I was curious about how the Atlanta prison population compared to the general population in the early 1900s because of the increase in hate groups and the reviving of the Ku Klux Klan. I pulled data from a 1910 and 1920 report of the United States Penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia as well as US Census Data from the same years.1 I originally thought that the Black prison population would be disproportionately larger when compared to the overall population of Atlanta, but this was not what I found.
2 This graph shows the comparison of the prison population by year. The prison was primarily populated by white and Black men during these years, and the other races that were identified and counted numbered less than ten each.3
4 The above chart compares the US Census data of Atlanta, Georgia from 1910 to 1920. The US Census during these years separated native-born white people and foreign-born white people, but all other races and ethnicities were together. By simply comparing the two graphs, it appears that the population of inmates is comparable to that of the overall population of Atlanta during these years. It looks as though the white population in the US Penitentiary may actually be larger when compared to the overall population.5
Looking at how the percentages change over this decade is helpful in understanding how these changes reflect the overall city population. The Black population of the US Penitentiary made up 35.1% in 1910 and 29.9% in 1920 of the total prison population, marking a decrease of 5.2%. The Black population of Atlanta, Georgia made up 33.5% in 1910 and 31.3% in 1920 for the overall population. This indicates that, in terms of the US Penitentiary Reports and the US Census, the Black population within the prison nearly matched the overall population in the city. In 1910, the Black prison population was slightly higher than the overall city population, but it decreased to below the city population percentage in 1920. The white prison population totaled around 64.2% in 1910 and 69.6% in 1920, marking a 5.4% increase. The white city population grew from 66.4% in 1910 to 68.7% in 1920.
One notable aspect of how the population changes is the decrease in Black people in both the city and prison population. This could be attributed to the Great Migration, which began around the early 1900s. The Great Migration was the movement of Black people out of the South and towards the North as they sought better lives. This would account for the decrease in both the city and the prison population.
According to these numbers, the prison population of the US Penitentiary in Atlanta accurately portrayed the city population at the time, disproving my original idea. In more recent years, there have been discussions of how accurately the US prison population accurately reflects the overall population. In future research, I would like to look at a larger selection of dates that reach into more modern years to determine if there is a change in the prison population that shows if one race is disproportionally imprisoned more than others.
- I chose the dates 1910 and 1920 because of the Great Migration phenomena that began around the 1910s. The US Penitentiary in Atlanta had reports for these years and were easily accessible, and I chose to compare them to the US Census data for the same years. The US Penitentiary included counts of Indian, Mexican, and Chinese inmates, but the numbers are too low to be easily seen on the graph. I chose to include them despite this to show that they were still counted. The US Census data included counts for Indian, Chinese, and citizens, but they were not counted separately. I ultimately decided to exclude them from the graph because it did not break up these races into separate categories. They are included in my original data set, but they are left out of the graph. I chose bar graphs because I wanted to compare the increase or decrease of population size. [↩]
- United States Penitentiary, Ninth Annual Report of the United States Penitentiary Atlanta, Georgia: For the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1910, 35. [↩]
- United States Penitentiary, Annual Report of the Warden United States Penitentiary Atlanta, Georgia: For the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1920, 50 [↩]
- US Census Bureau; Census 1910, “Composition and Characteristics of the Population,” Georgia, Table IV, https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1910/volume-2/volume-2-p4.pdf (1910 [↩]
- US Census Bureau; Census 1920, “Composition and Characteristics of the Population for Wards of Cities of 50,000 or More,” Georgia, Table 18, https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1920/volume-3/41084484v3ch03.pdf (1920 [↩]
