A new report on racial disparities in state prisons underscores the need for policymakers and state administrators in Oklahoma to take a hard look at the policies, practices and prejudices that are playing out in the state's criminal justice system.

By analyzing U.S. Justice Department data, the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization The Sentencing Project found that Oklahoma has the nation's highest incarceration rate for black men, nearly twice the national average. One in 15 adult black men in Oklahoma is in prison, compared with a national average of 1 in 26.

The findings come in a period when many states, including Oklahoma, have failed to meaningfully respond to evidence of prejudice in the justice system from the point of arrest through imprisonment. One need look no further than the events of the past few weeks involving racially charged police-citizen shoot-outs in several cities to be convinced that blacks and whites experience different justice systems. Oklahoma is no exception to this sad reality.

Policymakers and administrators in Oklahoma are aware of the disparities. States like Connecticut and Utah have legislated sentencing reforms or recategorized drug cases in particular, which account for many of the convictions that lead to racial and ethnic disparities. In those states, possession and use of drugs is more likely to lead to treatment or regulation rather than imprisonment.

African-Americans are not more likely to use or sell drugs, but biased policing

practices as well as state drug laws that have a disparate impact on blacks mean they are more likely to wind up in prison, where whites convicted of similar offenses may get alternative outcomes.