Home > U.S. ’Correctional Population’ Hits New High
By FOX BUTTERFIELD
The number of Americans under the control of the
criminal justice system grew by 130,700 last year to
reach a new high of nearly 6.9 million, according to a
Justice Department report released today.
The total includes people in jail and prison as well as
those on probation and parole. This is about 3.2
percent of the adult population in the United States,
the report said.
The growth in what the report termed the "correctional
population" comes at a time when the crime rate
nationwide has been relatively stable for several
years. It also comes when many states, faced with
budget deficits, have passed new, less strict
sentencing laws in an attempt to reduce the number of
inmates.
The report does not address why the number of men and
women in jail and prison and on probation and parole
has continued to increase. But experts say the most
likely reason is the cumulative effect of the tougher
sentencing laws passed in the 1990’s, which led to more
people’s being sent to prison and being required to
serve longer terms.
The report found that there were 691,301 people in
local and county jails and 1,387,269 in state and
federal prisons last year, for a total of 2,078,570.
That was an increase of 3.9 percent in the jail
population and 2.3 percent in the prison population.
At the same time, the report said, there were 4,073,987
Americans on probation at the end of last year, an
increase of 1.2 percent from the end of 2002, and
774,588 on parole, up 3.1 percent.
In general, people on probation have been placed there
after being convicted of a crime instead of being sent
to jail or prison. People on parole have usually
already served prison time and are kept on parole for
further supervision.
About 41 percent of adults on parole last year were
black; 40 percent were white.
The number of women on parole has steadily increased in
recent years, the report found. The percentage of
parolees who were women was 13 percent at the end of
2003, up from 10 percent at the end of 1995. This
increase reflects a slow but steady growth in the
number of women being arrested for and convicted of
serious crimes.
Of those people discharged from parole in 2003, 38
percent were returned to prison, either because of a
technical violation like failing a drug urine test or
because they were charged with committing a new crime.
Another 9 percent absconded and could not be located by
law enforcement, the report said.
The 3.1 percent increase in the number of people on
parole, the biggest in at least a decade, troubles many
police and prosecutors, because they believe that newly
released inmates are likely to return to a life of
crime and are a major source of violence in some
cities, including Boston, Chicago and Los Angeles.
Texas led the nation with 534,260 people on probation
or parole, followed by California, with 485,039.
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