

The Strangely Underreported Decline in the Incarceration Rate - ph0rque
http://www.samefacts.com/2013/01/crime-control/the-strangely-underreported-decline-in-the-incarceration-rate/

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jetti
If you take a look at the report that was linked you can see the following
line:

" Persons supervised by the adult correctional systems include those in the
community under the authority of probation or parole agencies that supervise
adults and those in the custody of state or federal prisons or local jails."

It doesn't look like private prisons are included. Which means prisoners could
be offloaded to the private sector making the public sector look much better.
I dug around for a few minutes and couldn't find any statistics on the number
of inmates in private prisons, so I don't know for sure if the number of
incarcerated inmates in private prisons rose from 2010 (the last year of stats
I could find) or not. But it is still some food for thought.

~~~
glhaynes
I would have expected privately-operated prisons to still be classified as
"state or federal prisons", but I'm no expert.

~~~
jetti
You are correct. After a little more digging, I found this:

"BJS’s official measure of the prison population is the count of prisoners
under the jurisdiction or legal authority of state and federal adult
correctional officials (1,598,780 in 2011). The jurisdiction population count
is reported in Prisoners in 2011, BJS website, NCJ 239808, December 2012.
These prisoners may be held in prison or jail facilities located outside of
the state or federal prison systems. The prison population reported in table 2
in this report is the number held in custody or physically housed in state
(1,289,376 in 2011) and federal (214,774 in 2011) adult correctional
facilities, regardless of which entity has legal authority over the prisoners
(appendix table 1). This includes state and federal prisoners held in
privately operated facilities. The difference between the number of prisoners
in custody and the number under jurisdiction is the number of state and
federal prisoners held in the custody of local jails, inmates out to court,
and those in transit from the jurisdiction of legal authority to the custody
of a confinement facility outside that jurisdiction."

from <http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/cpus11.pdf>

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betterunix
Perhaps this is related to the decriminalization of marijuana in some states
at that time.

I welcome this news. We have far too many prisoners; any reduction in the
incarceration rate is a good thing, and we have a long way to go.

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kevin_morrill
This was just talked about on EconTalk, a great podcast.
[http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/12/pettit_on_the_p.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/12/pettit_on_the_p.html)
(link includes transcript if you don't like podcasts)

Ironically, the researcher being interviewed is pretty negative on the whole
situation, given that we are still a world leader in incarceration. It's a
useful discussion even if you disagree with her, because I think she puts some
useful data on the table.

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hollerith
It's still higher than any other large country in the world (and probably any
other country period):
[http://www.prisonstudies.org/info/worldbrief/wpb_stats.php?a...](http://www.prisonstudies.org/info/worldbrief/wpb_stats.php?area=all&category=wb_poprate)

(The article is about the decline in the incarceration rate _in the U.S._ )

