State And Federal Prisoners, 1925-85
U.S. Depar1ment ofJusticeBureau of Justice StatisticsState and FederalPrisoners, 1925-85The number of persons sentenced toState and Federal correctional institutions has been recorded annuallysince January 1, 1926 (reported here asyearend 1925). The rapid growth ofprison population over the past 12 yearsthus can be viewed against nearly 50years of prior data. In general thetrend in prison population over theentire period has been one of upwardgrowth, about half of which reflects thegrowth in the general population duringthe same period (table 1 and figure 1).The average annual growth rate forthe prison popUlation during 1925-85was 2.8%; for the residential population of the United States it was 1.2%.The more rapid growth of the prisonpopulation is also reflected in theincarceration rate (the number ofsentenced prisoners for each 100,000residents in the United States), whichrose from 79 per 100,000 to 201 per100,000 (figure 2).Although the long-range trend inNumber of sentenced State and Federal prisoners,yearend 1925-85Numberprison population has been upward, ithas not been without interruptions, thetwo longest and deepest drops occurringduring World War II and the Vietnamera.Between 1925 and 1939 the numberof sentenced prisoners grew by 88,000,an average annual rate of 4.9%, substantially higher than for the entire1925-85 period even though there wasvirtually no growth during the depth ofthe Depression 1932-34. By 1939 theincarceration rate had reached 137 per100,000, a level it was not to reachagain for 41 years.481.S16october 1986400,000300,000200.000100,000i' 1925. . .193019401950i. .1 1 1960Note: Prior to 1977, prisoner reports were based on the custody population.Beginning in 1977, focus is on the jurisdiction population (see table 1).Figure 11970198001985This bulletin presents 60 years ofdata on prison populations fromthe statistical series "Prisoners inState and Federal Institutions."Along with the data, we haveincluded a discussion of trends andof the development and expansionof the statistical series. With ourcontinuing publication of end-ofyear and midyear data on prisonpo pula tions, there has been newinterest in the statistical seriesfrom which these data are )3rived. The /'Iistorical series shouldbe especially useful to those engaged in analyzing recent trends.Within the next month, the Bureauwill publish, by State, the complete time series upon which thissummary report is based .Steven R. SchlesingerDirector
, Table 1. Sentenced prisoners in State and Federal institutions: Number and incarceration rates, 701971 1851912025,6356,3296,2696,0047,389566671940 7519761977 57,3017,4357,63689888YearTotalRate1925 1930193'11',';;219331934129,453137,082137,997 ;;,810Note: The Incarceration rate Is the numberof prisoners per 100,000 residentialpopulation. The figures for males andfemales in 1950,1957,1968-1971, and 1973do not add to the total po pula tion figuresshown because the yearend counts wererevised in a subsequent report while themale/female breakdown was not.aData for 1925 through 1939 IncludeDuring World War II the prison popula tion declined by nearly 50,000 in 5years as most of the pool of potentialoffenders was drafted. By 1946 theIncarceration rate had dropped to 99per 100,000. From 1944 to 1961 theprison population increased in everyyear but 1951, although the annualgains were uneven, and in 1961 theIncarceration rate peaked at 119 per100,000.During the first part of the Vietnamera (1961 to 1968) the prison populationdeclined by 30,000. The 1968 prisonpopulation was 188,000, and the incarceration rate was the lowest since thelate 1920's.From this low the prison populationand the incarceration rate grew ratherslowly for 5 years, but in 1974 begana dramatic rise that added more than275,000 sentenced inmates to the national prison population by 1985. Theaverage annual increase during thisperiod was 7.4%, compared to 2.8% forthe entire 1925-85 period. At the endsentenced prisoners In State and Federalprisons and reformatories whether committedbor felonies or misdemeanors.Data for 1940 through 1970 Include all adultfelons serving sentences in State and FederalInstitutions.Cnata for 1971 to present InclUde all adultsand YOllthflll offenders Ii!ntenced to State orFederal correctional institutions whosew,axlmum sentence was over a year.Before 1977 only prisoners in the custody ofState and Federal correctional systems werecounted. After 1977 all prisoners under thejurisdiction of State and Federal correctionalsystems were counted. Figures for bothcustody and jurISdiction are shown for 1977 tofaclIitate comparisons.of 1985 the incarceration rate was 201per 100,000, the highest ever recorded.Historical dataThe first attempt to count all of theprisoners in the United states was madein the decennial population census of1850. Counts of prisoners were included in each subsequent decennial censusthrough 1890. In the years 1904, 1910,and 1923 separate enumerations of theprison population were made. In 1926,under a mandate from Congress, theNational Prisoner Statistics