Latest Incarceration in the United States Stories

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Prison and jail inmates identified with mental health problems reported higher rates of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization than inmates without a mental health problem, according to a study released today by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). An estimated 6.3 percent of prison inmates and 3.6 percent of jail inmates identified with serious psychological distress reported inmate-on-inmate sexual...

HARRISBURG, Pa., Feb. 28, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Corrections Secretary John Wetzel today announced the release of the Department of Corrections' 2013 Recidivism Report. "To get a true picture of whether our state prison system is meeting its goal of reducing future crime, we need to look at more than just the reincarceration of an individual," Wetzel said. "We need to look at rearrests as well to see the whole picture of how and when individuals come into contact again with...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- During 2010, 4,150 inmates died while in the custody of local jails and state prisons--a five percent decline from 2009, according to a report released today by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The number of inmate deaths in local jails declined for the third consecutive year, from a high of 1,100 deaths in 2007 to 918 deaths in 2010. The mortality rate in local jails declined two percent from 2009 to...

WASHINGTON­, Sept. 25, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- At midyear 2011, a total of 2,239 inmates were confined in Indian country jails, a 5.7 percent increase from the 2,119 inmates confined at midyear 2010, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. Indian country jails are operated by tribal authorities or the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the U.S. Department of the Interior. Nationwide, 78,700 American Indians and Alaska Natives were under...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AIDS-related deaths among all state and federal prisoners dropped from 24 deaths per 100,000 inmates in 2001 to five per 100,000 in 2010, according to a report by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). In 2010, 72 inmates in state prisons and seven in federal prisons died from AIDS-related causes. The rate of AIDS-related deaths among all state and federal prison inmates declined on average about 16 percent...

Length of Stay for Drug and Violent Crimes Grows at Nearly Same Rate WASHINGTON, June 6, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Prisoners released in 2009 served an average of nine additional months in custody, or 36 percent longer, than offenders released in 1990, according to a report released today by the Pew Center on the States' Public Safety Performance Project. The study found that for offenders released from their original sentence in 2009 alone, the additional time behind...

Diverse new cohort of Soros Justice Fellows includes filmmakers, lawyers, journalists, and activists. NEW YORK, May 21, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Open Society Foundations today announced an award of $1.5 million to a cohort of emerging and established leaders working to advance fairness and transparency in the U.S. criminal justice system. The 2012 Soros Justice Fellows include investigative journalists, lawyers, academics, grassroots organizers, policy advocates, and...

WASHINGTON, April 25, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The U.S. jail inmate population declined for a third consecutive year, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. From June 2010 to June 2011, the jail inmate population declined 1.8 percent, dropping to 735,601 from 748,728. Local jails, unlike prisons, are confinement facilities mainly operated by a local law enforcement agency. Jails typically hold inmates while they await court action or...

New study explores how to decrease risky behavior among parolees in the community Police officers are always trying to control the misconduct of those who are on parole in order to control crime in the community, but what types of behaviors land them back in jail and what can law enforcement officials do about it? A recent article in the Journal of Correctional Health Care (JCHC), published by SAGE, discusses how to target the most common risky behaviors among specific groups of parolees...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is being released by the Department of Justice: OJP Leadership Addresses Violence Against Native Americans - In remarks at the Task Force on Violence Against American Indian and Alaska Native Women, held in conjunction with the fourteenth Interdepartmental Tribal Justice, Safety, & Wellness Session, December 14, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Principal Deputy AAG Mary Lou Leary said, "We are working hard to forge...