Studies report that 1 million African Americans account for half of the U.S. prison population, while 70 percent of the prison population are people of color. Meanwhile, white Americans comprise 70 percent of the general U.S. population.

Many critics assert that these statistics are the results of a racist criminal justice system. They argue that blacks are seven times more likely to be imprisoned than whites, at a rate of 700 per 100,000. Critics also add that the war on drugs is racially biased and responsible for the growing racial disparity in prisons. According to prison reform activist Pamela Davis, “People of color are subject to far more intense modes of surveillance than white people. . . . Although the rate of illicit drug use among white people is actually greater than blacks, black people are arrested and convicted on drug charges far more frequently.”

Supporters of the...