Report: Blacks more likely to be jailed for drug crimes

A new report finds blacks in Cook County are imprisoned for drug crimes at 58 times the rate of whites.

The report by the Washington, D.C.-based Justice Policy Institute says that's the seventh-worst racial disparity among large counties it studied across the country. Nationwide, it found blacks are imprisoned at ten times the rate of whites.

The findings indicate part of the disparity in prison rates has to do with concentration of police in urban areas -- where narcotics are often sold in open-air markets. In suburbs, drug sales and usage is more likely to take place inside.

The study will be officially released today