Race, education, income, poverty: How does Baltimore compare?
Much of Baltimore's unrest a year ago was rooted in socioeconomic conditions of the city. The Justice Policy Institute examined some of those issues in a February 2015 report, before the April 2015 unrest, called "The Right Investment? Corrections Spending in Baltimore City."
The report zeroed in on the five communities most affected -- Clifton-Berea, Greater Rosemont, Southern Park Heights and Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park, where Freddie Gray lived.
READ: Justice Policy Institute Report | Justice Policy Institute Executive Summary
The report listed indicators of lost opportunities for the communities surveyed: unemployment and commute time, income and public assistance, educational attainment, public safety, housing, physical health and addiction.
The report found that the Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park neighborhood had the highest incarceration rate among those communities in Baltimore. With a lower educational attainment, 34 percent of Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park residents do not have a high school diploma or GED and 52 percent of people ages 16-64 are unemployed, according to the report.
"Not only does the Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park experience incarceration more intensely than other neighborhoods, it also faces the most concentrated challenges related to work education, health and housing," the report says.
At $24,006, Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park also has one of the lowest median household incomes in the city, according to the report. One out of four people in the same neighborhood is on public assistance, receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families or TANF benefits.
There's a higher rate of abandoned or vacant housing in the Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park community, according to the report. One out of every three, or 33 percent, of houses in the community were vacant or abandoned in 2012 compared to one in 12 in Baltimore.
When it comes to health, 7 percent of children in the Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park neighborhood have elevated blood-lead levels while no children were reported to have lead in their systems in other neighborhoods, according to the report.
The report finds that the same neighborhood had the highest rate of emergency narcotic calls to 911 with nearly one narcotic call made for every two people, compared to other neighborhoods in Baltimore.
Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park had higher rates of violent crime compared to other Baltimore neighborhoods with 23 incidents of violent crime per 1,000 people, according to the report.
"At an estimated cost of approximately $37,200 per person per year, Maryland taxpayers spend $288 million annually to incarcerate people from Baltimore City," the report says. Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park community has more than 450 people in prison at an estimated cost of incarceration at $17 million, according to the report.
At the per-person incarceration cost of $37,200 annually, Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park could receive drug treatment for eight adults, employment training for seven people, two-bedroom apartments for 30 families for one month and GED courses for 37 people, according to the report.
The report suggests reallocating resources away from prison and incarceration to helping Baltimore's communities, like Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park to face its socioeconomic issues.
Expand on the Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park snapshot: See how Baltimore City compares to five similar cities nationwide -- Boston, Denver, Washington, D.C., Nashville and Seattle -- when it comes to population, race, education, income and poverty levels.
Of the cities surveyed, only Baltimore and Washington, D.C., had a larger number of residents who identified as black. Whites dominated demographics in the other four cities.
Census data breaks down education in two ways: those who are high school graduates and those who continued education with a bachelor's degree or higher. See how Baltimore ranked among its counterparts.
In areas of socioeconomic disparity, education and income are two of several factors relative to the conditions of residents, according to the report.
Baltimore ranks as the lowest in median income among the cities surveyed nationwide and the highest for people living in poverty.
COUNTY COMPARISON
See how Baltimore City compares to counties in the metro region -- Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard -- when it comes to population, race, education, income and poverty levels.
Whites dominated demographics in all the counties in the metro region, while Baltimore City had a majority of residents who identified as black.
Among counties in the metro region, Baltimore fell behind every county in its percentage of high school and college graduates.
While the median income in Howard County exceeds six figures, Baltimore City's is less than half that.
The median income figures correlate to the percentage of people living in poverty, as Baltimore City ranked the highest in the metro region.
All graphics contain data collected by the U.S. Census Bureau for 2010 and 2014.