US imprisonment rate falls to lowest since 1997: Justice Department
Source: Reuters
29 DEC 2016 AT 16:15 ET
The U.S. prison population fell the most in almost four decades to 1.53 million inmates in 2015, resulting in the lowest rate of incarceration in a generation, the Department of Justice said on Thursday.
The drop has been driven by changes in federal and state corrections policies that include drug treatment programs and the sentencing of fewer nonviolent drug offenders to federal prisons, the department said in its year-end report on prison populations.
Roughly one in 37 U.S. adults was under some form of correctional supervision at the end of 2015, the lowest rate since 1994.
The number of federal and state inmates at the end of 2015 was down by 35,500, or 2.3 percent, from the year before, in the biggest drop since 1978, it said.
Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/us-imprisonment-rate-falls-to-lowest-since-1997-justice-department/
7962
(11,841 posts)mucifer
(23,599 posts)The system has a lot more torture than it used to. Now entire prisons have people in solitary confinement.
They have a long way to go to make things better.
progressoid
(50,011 posts)Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)Jaywalking = 36-60 months in prison.
Spitting in public = 24-48 months in prison
Chewing with your mouth open = 18 - 30 months in prison.
Speeding = one year for every MPH over the limit.
DWB, LWB, WWB, = Life
Come on state governments. We need to keep those prisons filled. The Prison Industrial Complex pig needs to keep getting fed.
Oh, and make excessive ownership of OTC drugs subject to massive fine, imprisonment, and forfeiture. We need the assets to keep our budgets up.
agincourt
(1,996 posts)They want to build another prison here.