Natl: Two New Bulletins on the Expansion of the Criminal Justice System
December 7, 2006 - 9:11am
In November, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) released two bulletins that put real numbers behind the expansion of the criminal justice system in the United States, Prisoners in 2005, which includes prison populations at the end of 2005 along with rates of prison and jail system growth since 1995, and Probation and Parole in the United States, 2005.
At the end of 2005, there were 2,320,359 people in state prisons, federal prisons, or local jails in the United States. If we take a step back from that huge number and look at all the people living under the control of the criminal justice system: people in prisons and jails and people on probation or parole, the total becomes 7 million. Last year, one person out of every 32 people was either incarcerated or on probation or parole.
Looking at our region, Montana’s prison population increased by almost 11% over the year.
In Oregon, the increase in the state’s prison population has averaged around 7.5% a year compared to the national average of 5% a year.
While there are still fewer women in prison than men, women are the fastest increasing part of the prison population. From 1995 to 2005, the number of women prisoners grew 57%, and the number of men in prison grew 34%.
African American men are still over-represented in the prison system. In 2005, 8.1% of black men between the ages of 25 and 29 were in prison. For young Latino men, 2.6% were in prison, and for white men in the same age group, 1.1% were in prison.
These are just samples of the information in the two bulletins. The reports are well worth your time:
