Correctional decline slows to a trickle

The nation’s correctional population continues to drop, reported The Crime Report. However, the rate of decline has slowed to a trickle, according to a report recently released by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).
The annual report, which tracked the size and change in total correctional population during the year 2013, is based on several BJS data collections.
The overall correctional population — which includes those in jails and prisons, as well as under the supervision of the correction system — dropped 0.6 percent in 2013.
About 6,899,000 people were under the supervision of correctional systems at the end of 2013, a decline of about 41,500 from the year before, according to BJS.
That rate represents a significant slowdown since 2010, when the correctional population dropped 2.1 percent.
“All of the decline in the correctional population during 2013 resulted from decreases in the probation (down 32,100) and local jail (down 13,300) populations,” researchers wrote in the report.
Read the full report HERE