U.S. prison population continues to surge
According to Justice Department figures, there were 2.3 million prisoners in the U.S. at the beginning of 2008.
Those numbers are expected to grow, fueled by mandatory drug sentencing, increasing jail sentences for those defaulting on their alimony payments and punishments for violent crime and property theft.
The resulting growth in prison population is prompting an increase in demand for facilities as well as related equipment, guard services and other personnel.
Last year, states spent an estimated $49 billion on corrections facilities and staffing, up from less than $11 billion in 1987.
On average, states spend more than $23,000 per prisoner, excluding capital costs representing new prison construction, which researchers estimate at $65,000 per bed for a typical medium security facility.
The data was compiled in a new report released by the Pew Center Public Safety Performance Project.
Pew researchers pointed out that financially-strapped states will need to develop new sentencing and incarceration guidelines to reduce their prison populations if they want to cap their criminal justice budgets. But until such policies can be developed and implemented, the Pew Center forecasts that the nation’s prison population will continue to grow.
The report cites actions and proposals now under consideration in several states, including California and Texas, which could help ease financial as well as social burdens of criminal justice.
California and Texas were two of only 14 states which recorded a net decline in their inmate populations.
A detailed breakdown of U.S. correctional data by the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based group advocating criminal justice reform, revealed that the largest number of prisoners (representing 49 percent of prison population growth in the years 1995 to 2003) was a result of incarceration for drug-related offenses.
The authors of the Pew Center report point out that the inmate statistics did not include "a significant number" of prisoners held in facilities other than federal and state prisons and local jails. For example, the Pew report prison population totals excluded the 126,230 inmates held in territorial prisons, facilities administered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, military facilities, jails in Indian lands and juvenile detention facilities.
Anti-terror laws have had little impact on prison populations so far. However, recently enacted border security and air transport passenger regulations could change that.
In addition, the rapid growth in the number of names on the so-called U.S. "Terror List" -- a compilation of 917,000 suspected individuals maintained by the Terrorist Screening Center of the Justice Department -- could presage an increase in anti-terror related incarcerations.
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