Factbox: Balance of Mississippi pardons by race

Former Mississippi Goveor Haley Barbour granted clemency earlier this month to more than 200 prisoners, including four convicted murderers, sparking controversy and raising questions over whether his pardons met public notice requirements in the state's constitution.

Full attention had not been paid to the racial composition of the list of pardoned inmates and ex-convicts. But data examined by Reuters showed that roughly two out of every three were white. The racial makeup of Mississippi's prison population is the inverse: about two-thirds' black.

The data used by Reuters came from a number of sources, including the Mississippi Secretary of State's Office, the Mississippi Department of Corrections, and criminal records available to the public.

The following is a summary of the findings and sources:

* There were 222 grants of clemency, of which 203 were full, unconditional pardons and 19 were suspensions or commutations of sentences, according to documents released by the Mississippi Secretary of State's Office. (http://www.sos.ms.gov/links/ed_pubs/pubs/pardons_barbour_1.10.2012.pdf.)

- They showed that five offenders received clemency in 2008, two in 2010, one in 2011 and the remaining 214 this year.

- Since one offender received a suspension of sentence in 2008 and a pardon this year, there were 222 grants of clemency to a total of 221 prisoners, according to the documents.

* Information from public criminal records and the Mississippi Department of Corrections showed that out of a total of 221 offenders granted clemency:

- 141, or 64 percent, were white

- 68, or 31 percent, were black

- the racial backgrounds of 12 were unconfirmed

- The Mississippi Department of Corrections was able to supply the race of 183 of those offenders based on their ID numbers.

- The 39 remaining names were run through a criminal records search on TLO, an aggregator of public records. Criminal records include data on the race of an offender.

- In order for a TLO record to be considered, it had to match the pardons list in four ways: the name, the offense, the county of arrest, and the sentencing date on the Executive Order had to be close to the arrest date on the TLO criminal record search.

* As of January 1, 2012, the state's total prison population stood at 25,258 inmates, according to Mississippi Department of Corrections statistics. (http://www.mdoc.state.ms.us/Research%20and%20Statistics/MonthlyFactSheets/2012MFS/Fact%20Sheet%2001-01-2012.pdf)

- 16,386 were black prisoners (64.87% of the total)

- 8,572 white prisoners (33.94% of the total)

- 300 were a mixture of Hispanic, Native American, Asian and Unidentified (1.19%)