It’s also intentional in that penitentiaries and prisons from the start in America were an incredibly racist endeavor. As was the response to the “crime waves” of that time period you mentioned. The early prisons, both private and public, were a Protestant method of punishment involving hard labor to cleanse you of your sins. But they were quickly co-opted as a way to make money, whether by labor for the prison itself or by the state leasing convicts to corporations. And after slavery as a way to keep African American people enslaved. If you’ve never seen documentaries on Angola, it’s horrifying the direct lineage of racism visible. Lines of black men in chains, in fields, picking cotton, under the watch of white guards on horseback…in the year 1960 and beyond. Wardens who had property on the plantation prisons of Arkansas and used black prisoners who weren’t in the fields as “house boys”. That’s always been and is today one intentional use for prisons.

The USA also has 22% of all prisoners globally

I don’t believe these were ever that well intentioned. Race and socioeconomic status was not something unseen and unknown to the politicians, voters, and every one else involved.

There’s a reason some one people like Bernie Sanders were against the 1992 crime bill. Which many republicans and democrats were for. To say the people for it were well intentioned when Bernie and others were telling them of the consequences and having already seen the negative consequences up to that point shows these were not unintended and not well intentioned.

Race is usually invoked as a thought-terminating cliche these days. It might interest you to know that a lot of black people also supported the crime bill because black communities were among those most victimized by crime.

You have found a new way to spin the classic “only racists talk about race”. Also added in a “usually”.

It can interest me when parts of a [sub]group do something. However it doesn’t have to mean anything too concrete or logical or line up so perfectly and neatly as your last sentence states.