HOME: Oakland Equity Indicators | Public Safety | Incarceration 

The Incarceration Topic includes three Indicators that measure racial and ethnic disparities in adult felony arrests, jail incarceration, and prison incarceration. The first Indicator measures disparities in adult felony arrests between African Americans and Asians. The second Indicator measures disparities in jail incarceration between African Americans and Asians. The third Indicator measures disparities in prison incarceration between African Americans and Asians. In all three indicator areas the disparities between African American and White residents were nearly as large.

Incarceration is the lowest scoring Topic in the Public Safety Theme and the entire framework with a Topic score of 1.0, the lowest possible score. The Indicator scores were all the same and all the absolute lowest score possible (1), indicating that this is an area of extreme disparity.

In Oakland, the adult felony arrest rate was highest among African Americans at 8,269.1 per 100,000 people. Latinos were second highest at 2,006.3 per 100,000 people. Whites were next at 638.3 per 100,000 people, and Asians had the lowest felony arrest rates at 580.6 per 100,000 people. An African American person was 14.24 times more likely and a Latino person 3.46 times more likely to be arrested for a felony than an Asian person in Oakland. An African American person was also 12.95 times more likely to be arrested for a felony than a White person.

The jail incarceration rate was by far the highest for African Americans at 974.6 per 100,000 people, followed by Latinos at 257.9 per 100,000 people. Next highest was Whites at 113.3 per 100,000 people. The rate for Asians and other races and ethnicities was lowest at 49.9 per 100,000. The overall jail incarceration rate for Alameda County was 227.9 per 100.000. African Americans in Alameda County in 2015 were 19.53 times more likely than Asians/Other and 8.60 times more likely than Whites to be incarcerated in jails.

The prison incarceration rate for African Americans was by far the highest at 1,856.8 per 100,000 people. The Latino prison incarceration rate was a distant second at 251.5 per 100,000 people. Next came Whites at 92.1 per 100,000 people, while the rate for Asians and other races and ethnicities was 74.8 per 100,000 people. The prison incarceration rate for Alameda County was 332.1 per 100,000. African Americans were 24.82 times more likely to be incarcerated in prisons than Asians/Other and 20.16 times more likely than Whites.