Disaggregating Jail Use: Variety and Change in Local Corrections Over a Ten-Year Period (From American Jails: Public Policy Issues, P 40-48, 1991, Joel A Thompson and G Larry Mays, eds. -- See NCJ-165482)

• NCJ Number: 165485
• Author(s): J M Klofas
• Date Published: 1991
• Length: 9 pages
• Sale Source: Nelson-Hall Publishers
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The data for this study describe jail use in Illinois for the 10-year period from 1977 through 1986.

Abstract

Bookings, average daily population, numbers of sentenced and unsentenced inmates, and other characteristics of the jail populations in the State's 96 county jails were made available by the Illinois Department of Corrections. The Cook County Jail, which houses approximately 5,000 inmates, was excluded from the analysis as an extreme outlier. Crime data were taken from the Illinois Department of Law Enforcement's annual report, which provides county-by-county crime reports used in the compilation of the Uniform Crime Reports. Among the findings are that jail use is more complex than prison use; jail growth is not monolithic, but varied and dependent on the proportion of inmates serving sentences; crowding is not simply a function of available space, but related to use patterns; and use patterns remain relatively stable over time. From these findings, the study concludes that some local jurisdictions have established more effective jail-use patterns than others and calls for more policy-relevant research on the causes of jail crowding. 5 tables, 1 figure, and 2 notes