The U.S. Prison Population
Trends and Characteristics
The Nation’s prisons and jails held 1,860,520 inmates at mid-year 1999, according to the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). That was an increase of 58,333 from a year earlier, or 1,122 more inmates each week. From year-end 1990 to mid-1999 the prison and jail population grew by almost 712,000 inmates, resulting in the incarceration rate increasing from one in every 218 U.S. residents to one in every 147. If the current growth continues, BJS noted, the future jail and prison population may reach 2 million around the end of 2001. On June 30, 1999, State prisons held 1,136,582…