programbegan to collect stitistics on prisonerson an annual basis. Since its inception the program has depended entirelyon the voluntary participation ofState departments of corrections andthe Federal Bureau of Prisons.IThe NPS program was begun by the CensusBureau. It waS transferred to the Bureau of Prisons in 1950 and to the National Criminal JusticeInformation and Statistics Service (now the Bureauof Justice Statistics) of the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration In 1971. Since that timethe Census Bureau has served as the data collectionagent for the Bureau of Justice Statistics.2The complete National PrisonerStatistics program consists of a countof the number of State and Federalprisoners on December 31 of each year;a count of the number of persons admitted to and released fl'om prison eachyear (by type of admission and release);the number of persons executed annually (beginning in 1930); the yearendpopulation of death row (beginning in1953); and, for selected years prior to1981 and annually thereafter, the characteristics of persons admitted to andreleased from prison. This discussionfocuses entirely on the statistics forthe yearend prison population.The difficulty in collecting prisonstatistics, or indeed most criminaljustice statistics for the United Statesas a whole, arises not only from different record-keeping and statisticsgathering practices in each State butalso, more important, from the different criminal justice practices ineach State. Therefore, since the beginning of the prison population series,special attention has been directed at
making the population counts for theindividual states as comparable as possible, given the range of sentencinglaws and practices among the States.Nevertheless, each annual report publlshed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics contains an appendix specifying theways in which data reported for eachState deviate from the standard definitions. In recent years these devia tionsgenerally have been minor. In theearlier years of the series this was notalways the case. Early publicationsorten warned the reader to use cautionIn making direct comparisons betweenthe statistics for one State and another.Definitional changesFrom the beginning the NationalPrisoner Statistics program has attempted to count persons Imprisonedfor serious crimes. The original definition included adult prisoners sentenced to and confined In State andFederal prisons and reformatories.Consequently the data included personsconvicted for misdemeanors as well asthose convicted for felonies. There wasnot at that time, and there still is not,a standard definition of "felony" and"misdemeanor" that is applicable in allStates. In general felonies are moreserious crimes than misdemeanors. Forexample, all maj0r crimes-such asmurder, rape, and robbery-are alwaysfelonies. All minor crimes still seriousenough to have incarceration as apossible sentence-such as drunkenness,loitering and disturbing the peace--aremisdemeanors. It is for the crimes thatfall between that the distinction isoften blurred. Because the aim of thesentenced prisoner series was to collectdata on serious offenders in State andFederal facilities, the series excludedinmates in city and county jails (whoTable 2. Prlaonera In State and FederallruttltultlOlll1l Total and prisoners with shortoontencoo or no sentences, 11174-85Short-sentence andunsentenced I2rlsoMl'saTotal Male FemaleTotalprlsoners1974197519761977 s with short sentences are deflned asthose whose maxlmum sentence ls a year orbess.Before 1977 only prisoners in the custody ofState and Federal correctional systems werecounted, After 1977 all prisoners under thejurisdiction of state and Federal correctionalsystems were counted. Figures for bothcustody and jUrisdiction are shown for 1977 tofacilitate comparisons,are mostly sentenced misdemeanants orpersons awaitin ' trial) and inmates inlocally operated prisons or houses ofcorrections. Nevertheless, some misdemeanants were included in the series,especially in the few States thatoperated combined jail-prison systems.States differ substantially in thedistinctions they maJ(e between Sta tesentenced and locally sentenced prisoners. North Carolina, for example,imposes "state time" for those offenders with sentences greater than 90days; Louisiana, by contrast, sentencesoffenders locally to parish prisonswith sentences up to life terms. Massachusetts generally sentences maleswith sentences of 2 years or more toState prisons while sentenced femalesNumber of sentenced State and Federal prisoners,per 100,000 U. S. population, yearend 1925-85Number201150,100";,50"l'50! ,j:i;0 .Ii19501925193019401960Note: Prior to 1977. prisoner reports were based on the custody population.Beginning In 1977. focus Is on the Jurisdictional population (see table 1).I:"lL."19801970Figure 2301985with shorter terms are sent to Statefacilities. These differenoes In stateversus local sentencing have beenoperationally split into two data collection serles--one focusing on Stateand Federal popUlations and the otherfocusing