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Alaska Justice Statistical Analysis Center |
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For the first time the Bureau of Justice
Statistics has released figures on the prevalence of imprisonment among
the U.S. population—that is, an estimate of the number of people
who have been incarcerated at some time in their life in a state or federal
prison. According to the BJS analysis, “Prevalence of Imprisonment
in the U.S. Population, 1974-2001,” at the end of 2001 a total of
5,618,00 U.S. adult residents—about 1 in 37—had served time
in prison at some point. This total includes 1,319,000 who were prisoners
at that time and 4,299,000 who were former prisoners. This was 2.7 percent
of the adult population in the United States. Moreover, if rates of incarceration
for the first time remain the same, by 2010 the total number of adults
who will have served time in prison will be 7.7 million—3.4 percent
of the adult population. These BJS figures do not include those who have
spent time in jail or in a juvenile facility—figures which would
substantially increase the totals.
As is now frequently noted, the rate of
incarceration for the country as a whole has been increasing inexorably
over the last two decades—more than tripling since 1980. In that
year, there were 139 sentenced prisoners in state or federal prisons per
100,000 population. By 2002 that rate had risen to 476.
The recently released figures on the prevalence
of imprisonment present another perspective on the degree to which incarceration
policies are affecting an increasingly large segment of the population.
In 1974, only 1.3 percent of the total adult population had ever been
incarcerated. By 2001, this percentage had more than doubled.
According to BJS calculations, nearly two-thirds
of this growth in the figures for prevalence of incarceration is due to
an increase in the rate of first incarceration—that is, a substantial
increase in the rate at which people are being sentenced to prison for
the first time.
In 2001, almost 17 percent of Black males were current or former prisoners
in federal or state institutions—a rate 6 times that of Caucasian
males (2.6%) and twice that of Hispanic males (7.7%). Female rates, although
always lower, show similar ethnic disproportions. Adult black females
were 2.5 times more likely than Hispanic women and 5.5 times more likely
than Caucasian females to have served time in prison; they formed 1.7
percent of the population of current or former prisoners.
The figures in this article were taken from the Bureau of Justice Statistics report “Prevalence of Imprisonment in the U.S. Population, 1974-2001,” NCJ-197976 and other BJS reports.