The rate of incarceration for blacks and Hispanics in Rhode Island, when compared with whites, is well above the national average, a new report shows.

Rhode Island has the ninth-highest ratio of African-American-to-white inmate population, and the eighth-highest ratio of Hispanic-to-white inmate population, according to a new report by The Sentencing Project, a national nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C.

The report, “Uneven Justice: State Rates of Incarceration by Race and Ethnicity,” also notes that Rhode Island’s overall incarceration rate for all races is lower than that of most states.

The Sentencing Project researches and advocates on criminal justice policy issues, working “for a fair and effective criminal justice system by promoting reforms in sentencing law and practice and alternatives to incarceration,” according to the report’s authors. It also seeks “to recast the public debate on crime and punishment.”

The report’s analysis of 2005 statistics compares incarceration rates per population of 100,000 for each state.

In Rhode Island, the incarceration rate for Hispanics is 631 per 100,000; for blacks, 1,838 per 100,000 ; and for whites, 191 per 100,000.

Among the report’s findings:

•African-Americans are incarcerated at nearly six (5.6) times the rate of whites.

•Hispanics are incarcerated at nearly double (1.8) the rate of whites.

•States exhibit substantial variation in the ratio of black-to-white incarceration, ranging from a high of 13.6-to-1 in Iowa to a low of 1.9-to-1 in Hawaii.

•States with the highest black-to-white ratio are disproportionately located in the Northeast and Midwest, including Iowa, Vermont, New Jersey, Connecticut and Wisconsin. Similarly, for the Hispanic-to-white ratio, the most disproportionate states are Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, New Hampshire and New Jersey.

While the number of people incarcerated in any given state partly reflects crime rates, “it is also related to a variety of policy decisions both within and without the criminal justice system,” according to the report.

The Sentencing Project suggests that federal and state policymakers “revisit the domestic drug-control strategy,” including recalibrating sentencing laws to target high-level distribution and sale offenses, rather than the current emphasis on low-level offender prosecutions.

It also suggests amending sentencing laws “in favor of prevention and treatment.”

The Rhode Island affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union said the report “demonstrates the need for a broader commitment to address racial profiling and related problems of racial disparities in Rhode Island’s criminal justice system.”

“These latest statistics make very clear the consequences of governmental policies and laws that are implemented and enforced in a disparate manner against the minority population in Rhode Island,” said Rhode Island ACLU executive director Steven Brown.

For instance, said Brown, “the statistics on traffic stops in Rhode Island have consistently demonstrated that blacks and Hispanics are much more likely than whites to be stopped and searched, even though they are less likely than whites to be found with contraband.”

“If police target particular groups for extra scrutiny, the inevitable effect is a prison population whose racial breakdown mirrors that targeting,” Brown said.

Brown said he hoped that these latest figures would prompt the General Assembly to enact strong anti-racial profiling legislation next year. No action was taken on such legislation in the most recent session.

“There’s no question that all over the United States, in every single state, the ratio of minorities to whites in prison is very high,” said Leo Carroll, professor of sociology at the University of Rhode Island. “But if you want to get into the ‘why,’ it’s very complicated.”

Some of that includes biases “at different points of the system.”

“I’m not trying to say there’s bias everywhere, but to the extent there is bias, it accumulates as it goes through the system,” Carroll said. “There may be racial profiling … and what you end up going to prison for depends on what you’re charged with. It also depends on how good a lawyer you have, or what kind of plea bargain might be struck.”

Carroll added that minorities are disadvantaged “because they are [generally] less well off.” For instance, being able to post bail presents “a tremendous advantage for someone who’s out and can assist in their defense,” over someone who remains behind bars.

“There are major policy considerations and we have to look at our get-tough-on-crime policies in the same way all states have to. Many of those policies unintentionally and adversely affect people of color,” said Carroll.

For example, “when you get tough on drugs, it isn’t so much that people of color are more drug dealers — it’s just that the drug-dealing is more open in those areas. It’s easier to arrest them,” he said. Whereas drug-dealing among whites “is less open and then the police deploy their resources into South Providence and it’s easier to make the drug arrests there than it is on the East Side.”

Jack McDevitt, associate dean of the College of Criminal Justice at Northeastern University, said, “I think we’ve known all along that there have been differences in incarceration rates by state. What this report is doing is specifying that there are also differences in racial disparities in incarceration by state.”

What the report does not do, according to McDevitt, “is to explain why those disparities occur. What we know in the research on any kind of disparities, whether racial profiling or use of force by police, or whether it’s incarceration, is that having a disparity is not necessarily being racist. Sometimes there are reasons for disparity.”

Said McDevitt, “It’s a good report. It raises some questions that are important. It should be a place where states and communities start a conversation about why these disparities exist, and if government officials can explain them in a way that the public is comfortable with, then everything should be fine, and if they can’t, it points to areas where reforms should be needed.”

kziner@projo.com