Prisoners in 2007: 1 in 31 supervised, 1 in 100 incarcerated

The Bureau of Justice Statistics has released its latest report, Prisoners in 2007, which looks at the state and federal prisoner, parolee, and probationer population.

More than 7.3 million men and women were under correctional supervision in the nation’s prisons or jails or on probation or parole at yearend 2007, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. About 3.2 percent of the U.S. adult population, or one in every 31 adults, was incarcerated or under community supervision at the end of 2007.

During 2007, the prison population increased more rapidly than the U.S. resident population. … From 2000 through 2007, the imprisonment rate increased from 475 per 100,000 U.S. residents to 506 per 100,000 U.S. residents. During these seven years, the number of sentenced prisoners increased by 15% while the general population increased by 6.4%.

Black males made up the largest percentage of the overall sentenced population (36.3%) and the sentenced male population (39.0%).  Black male offenders had the highest imprisonment rate (3,138 prisoners per 100,000 U.S. residents) of all racial groups, male or female. This was 6.5 times the imprisonment rate of white males and 2.5 times that of Hispanic males. Similarly, the black female imprisonment rate (150 prisoners per 100,000 U.S. residents) was almost double the imprisonment rates for Hispanic (79 prisoners per 100,000) and 3 times the rate for white females (50 per 100,000).

Federal prisons operated at 136 percent of capacity in 2007. State prisons operated between 96 percent of highest capacity and 113 percent of lowest capacity, compared to between 100 percent and 115 percent in 2000. This trend indicates that prison populations are increasing at the same rate of capacity.

253,300 inmates are serving time in state prisons where drug offenses are the most serious charge for which they’ve been sentenced. They make up about 19.5% of all state prisoners, and about 45% of those drug offenders are black. 95,446 inmates are in federal prisons where drug offenses are the most serious charge for which they’ve been sentenced. They make up about 53% of all federal prisoners.