105 Iowa L. Rev. 901 (2020)

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Abstract 

For decades, the racial disparity in Iowa’s prison system has persistently been one of the worst in the nation—despite the fact that the state is home to relatively few people of color. This Note submits that Iowa’s County Attorneys may play an outsized role in perpetuating this state of affairs by charging and convicting disproportionate numbers of African-Americans with more serious offenses at extraordinarily high rates. A descriptive analysis of statistical data on charges and convictions in Iowa’s largest counties suggests that some prosecutors’ practices contribute more heavily to this disparity than others. Although establishing the precise scope of the problem will require more thorough data collection and analysis, the state’s legal and political authorities already have the power to eradicate this manifest injustice. They need only to use it.