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2007 Prisoners in 1 (2007)

handle is hein.death/prsin2007 and id is 1 raw text is: U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs

December 2008, NCJ 224280
Prisoners in 2007

By Heather C. West
and William J. Sabol, Ph.D.
BJS Statisticians
This report presents data from the National Prisoner
Statistics program. It describes the change in the prison
population during 2007 and the characteristics of the
1,598,316 prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction on
December 31, 2007. Additionally, it provides the imprison-
ment rates and age, race, gender distributions for the
1,532,817 prisoners sentenced to more than one year.
It quantifies changes in prison admissions and releases,
inmates held in custody, prison capacity, and components
of the total incarcerated population.
Growth in the prison population slowed during 2007
At yearend 2007, federal and state correctional authorities
had jurisdiction over 1,598,316 prisoners (1,483,896
males; 114,420 females) (table 1). Jurisdiction refers to the
legal authority over a prisoner, regardless of where the pris-
oner is held. After increasing 2.8% during 2006, the growth
of the prison population slowed to 1.8% during 2007. The
1.8% increase was slower than the average annual growth
witnessed from 2000 to 2006 (2.0%).
During 2007, the prison population increased more rapidly
than the U.S. resident population. The imprisonment
rate-the number of sentenced prisoners per 100,000 resi-
dents-increased from 501 prisoners per 100,000 U.S. res-
idents in 2006 to 506 prisoners per 100,000 U.S. residents
in 2007. 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%.
As in previous years (with the exception of 2002) the major-
ity of the 2007 growth in the prison population occurred
during the first 6 months of the year (figure 1). From
December 31, 2006 to June 30, 2007, the prison population
increased by 1.5%, whereas from June 30, 2007 to Decem-
ber 31, 2007, the prison population increased 0.2%.
Detailed information is available in appendix tables in the online version
of this report on the BJS website at <http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/
pdf/p07.pdf>.

Table 1. Prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction,
December 31, 2000, 2006, and 2007
Average
annual  Percent
Number of prisoners   change  change
2000     2006    2007   2000-06 2006-07
Totala        1,391,261 1,570,691 1,598,316  2.0%  1.8%
Federal       145,416  193,046  199,618  4.8     3.4
State        1,245,845 1,377,645 1,398,698  1.7  1.5
Gender
Male         1,298,027 1,457,486 1,483,896  1.9%  1.8%
Female         93,234  112,459  114,420  3.2     1.7
Sentenced to
more than
1 yeara     1,331,278 1,504,660 1,532,817  2.1%  1.9%
Imprisonment
rateb            478     501      506   0.7%     1.0%
alncludes prisoners under the legal authority of state or federal
correctional officials.
blmprisonment rates are based on U.S. Census Bureau population
estimates per 100,000 U.S. residents. Resident population estimates are
as of January 1 in each year following the reference year.
Annual and 6-month changes in the number of prisoners under
state and federal jurisdiction

Figure 1

Revised 2/12/09

Percent change
3.0% -

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