NCJ Number
178063
Date Published
1987
Length
41 pages
Annotation
This paper examines national trends in State and Federal prison populations.
Abstract
In 1926 the Federal Government, in a statistical series called "National Prisoner Statistics," began keeping annual records of State and Federal prison populations. Published, soon- to-be-published, and unpublished statistical reports from "National Prisoner Statistics" are the basis for this study. The various measures for investigating national trends are an annual national census of "prisoners present" begun in 1926 and repeated every year thereafter; an annual national census of prison admissions; an annual national census of prison releases; a national sample survey of State prison inmates, and an annual census of participating States. Among the findings are that prison populations have reached record highs both in absolute numbers and per capita rates; courts are now committing offenders to prison at per capita rates nearly double those rates observed over most of the 60-year series. Admissions of conditional release violators are increasing at a faster rate than court commitments; and discharge from prison is increasingly the result of sentence imposed minus good-time credit and decreasingly the result of parole boards deciding how much time a prisoner serves. Offenders under a death sentence have been increasing at a faster rate than prisoners in the general inmate population; since 1980 the number of death row prisoners has increased 156 percent compared to a 66-percent increase among all prisoners. The number of female inmates have been increasing in recent years as a percentage of the prison population. The number of blacks as a percentage of the prison population have steadily grown over the more than 60 years of compiling race statistics; currently, blacks are nearly half of the prison population. 23 tables