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Sentencing Law and Policy
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Over 2 million prisoners and counting

By Douglas Berman
November 8, 2004

The Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics released yesterday its data-rich bulletin, “Prisoners in 2003,” which provides a wealth of information about national correction rates. The lead in this NY Times story about the report highlights that “the number of inmates in state and federal prisons rose 2.1 percent last year, even as violent crime and property crime fell.” However, as TalkLeft highlights here, there are many other noteworthy national numbers in this report. The one that always catches my eye is total prisoners, and the report indicates that 2,212,475 total persons were behind bars in the US on December 31 last year.

Especially when our national dialogue is about a divided country, I find it especially interesting to focus on the state-level data in this amazing report. Consider, for example, that:

Eleven States exceeded the national prison incarceration rate of 482 per 100,000 residents, led by Lousiana (801), Mississippi (768), Texas (702), and Oklahoma (636). Nine States, including Maine (149), Minnesota (155), and North Dakota (181), had rates that were less than half the national rate.

But, of course, total prison populations  tell only part of the story; rates of change are also crucial to understanding the true state of sentencing and corrections today.  So consider:

Between January 1 and December 31, 2003, North Dakota experienced the largest increase in prison populations (up 11.4%), followed by Minnesota (10.3%), Montana (up 8.9%), and Wyoming (up 7.8%). Eleven States experienced a decline. Connecticut had the largest decline (down 4.2%), followed by New York (down 2.8%), Michigan (down 2.4%), and New Jersey (down 2.3%). In absolute numbers of inmates, 4 jurisdictions grew by at least 2,000 inmates during 2003. The Federal system (up 9,531), experienced the largest growth, followed by Texas (up 4,908), Florida (up 4,384), and California (up 3,126). New York and Michigan had a drop of at least 1,000 inmates (down 1,867 and 1,233, respectively).