u.s. correctional populations on 12/31/08
The Bureau of Justice statistics recently released year-end 2008 data for two important data series: Probation and Parole in the United States, 2008 and Prisoners in 2008.
Overall, these populations rose about .5% over 2007 levels, so they are growing at a much slower rate than in the recent past. In fact, the U.S. imprisonment rate actually fell slightly -- from 506 per 100,000 in 2007 to 504 per 100,000 in 2008. All told, there are about 7.3 million Americans under correctional supervision -- about 3.1% of the adult population, or 1 in 31 adults. After a long period of growth that began in the mid-1970s, this rate has remained relatively stable since 2000.
posted by christopher uggen @ 8:18 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I think it would be interesting to find out if the decline in growth is more the result of fewer people entering the system for the first time, or fewer people returning to prison. My guess would be fewer people entering for the first time, but it would be hard to find out for sure as, to the best of my knowledge, there are multiple definitions of recidivism, and thus, multiple ways of measuring it.
The reports give specifics on entries and exits for each population, Ben. For probation, the entries still exceed the exits, but the entries are definitely slowing down.
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