Visualizing Mass Incarceration and The School-To-Prison Pipeline

Christopher Kinyua
Nikhil Vanderklaauw
Shruthi Venkata
Simon Warchol
Mass incarceration is one of the most jarring realities of the United States. The practice of imprisoning socioeconomic and racial minorities, as well as other specific groups, stems from a harsh and complex history of racial discrimination unique to the United States, whose infrastructure and economy originally emerged from slavery, and in which under the 13th Amendment, involuntary servitude is only permissible in the context of jail. This history has transformed into an equally complex modern reality, in which demographics are jailed in varying patterns, for varying reasons, across different regions of the US.

These visualizations aim to expose trends in incarceration via a number of those factors, and then more specifically address the role of educational institutions and their punitive systems in feeding the prison-industrial complex.

Incarceration Rate (US)

Each of the dots on the right represents 1% of the US population(3M individuals).

What percent of the US population do you think is currently incarcerated?

Drag and click to make your selection.

Black Incarceration Rate (US)

Out of the 14M incarcerated Americans, how many do you think are Black?

Each dot represents 1% of the incarcerated population(Around 140K Individuals).

Drag and click to make your selection.

School-Related Arrests

Out of all school-related arrests in the US, how many do you think are Black?

Each dot represents 1% of school-related arrests (Around 100K Individuals).

Drag and click to make your selection.

Incarceration Population Ratios

If you haven't already noticed, the percentage of incarcerated people who are Black/African American and the percentage of school-related arrests involving black people are almost identical(Around 30-33%).

What percentage of the total US population do you think is comprised of Black/African American people?

Drag and click to make your selection.

Source: ACLU

Incarceration Totals and Rates

The School to Prison Pipeline

Source: ACLU

The School to Prison Pipeline cont'd

The ACLU describes the “school-to-prison pipeline” as a national trend in which youth are funneled out of schools into juvenile and criminal justice systems. Especially affected are students with learning disabilities, and children from minority and disadvantaged groups, including racial minorities and children who grew up in poverty.

“When children attend schools that place a greater value on discipline and security than on knowledge and intellectual development, they are attending prep schools for prison”

― Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?


On the right you can observe the correlation between the percent of students who have been suspended in a particular county and the percent of the county's population who was incarcerated. Hovering over dots will display a tooltip with the data and county name.

School Statistics - Race Breakdown


Here, we investigate the various trends in disciplinary action taken against students across America. We can see some standout trends with Black, Native American and Pacific Islander students having the highest rates for many of the disciplinary measures.

You can explore the different rates to further understand inequalities in disciplinary action. You can also choose to display the default ordering or sort/unsort the descending order.

Clicking on a bar will populate the map and display the percent of students of that race in each state.

Sources