(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The website at http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/ will give you all the stats you’ll ever need about America’s broken penal system. The U.S. government maintains this data on the Bureau of Justice Statistics Web site.
For example:
- The rate of HIV/AIDS among state and federal prison inmates declined from 194 cases per 10,000 inmates in 2001 to 146 per 10,000 at year end 2010.
- Between 2001 and 2010, the average annual decline of 16% in the national AIDS mortality rate was similar to the decline in small (down 12%), medium (down 17%), and large (down 19%) state prison populations.
- AIDS-related deaths in state prisons declined from 89 in 2009 to 69 in 2010 among males, from 70 to 43 among black non-Hispanics, and from 87 to 60 among all state inmates age 35 or older.
Or did you know:
- On December 31, 2010, state and federal correctional authorities had jurisdiction over 1,612,395 prisoners, a decrease of 5,575 prisoners from year end 2009
- The federal prison population increased by 0.8% (1,653 prisoners), while the number of prisoners under state authority declined by 0.8% (10,881 prisoners).
- During 2010, prison releases (708,677) exceeded prison admissions (703,798) for the first time since BJS began collecting jurisdictional data in 1977.
Federal timeline US prisoners (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Bookmark this site and keep it handy. It provides a wealth of information for any research you may be doing in Prison Reform.
Using this site, I found a law signed by President George W. Bush, called the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003. In response to this law, the BJS developed the National Prison Rape Statistics Program (NPRSP), a series designed to collect multiple measures on the incidence and prevalence of sexual assault. Sadly, this program does little or nothing to help actual prisoners, but by recording and publishing the incidence rate, public awareness can be raised. All in all, I find this site a valuable resource. After all, knowledge is power.
Chart showing prison population in selected countries of the world per 100,000 population Data taken from World Prison Population List (eighth edition) by Roy Walmsley International Centre for Prison Studies, King’s College, London, 2008 Value for China includes 850,000 held in administrative custody (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
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