At Last, Some GOOD News!

[dales]

US prison population down for 3rd straight year

Associated Press

Posted: 07/25/2013 10:04:40 AM PDT

Updated: 07/25/2013 10:04:42 AM PDT






WASHINGTON -- The government says the U.S. prison population dropped for the third straight year in 2012.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics says there were more than 1.5 million prison inmates last year. That's a drop of 1.7 percent from 2011.

The prison population hit a high of more than 1.6 million inmates in 2009.

Despite the overall decline, the federal prison population actually rose by nearly 1,500 inmates last year. The state population dropped by nearly 30,000 inmates.

California is responsible for most of the decrease in the number of state inmates. That's because of a 2011 law sending non-serious, non-violent or non-sex offenders to county jails. [which has created its own problems......]

Nine states saw their prison populations drop by more than 1,000 -- California, Texas, North Carolina, Colorado, Arkansas, New York, Florida, Virginia and Maryland.

[Andrew D]

Moving people from prisons to jails is not really progress. I wonder what the statistics are for incarceration as a whole ....

[oldr_n_wsr]

California is responsible for most of the decrease in the number of state inmates. That's because of a 2011 law sending non-serious, non-violent or non-sex offenders to county jails. [which has created its own problems......]

Suffolk county just put the finishing touches on a new 440 bed jail and are commited (aka mandated by the state) to build/expand on it. They have to borrow the $100million plus for the expansion.

[Long Run]

Yes, I am not sure the news is good since as Andrew asks, what the overall incarceration rate is. The crime rate would be a better indicator. The drop in prison population could mean that prison budgets have been reduced and more criminals on the street (hopefully, lower level crimes), or they just found different beds for the low level criminals.

[dales]

There is no good news, I was foolin'!