcements clearly prejudiced treatment of blacks in america it seems that the incarceration of blacks has actually been dropping, significantly!

According to figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics annual reports on the state and federal prison population the rate of black male incarceration in the U.S. has declined by 23% from 2001 peak.The peak was 212 per 100,000, In 2014 it was at at 109 per 100,000.

The incarceration of black women is much much less but has actually dropped 49% since a peak of 212 per 100,000 in 1999. The 2014 figure was 109 per 100,000.

That’s significant and it’s important to point out this isn’t a trend of incarceration dropping in general. This is for black prisoners only, white incarceration has actually been rising.

I must admit, this information is a bit shocking for me, personally I have not made full sense of it yet. Of course it is good positive news, less black men per 100,000 are reaching jails! We need to celebrate that.

But I don’t think it changes things. The fight is obviously far from over, for many many reasons black people are ending up at the end of jail sentences for light crimes or crimes they didn’t commit. Or they are falling to crime, in many cases due to the conditions that young black people grow up in, in the United States.

This problem isn’t something that can just be fixed by black people committing less crimes and pulling their pants up, this is systemic, the racism from the top that affects all black lives.

This is why Black Lives Matter, why the attention needs to be kept up and why blacks need to buy black, why people need to economically strengthen their own communities.

I would love to hear what you think about this information and you can read more on The Washington Post here: http://wapo.st/2bzWd9s