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A new study from the Sentencing Project found New Jersey has the highest racial disparity in the nation among black and white prisoners.

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TRENTON -- New Jersey has the biggest gap between black and white incarceration rates of any state in the U.S., according to a new report from the Washington, D.C.-based Sentencing Project.

The Garden State puts black residents behind bars at 12 times the rate of white residents, the report found, though it noted that gap is expected to shrink thanks to recent changes to New Jersey's sentencing laws.

Nationally, that disparity is closer to five to one, the report found.

In recent years, New Jersey has been held up as a national leader in reducing its prison population -- a fact highlighted by President Barack Obama, who last fall made a stop in Newark to push his criminal justice reform agenda -- and New Jersey's racial disparity in prison populations is expected to fall.

But, Ashley Nellis, a senior researcher at the Sentencing Project and the report's author, told NJ Advance Media: "The effect (of state-level reform) on African-American incarceration is probably going to take little longer because the disparity is so severe."

New Jersey was one of five states -- along with Iowa, Minnesota, Vermont and Wisconsin -- where the black-to-white disparity was more than 10 to one. Those figures are based on state incarceration rates per 100,000 residents.

African Americans make up less than 15 percent of New Jersey's population but more than 60 percent of the state's prison population, the data show. Still, because

In 2014, there were 21,590 prisoners in New Jersey -- 13,170 of whom were black, 4,750 of whom were white and 3,454 of whom were Hispanic -- according to the Sentencing Project's data.

The report attributed racial disparity in incarceration rates to three factors: policies and practices like drug free school zone laws that disproportionately affect racial minorities, implicit bias within the justice system and among policy makers and "structural disadvantages" in communities of color.

The report highlights drug sentencing reforms implemented in New Jersey in 2010, which sought to address the disproportionate impact of the the state's drug free school zone laws on urban offenders. The state is also in the midst of comprehensive bail reform, which has been hailed by minority and civil liberties advocates.

New Jersey's decline in prison population has seen a 30 percent reduction in black prisoners, a 35 percent reduction in Hispanic prisoners and a 16 percent reduction in white prisoners, according to the Sentencing Project's data.

"With more time and continued focus on reforms, the racial disparities may continue to improve," the report said.

S.P. Sullivan may be reached at ssullivan@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Corrrection: A previous headline on this post inaccurately referred to New Jersey's incarceration rate rather than the racial disparity in incarceration rates. The headline has been corrected. New Jersey's black incarceration is actually below the national average, according to the report.