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Prisoners grew by 900 inmates a week during 2004 { June 30 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Posted on Mon, Apr. 25, 2005
U.S. prisons swell by nearly 900 inmates per week in 2004
SIOBHAN McDONOUGH
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Growing at a rate of about 900 inmates each week over the span of a year, the nation's prisons and jails held 2.1 million people, or one for every 138 U.S. residents, as of June 30, the government reported Sunday.
That's 48,000 more inmates, or 2.3 percent, more than the year before, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The figures compare inmate population from June 30, 2003 to June 30, 2004.
The total inmate population has hovered around 2 million for the past few years.
Minnesota led the nation with an increase of 13.2 percent for the year ended June 30, 2004. The number of prisoners rose from 7,612 on June 30, 2003 to 8,613 last year. Corrections Commissioner Joan Fabian attributed it to methamphetamine arrests and stiffer sentencing laws.
"It's been an unprecedented growth," she told the Star Tribune.
While the crime rate has fallen over the past decade, the number of people in prison and jail is outpacing the number of inmates released, said the report's co-author, Paige Harrison. For example, the number of admissions to federal prisons in 2004 exceeded releases by more than 8,000, the study found.
Harrison said the increase can be attributed largely to get-tough policies enacted in the 1980s and 1990s. Among them are mandatory drug sentences, "three-strikes-and-you're-out" laws for repeat offenders, and "truth-in-sentencing" laws that restrict early releases.
"As a whole most of these policies remain in place," she said. "These policies were a reaction to the rise in crime in the '80s and early 90s."
Added Malcolm Young, executive director of the Sentencing Project, which promotes alternatives to prison: "We're working under the burden of laws and practices that have developed over 30 years that have focused on punishment and prison as our primary response to crime."
He said many of those incarcerated are not serious or violent offenders, but are low-level drug offenders. Young said one way to help lower the number is to introduce drug treatment programs that offer effective ways of changing behavior and to provide appropriate assistance for the mentally ill.
According to the Justice Policy Institute, which advocates a more lenient system of punishment, the United States has a higher rate of incarceration than any other country, followed by Britain, China, France, Japan and Nigeria.
There were 726 inmates for every 100,000 U.S. residents by June 30, 2004, compared with 716 a year earlier, according to the report by the Justice Department agency. In 2004, one in every 138 U.S. residents was in prison or jail; the previous year it was one in every 140.
In 2004, 61 percent of prison and jail inmates were of racial or ethnic minorities, the government said. An estimated 12.6 percent of all black men in their late 20s were in jails or prisons, as were 3.6 percent of Hispanic men and 1.7 percent of white men in that age group, the report said.
Other findings include:
_State prisons held about 2,500 youths under 18 in 2004. That compares with a peak, in 1995, of about 5,300. Local jails held about 7,000 youths, down from 7,800 in 1995.
_In the year ending last June 30, 13 states reported an increase of at least 5 percent in the federal system, led by Minnesota, at about 13 percent; Montana at 10.5 percent; Arkansas at 9 percent.
Among the 12 states that reported a decline in the inmate population were Alabama, 7 percent; Connecticut, 2.5 percent; and Ohio, 2 percent.
ON THE NET
Bureau of Justice Statistics: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs
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