More Prisoners Than Ever Before

We've set another record. More people are in American prisons and jails than ever before, and 1 in 31 adults is either behind bars or under supervision, according to a report released yesterday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Some more highlights from the report:

• Federal prisons operated at 136 percent of capacity
• Drug offenders made up 19.5% of all people doing time in the states, or roughly 400,000 people
• The prison populations in 36 states and the District of Columbia increased during 2007

It doesn't have to be this way. Jody Kent says it well on the ACLU's blog:

According to the Pew Center on the States, a non-partisan organization, there are numerous ways to reduce the prison population and the associated costs of imprisoning people, including: parole/probation reforms, diversion programs, increasing good-time programs for people behind bars, and sentencing reforms for non-violent offenders, such as drug and mental health courts that do not require a guilty plea. (See the report here.)

Many of these approaches provide alternative solutions that increase public safety while targeting specific populations that do not need to be thrown behind prison walls. The use of our prisons and jails to confine people who pose no threat to the public results in severe overcrowding. Too often, as a result, prisoners are exposed to inhumane and disgusting conditions inconsistent with basic human dignity.

And Stop the Drug War breaks down some of the drug related stats from yesterday's BJS release.