upon local populations. Theprisoners count focuses exclusively onstate and Federal populations. Locallysentenced prisoners are counted in BJSreports on local jails.In 1940 the definition of sentencedprisoners was changed to eliminatemore Inmates serving time for minoroffenses. It was assumed, not entirelyaccurately, that felons always servedsentences lasting more than 6 months.They almost always do, but so do somemlsdemeanants. Nevertheless, theseries was l'edefined as adult felonsserving time in state or Federal institutions, with a felon presumed to besomeone serving a maximum sentenceof 6 months or more. This did eliminate mlsdemeanants serving sentencesof less than 6 months and therebyfocused the series more sharply on theserious offender. In 1971, to furtherrestrict the series, the term "felon" wasdiscarded and the Sta tes were asked toreport only on prisoners with maximumsentences of more than a year. Thisnot only eliminated additional misdemeanants from the count, it also established uniformity across States aroundthe most widely accepted definition ofa felon, someone with a maximum sentence of more than" year. In theprisoners series this group is referred toas the IIsentenced" prisoner popUlation.The definition also was expanded toencompass persons sentenced as youthful offenders as well as those sentencedas adults. The Federal system andseveral States have youthful offenderstatutes. Youthful offenders are abovethe legal maximum age of juveniles(which varies from State to State) andare usually below the age of 25. Theyare frequently assigned to separatesections of adult correctional facilitiesor to completely separate facilities.Persons in this age group may be triedand sentenced as adults, however, justas they are in states without youthfuloffender statutes.The de init on of sentenced prisoners adopted in 1971 is currently in use.Although two definitional changes havebeen made since the series began, eachchange was designed to sharpen theoriginal concept of the series, that is,to measure the number of serious offenders sentenced to prison.In 1974 the prison population serieswas expanded to separately .report onpersons with short sentences, that is,
with maximum sentences of a year orless, and persons without sentences(table 2). This group, when added tothe "sentenced" group, produces thetotal number of persons in State andFederal correctional institutions.Most prisoners with short sentencesand without sentences can be found injurisdictions that operate combinedjail-prison systems-Vermont, RhodeIsland, Connecticut, Delaware, Alaska,Hawaii, and the District of Columbia.In these jurisdictions most of the unsentenced prisoners are awaiting trial andthe short-sentence prisoners are servingtime for lesser offenses. In Stateswhere jail and prison systems are notcombined, short-sentence and unsentenced prisoners may be held in Statefacilities for safekeeping, for presentencing evaluation, for medical care, orfor a variety of other reasons. At theend of 1985 some 1,990 unsentencedaliens were held by the Federal Bureauof Prisons for the Immigration andNaturalization Service.By including a count of the totalnumber of pet'sons in prison whilepreserving the distinction between"sentenced" (more than 1 year), "shortsentenced" (a year or less), and "unsentenced," the prison population datapresent a more complete picture of thephysical and fiscal pressures the prisonpopulation exerts on tl"\.r Nation'scorrectional facilities.Custody and jurisdictionIn 1977 another change was made tothe prison population statistics. Insteadof reporting prisoners within their custody, the States were asked to reporton prisoners under their jurisdiction.At the time of the change an increaseof some 7,000 inmates occurred.The concept of custody is simplythat of physical possession of theprisoner. The concept of jurisdictionfocuses on ultimate responsibility forthe prisoner. It is common for Statesto house prisoners from other States orfrom the Federal system, as well as forthe Federal system to house prisonersfor the States. This may occur whenone State houses the overflow population of another State, although extrabed space in any system has been rarein recent years. Prisoners may also bemoved for personal safety or as a temporary response to an emet·gency. Forexample, after the 1980 prison riot2Although short-sentenced and unsentencedprisoners are combined In Table 2, they are shownseparately in the annual report, Prisoners In stateand Federal Institutions.Table 3. Total prison population by race and sex, eWhiteBlackOther bWhiteBlackOther 8010,1058The numbers in this table add to totalsdifferent from those shown In Table 2 because preliminary statistics on race are notthat severely damaged the New MexicoState Prison, correctional authorities ofadjacent States and the Federal Bureauof Prisons accepted New Mexico prisoners for temporary holding. In each ofthese examples, however, there wouldbe no difference between the totalnumber of prisoners measured under thecustody concept and number measuredunder the jurisdiction concept. Oneprisoner