Prison Population Increases...Again

One in every 31 adults in the U.S. was either incarcerated or under community supervision at the end of 2007, according to new prison and jail statistics released Dec. 11 by the Dept. of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics. The new BJS numbers for 2007 (the most recent numbers available) show an increase in the number of U.S. residents that were incarcerated last year, up 1.5% over 2006, for a total of 2.3 million. Including individuals on parole or probation, a record 7.3 million were under control of the criminal justice system as of Dec. 31, 2007. In all, the BJS reports, the U.S. prison population is grew more rapidly last year than did the country's resident population as a whole.

Texas ranked number one in the number of people on probation at year end (434,309) and number two, second to California, for the number of people on parole (101,748). Texas also earned the dubious honor of being first, by far, in the number of inmates housed in privately owned prisons, with a whopping 11% of the prison population being housed in private facilities. (Overall, Texas' prison population actually dropped in 2007 by a very, very, very modest .2%, or just under 1,000 inmates. The state's overall rate of incarceration dropped significantly, likely due to the state's increasing population.)

Among the U.S. prison population, black males are still grossly over represented, at 39% of the prison population compared to just over 12% of the entire male population.