Are racial gaps in US justice system inevitable? New data shows progress.

It’s come as a surprise to many: Racial disparities in the criminal justice system have declined dramatically since the start of the millennium.

At times, the disparities have seemed like an intractable problem, tied to issues ranging from uneven drug sentencing laws and implicit bias to poverty and crime trends. But now, the Council on Criminal Justice in Atlanta has presented new evidence of a shift. It found a narrowing of the large gaps between the incarceration rates for white people and those for black and Hispanic people. The same...