America's Enormous Prison Population Got Even Bigger

The U.S. Attorney General has been making headlines talking
about the need for “smarter” sentencing and fewer people
behind bars.

But most of those who are incarcerated are doing time under
state laws, and that point was driven home by a new
report this week that shows our prison population is still
growing.

The report released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics shows
that, despite the federal prison population declining for the first
time by 0.9 percent in 2013, the overall prison population
increased slightly by 4,300 prisoners, or 0.3 percent.

That’s because of an influx of 6,300 people into state prisons,
a 0.5 percent increase from 2012.

That’s a small increase, but it breaks the pattern, which began
in 2009, of the overall U.S. prison population shrinking each year.
It’s also in the context of America being the prison capital of the
world, with 1,574,700 inmates locked up across the country.

More.