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Alaska
Justice Forum
12(4), Winter 1996
Issue
contents | Complete
issue in Adobe Acrobat PDF format
| Abstract: At the end of June 1995, state and
federal prisons held 1,104,074 inmates -- about two-thirds of
the more than 1.5 million adults incarcerated in the U.S. in
mid-1995. (The other third, primarily people awaiting trial or
serving sentences of a year or less, are held in local jails.)
The U.S. prison population increased 8.8 percent between mid-1994
and mid-1995. This article was derived from the BJS reports "Prisoners
in 1994", NCJ-151654 and "Prisoners at Midyear 1995",
NCJ-158021. |
National
Prison Population Growth: A BJS Report
Bureau of Justice Statistics
At the end of June 1995, state
and federal prisons held 1,104,074 inmates (Table 1).
State and federal prisons, which
primarily house convicted felons serving sentences of a year
or more, hold about two-thirds of the more than 1.5 million adults
incarcerated in the United States. The other third are held in
locally operated jails, which primarily house people awaiting
trial or serving sentences of a year or less. On June 30, 1994,
the most recent date for which jail data are available, 483,717
adults were in local jails.
The combined state and federal
prison population increase of 8.8 per cent between mid-1994 and
mid-1995 was slightly higher than the average annual growth (7.9%)
recorded since 1990 (Table 2).
During the year preceding June
30, 1995, prison populations increased by at least 10 per cent
in 23 states. Texas reported the largest growth (nearly 27%),
followed by West Virginia (26%) and North Carolina (18%). Prison
populations declined in the District of Columbia (down 5.0%),
Alaska (3.1%), Arkansas (1.0%) and South Carolina (0.8%).
Between 1980 and 1994 the total
number of people held in federal and state prisons and local
jails almost tripled -- increasing from 501,886 to 1,483,410.
As of December 31, 1994, the total incarceration rate reached
565 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents.
The incarceration rate of state
and federal prisoners sentenced to more than a year reached 403
per 100,000 U.S. residents on June 30, 1995. Texas led the nation
with 659 sentenced prisoners per 100,000 state residents, followed
by Louisiana (573 per 100,000), Oklahoma (536) and South Carolina
(510). The states with the lowest rates were North Dakota (90
sentenced prisoners per 100,000 state residents), Minnesota (103)
and Maine (112).
The preceding article is derived
from the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports "Prisoners
in 1994," NCJ-151654, and "Prisoners at Midyear 1995,"
NCJ-158021. Copies of the entire report may be obtained from
the Alaska Justice Statistical Analysis Unit or on the World
Wide Web from BJS.
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University of Alaska Anchorage
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14, 2001 by ayjust@uaa.alaska.edu
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