Prison Population

State and Federal Prison Population

The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reviewed the trends in U.S. prison inmate populations and operating and capital costs since 1980, including projections for 2000 and beyond and the reasons for the trends and the models and methodologies used by federal and state corrections agencies and nongovernmental forecasting organizations to make these projections.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office found that: (1) the total U.S. prison population grew from about 329,800 inmates in 1980 to about 1.1 million inmates in 1995, which is an increase of about 242 percent; (2) during this period, the federal inmate population grew about 311 percent, and the inmate populations under the jurisdiction of state prisons grew about 237 percent; (3) the corresponding average annual growth rates were 9.9 percent of federal populations and 8.4 percent for state populations; (4) in June 1996, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) projected that the federal prison population could reach about 125,000 inmates by 2000, an increase of 25 percent over the 1995 level; (5) in July 1995, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) projected that the total federal and state prison population under sentencing policies in effect in 1994 could reach 1.4 million inmates by 2000, representing an increase of about 24 percent over the 1995 level; (6) in recent years, inmate population growth can be traced in large part to major legislative initiatives that are intended to get tough on crime, particularly on drug offenders; (7) U.S. prison annual operating costs grew from about $3.1 billion in fiscal year (FY) 1980 to about $17.7 billion in current dollars in FY 1994; (8) BOP projected that its capital costs for new federal prisons scheduled to begin operations during fiscal years 1996 to 2006 could total about $4 billion; (9) BOP, NCCD, California, and Texas each use a form of microsimulation modeling to forecast prison inmate populations; and (10) according to BOP, its projections of federal prison inmate populations for 1991 to 1995 were within 1.4 percent, on average, of the actual populations.

DURING 2012

The U.S. prison population declined 1.7 percent (or by 27,770 inmates) from 2011 to 2012, falling to an estimated 1,571,013 prisoners, according to the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Nine states had a decrease of over 1,000 prisoners in 2012: California, Texas, North Carolina, Colorado, Arkansas, New York, Florida, Virginia and Maryland.

This is the third consecutive year of a decline in the number of state prisoners, which represents a shift in the direction of incarceration practice in the states over the past 30 years. The prison population grew every year between 1978 and 2009, from 307,276 prisoners in 1978 to a high of 1,615,487 prisoners in 2009.

The 2012 prison population counts are based on data from 47 states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Counts for the three states that had not submitted data to BJS by the time of publication were estimated. Final counts are expected in late 2013.

California accounted for the majority (51 percent) of the decline in state prisoners with 15,035 fewer inmates in 2012 than 2011. The decline in California was due in part to its Public Safety Realignment policy, which was designed to reduce overcrowding in the state prisons by diverting new admissions of “nonserious, nonsex, nonviolent offenders” from state prisons to local jails.

The decline in the state prison population was offset by an increase in the number of federal inmates. The federal prison population grew by 0.7 percent (or 1,453 inmates) during 2012, a slower rate than the average annual increase of 3.2 percent each year over the past 10 years.

The U.S. imprisonment rate dropped to 480 sentenced prisoners per 100,000 residents in 2012, continuing a decline since 2007. The national imprisonment rate for males (910 sentenced prisoners per 100,000 male U.S. residents) was over 14 times the imprisonment rate for females (63 sentenced prisoners per 100,000 female U.S. residents). The female imprisonment rate decreased 2.9 percent in 2012 from 65 per 100,000 female U.S. residents in 2011.

In 2012, states with the highest imprisonment rates included Louisiana (893 per 100,000 state residents), Mississippi (717 per 100,000 state residents), Alabama (650 per 100,000 state residents), Oklahoma (648 per 100,000 state residents), and Texas (601 per 100,000 state residents).

Maine had the lowest imprisonment rate among states (145 per 100,000 state residents), followed by Minnesota (184 per 100,000 state residents), and Rhode Island (190 per 100,000 state residents).

In 2011 (the most recent data available), the majority (53 percent) of sentenced state prisoners were serving time for a violent offense, including robbery (14 percent), murder or nonnegligent manslaughter (12 percent), rape or sexual assault (12 percent) and aggravated or simple assault (10 percent). About 18 percent were serving time for property offenses, 17 percent for drug crimes and 11 percent for public order offenses, such as weapon violations, drunk driving, commercialized vice and court offenses.

White prisoners comprised 35 percent of the 2011 state prison population, while black prisoners were 38 percent and Hispanics were 21 percent. The percentage of Hispanic inmates sentenced for violent offenses (58 percent) during 2011 exceeded that of non-Hispanic black (56 percent) and non-Hispanic white (49 percent) inmates, while the number of black inmates imprisoned for violent crimes (284,631) surpassed that of white (228,782) or Hispanic (162,489) inmates.

The number of white inmates sentenced for property crime (108,560) was larger than the number of black (78,197) and Hispanic (38,264) inmates sentenced for property crime, while more black inmates were sentenced for drug offenses than inmates of other races or Hispanic origin.

About the data:

Data on state and federal prison facility characteristics are gathered primarily through the Census of State and Federal Adult Correctional Facilities (CSFACF), a national census of adult correctional facilities operating under state or federal authority. Data on state prison capacity and the number of prisoners housed in private facilities and local jails are collected annually in the National Prisoner Statistics (NPS) Program data collection. The Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Facilities also collects data on facility environment and characteristics.

The main source for annual prisoner counts is the National Prisoner Statistics (NPS) program data collection, which began in 1926 under a mandate from Congress to collect statistics on prisoners. NPS distinguishes between custody and jurisdiction prison populations (see Terms and Definitions for more information). Imprisonment rates refer to the number of persons under the jurisdiction, or legal authority, of state or federal correctional officers per 100,000 U.S. residents. When prison populations are combined with local jail counts, they are referred to as the incarcerated population, and the incarceration rate is the number of persons in prison or jail per 100,000 U.S. residents.

NPS also gathers data on the number of prisoners admitted to and released from prison each year, prisoners sentenced to more than 1 year, race and sex distributions, and the number of non-U.S. citizens and inmates age 17 or younger held in custody. BJS uses offender-level administrative data from the National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP) and the Federal Justice Statistics Program (FJSP) to calculate age and offense distributions of the state and federal prison populations.