Federal prison population starting to grow again as we approach six months into Biden Administration

The day after Joe Biden was inaugurated, I authored this post posing this question in the title: “Anyone bold enough to make predictions about the federal prison population — which is now at 151,646 according to BOP?”.  That post highlighted notable realities about the the federal prison population (based on BOP data) during recent presidencies: during Prez Obama’s first term in office, the federal prison population (surprisingly?) increased about 8%, climbing from 201,668 at the end of 2008 to 218,687 at the end of 2012; during Prez Trump’s one term, this population count (surprisingly!) decreased almost 20%, dropping from 189,212 total federal inmates in January 2017 to 151,646 in January 2021.

Of course, lots of factors play lots of expected and unexpected roles in shaping federal prosecutions and sentencings, and broader phenomena like the COVID pandemic can impact the federal prison population more than specific justice policies.  Consequently, I was disinclined to make any bold predictions about what we might see in the Biden era, though I suggested we should expect the federal prison population to be relatively steady at the start because it could take months before we saw any major DOJ policy changes and many more months before any policy changes started impacting the federal prison population count.  

Sure enough, when we hit the “100 days” milestone for the Biden Administration, I noted in this May 6, 2021 post that the federal prison population clocked in at 152,085 according to the federal Bureau of Prisons accounting.  In other words, no significant prison population growth early on in the Biden era.  But two months later, as we approach the six month mark for the Biden Administration, the federal prison population is starting to really grow again according to the prison population numbers that the federal Bureau of Prisons updates weekly at this webpage.  Specifically, as of the ides of July 2021, the federal prison population clocks in at 154,596.

A BOP-measured growth of over 2500 federal inmates in just over two months strikes me as pretty significant, although I would guess that an easing of the COVID pandemic is the primary explanation.  The number of federal sentencings and the number of persons required to report to begin serving federal sentences have likely increased significantly in the last few months; I doubt any new Biden Administration (or AG Garland) policies or practices account for the (now 2%) growth in the federal prison population during the first six months of Joe Biden’s presidency.

That said, I hope I am not the only one watching this number closely.  Especially given that the COVID pandemic is not really over and that a lot more surely could be safely “cut” from a bloated federal prison population, it will be quite disappointing if the Biden first term replicates the Obama first term marked by quite significant federal prison population growth.