142 Negro Migration 



Though about three times as many Negroes per 100,000 

 are committed in the North as in the South, the crimes for 

 which they are committed are about of the same nature. 

 That is, 2,236.7 per 100,000, or 78.9 per cent of the total 

 number of commitments in the North and 732.5, or 83.2 

 per cent of the total number of commitments in the South 

 are for minor offenses, — larceny, drunkenness and disorderly 

 conduct, vagrancy, juvenile offenses and other minor offenses. 



Notwithstanding this virtual equality in the proportions 

 committed for minor offenses, there is a striking inequality 

 in the length of sentences which were served. The pro- 

 portion of long sentences in the South seems unduly 

 high. 12 



Per Cent Committed For: 



Over 1 month 1 month 



1 year to 1 year or less 

 White Commitments: 



North 6.9 53.9 39.2 



South 33.8 37.8 28.4 



Negro Commitments: 



North 16.0 53.5 30.5 



South 42.3 40.4 17.4 



Thus 42.3 per cent of the Negroes in the South are 



committed for a year or more, while only 16 per cent are 



given such a long term in the North ; and only 17.4 per cent 



of the Southern Negroes are committed for 1 month or less, 



while 30.5 per cent of the Northern commitments are for 



this short period. The fact that the commitments are also 



longer for white people in the South indicates that some of 



this discrepancy in length of sentence is due to a sectional 



rather than a racial difference in administration of justice. 



The purely sectional tendency to impose longer sentences 



in the South on both races is not, however, sufficient to 



account for the tremendous proportion of Southern Negroes 



committed for over a year and the very small proportion 



committed for less than a month. 13 



12 Negro population in the U. S., opp. cite, p. 440. 

 18 Relative ability to pay fines does not offset this conclusion 

 since in the South 66.8 per cent of Negro commitments and 65.0 



