The U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics report, Prisoners in 2013, is available in Adobe .pdf format.
The New York Times posts, "Number of Prisoners in U.S. Grew Slightly in 2013, Report Finds," by Erik Eckholm.
Breaking three consecutive years of decline, the number of people in state and federal prisons climbed slightly in 2013, according to a report released Tuesday, a sign that deeper changes in sentencing practices will be necessary if the country’s enormous prison population is to be significantly reduced.
The report by the Justice Department put the prison population last year at 1,574,700, an increase of 4,300 over the previous year, yet below its high of 1,615,487 in 2009. In what criminologists called an encouraging sign, the number of federal prisoners showed a modest drop for the first time in years.
But the federal decline was more than offset by a jump in the number of inmates at state prisons. The report, some experts said, suggested that policy changes adopted by many states, such as giving second chances to probationers and helping nonviolent drug offenders avoid prison, were limited in their reach.
Related posts are in the incarceration category index.
Comments