US imprisonment rate falls to lowest since 1997: Justice Department
Source: Reuters
29 DEC 2016 AT 16:15 ET
The U.S. prison population fell the most in almost four decades to 1.53 million inmates in 2015, resulting in the lowest rate of incarceration in a generation, the Department of Justice said on Thursday.
The drop has been driven by changes in federal and state corrections policies that include drug treatment programs and the sentencing of fewer nonviolent drug offenders to federal prisons, the department said in its year-end report on prison populations.
Roughly one in 37 U.S. adults was under some form of correctional supervision at the end of 2015, the lowest rate since 1994.
The number of federal and state inmates at the end of 2015 was down by 35,500, or 2.3 percent, from the year before, in the biggest drop since 1978, it said.
Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/us-imprisonment-rate-falls-to-lowest-since-1997-justice-department/
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