Fig. 2: Percentage of incarcerated Black people across 12 representative states.

In some states, the percentage of incarcerated Black people had been decreasing over the past several years. In others, this percentage had been increasing. Across a variety of pre-2020 trends, we see the same general trend across the USA: during the pandemic, incarcerated Black people accounted for an even larger share of the total prison population than in previous years. a–l, We plot this trend in Arizona (a), California (b), Connecticut (c), Delaware (d), Florida (e), Georgia (f), Kentucky (g), Nevada (h), New York (i), Pennsylvania (j), Texas (k) and Washington (l)—states with consistent, frequent data reporting. Although each panel has a different vertical scale, the inset text indicates the peak percentage increase relative to 6-month pre-pandemic averages for each state.