in custody in one State merelybecomes one prisoner under the jurisdiction of another State.The increase of more than. 7,000that occurred in 1977 can be attributedto several sources. The most commonwas State prisoners housed in localjails, usually due to overcrowding in theState prison system. Other factorsincluded inmates in hospitals (includingmental hospitals) outside the correctional system, inmates on work releaseor furlough, and Federal prisoner.shoused at private contract sites.;JSince the definition was changed in1977, separate statistics on custodypopulations have continued to becollected yearly and published in aseparate table in the annual report.Race and ethnicityBeginning in 1978 prison population statistics were collected by raceand ethnicity (table 3). The statistics by race have been reliably reportedby all of the States; in 1984 race wasnot known for less than 2% of theinmate population. Ethnicity was moredifficult to report. In 1984, nineStates could not identify any of theirHispanic inmates and the ethnicity ofone-third of all inmates could not bedetermined.Each State is given the opportunityto revise its yearend prison populationstatistics a year later. Most Statesmake such revisions, so that finalstatistics for a given year are notavailable until the preliminary statis3For a more detailed discussion of custody andjurisdiction, see Appendix nI, Prisoners in'Stateand Federal Institutions on December 31. 1978.NotBlack Other 45,3195,6634,7495,4576,687193209176237272327404 ubsequently revised.American Indians, Alaskan Natives, Asians,and Pacific Islanders.tics for the subsequent year are published. Yearend population statisticsare revised fOt' sentence length, sex,jurisdiction, and custody; they are notrevised for race or ethnicity.This discussion of historical prisonpopulation statistics has been focusedalmost exr:lIusively on the nationallevel. It has not dealt with the changesand irregularities that occurred withinthe 1925-85 statistics for the individualStates. These are documented and willbe released, along with the notes foreach State, from the Bureau of JusticeStatistic
1947 151,304 105 144,961 202 1948 155,977 106 149,739 205 1949 163,749 109 157,663 211 . Data for 1940 through 1970 Include all adult counted. After 1977 all prisoners under the . lyon the voluntary participation of State departments of corrections and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. IThe NPS program was begun by the Census
In 2016, the majority of all prisoners in the United States (93%) were male, and this fnding was consistent among both state (93%) and federal (94%) prisoners (table 1). In state prisons, the distribution of male and female prisoners remained unchanged between 2004 and 2016. Te average age of all prisoners in the United States was 39 in 2016.
older women prisoners, women with disabilities and women under sentence of death, the reader should refer to the UNODC Handbook on Prisoners with Special Needs, which covers the needs of such prisoners, men and women. Reference will need to be made to both handbooks, when dealing with the situation of such categories of female prisoners.
In 2016, the number of prisoners under sentence of death decreased for the sixteenth consecutive year. Twelve states received a total of 32 prisoners under sentence of death in 2016. Five states executed a total of 20 prisoners in 2016, with Georgia (9) and Texas (7) accounting for 80% of executions. The number of prisoners executed in 2016
they possessed a gun during their offense, while 79% of state and 80% of federal prisoners did not. About 29% of state and 36% of federal prisoners serving time for a violent offense possessed a gun during the offense. About 1.3% of prisoners obtained a gun from a retail source and used it during their offense.
Jan 17, 2021 · Home Confinement of Federal Prisoners After the COVID-19 Emergency . The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act authorizes the Director of the Bureau of Prisons to place prisoners in home confinement only during the Act’s cov-ered emergency period and
CHAPTER V: SYSTEMS IMPLEMENTATION AND TESTING 30 5.0 Introduction 30 5.1 Data Security and Accessibility 30 5.1.1 Data Security 30 . Therefore, the prison management is mandated to keep perfect records/details of prisoners such that they are able to track the identity, number of prisoners in custody, offences committed, and their status. The .
letters and individuals received letters from prisoners. The PLS was an opportunity to . in Australian History' in David Brown and Meredith Wilkie (eds), Prisoners as Citizens: Human Rights in Australian Prisons (Federation Press, 2002) . Well-known prison activist Brett Collins finished a prison sentence in 1980 and was keen to
Introduction to Magnetic Fields 8.1 Introduction We have seen that a charged object produces an electric field E G at all points in space. In a similar manner, a bar magnet is a source of a magnetic field B G. This can be readily demonstrated by moving a compass near the magnet. The compass needle will line up
