http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/front/1002957
State prisons' populations see rare decrease Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The number of people behind bars in state prisons has fallen for the first time since 1972, following decades of dramatic growth that caused a crisis of overcrowding, says a Justice Department study released today.
The decrease was modest -- 6,200 fewer prisoners -- but criminologists said the shift from growth to decline is historic because it may signal the end of America's prison boom.
The report, released twice a year by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, shows there were more than 1.2 million inmates in state prisons at the end of last year.
"There are young adults who have never drawn a breath in the United States during a period when the prison population wasn't growing," said Franklin E. Zimring, a criminal law professor and head of a research branch at the University of California at Berkeley.
"Until now, the full-time business of prisons has been the growth of the prison population. Finally, this looks like real stabilization. If it continues, it is a new era in law enforcement."
The decline comes after a few years of slowing growth at state prisons. During the first six months of last year, the state prison population grew by a scant 1,821 inmates.
But during all of last year, 13 states had substantial decreases in their state inmate populations, including Massachusetts (down 5.6 percent), New Jersey (down 5.4 percent), New York (down 3.7 percent) and Texas (down 3.2 percent).
The result was an actual decline in the state prison population over the final months.
Allen J. Beck, a chief Justice Department researcher, said some of the declines may have been caused by states changing parole rules to make revocations less likely.
"In New Jersey and Ohio, they are less likely to revoke parole than in prior years. New York has also become more lenient," he said.
Dan Macallair, vice president of the San Francisco-based Justice Policy Institute, said attitudes about drug use contributed to the decline. He said communities and judges are getting tired of repeatedly sending drug offenders to prison and are looking for alternatives.
"Several states, especially California, are beginning to find ways to send less people to prison and are looking at treatment as a viable option," said Macallair.
Other experts said the prison population should be falling as fast as the crime rate. Violent crime in the United States fell by a record 15 percent last year, the government has said.
"We have a prison infrastructure in place that supports itself regardless of what drops in the crime rate we see," said Justin Hansen, a criminologist who works for New York City. "Prisons keep lowering the bar to fill every bed."
They study also found that both the state and federal prison systems grew more quickly than ever between 1990 and 2000, when more than 500,000 beds and 351 state facilities were added.
But the downward population trend does not apply to all prisons.
Last year, the federal prison system added 10,170 inmates -- almost 200 additional prisoners each week, bringing the total federal population to about 145,000.
Racial disparities in prisons are also holding steady, the report showed.
About 10 percent of all black males between 25 and 29 years old were in federal and state prisons, compared to 2.9 percent of all Hispanic males and 1.1 percent of all white males in the same age group.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/front/1002957
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