Expenditures - Incarceration Rates Rising

The reasons for the escalating costs of corrections are simple enough:

• More people are being sent to prison
• Mandatory sentencing rules require that some criminals be held for longer periods
• Some courts are requiring stiffer sentences

The official crime rate, reported by the FBI in its Uniform Crime Reports, has declined since the 1980s and early 1990s, when it averaged an annual rate of more than 5,500 crimes per 100,000 population. After reaching 5,898 crimes per 100,000 in 1991, the national rate declined to 4,063 crimes per 100,000 population by 2003. During the same period, the incarceration rate as reported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics has increased from 313 per 100,000 in 1991 to 482 in 2003. These two trends appear paradoxical. Part of the explanation is that the official crime rate does not track drug offenses—or related money laundering offenses and illegal weapons violations—which have been growing at high rates. For this reason, the official crime rate and the incarceration rate do not always move in parallel. They do not reflect the same underlying facts.

According to Prisoners in 2003 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, November 2004), the number of sentenced prisoners under jurisdiction of state and federal correctional authorities increased from 1,585,586 in 1995 to 2,085,620 in 2003, an increase of 31.5%. The average annual increase during this period was 3.5%. (See Table 2.3.) In the western United States the percentage change between 1995 and 2003 was 35.4%, from 207,661 to 281,135, with Oregon (8.7%) seeing the biggest average annual percent change in its prison population. (See Table 2.4.) The Midwest saw a 28% increase, from 192,177 to 246,053, with North Dakota (9.8%) and Minnesota (6.2) experiencing the largest average annual percent changes. The prison population in the South grew 26.9%, from 446,491 in 1995 to 566,679 in 2003. West Virginia (8.3%) and Mississippi (7.7%) gained the most on an average annual basis. The Northeast had the least growth (5.46%), from 155,030 in 1995 to 163,494 in 2003. Maine (4.9%) and Vermont (3.7%) experienced the highest average annual percent change. Only two states witnessed a decline in prison population during that timeframe: Massachusetts, which decreased from 10,427 in 1995 to 8,814 in 2003, and New York, which had reduced its number of prisoners from 68,486 in 1995 to 65,198 in 2003.

TABLE 2.1
Total and per capita justice expenditure across government and by function, selected years, 1982–2001
SOURCE: Lynn Bauer and Steven D. Owens, "Appendix Table. Total and Per Capita Justice Expenditure across Government and by Function, Selected Years, 1982–2001," in Justice Expenditure and Employment in the United States, 2001, Bureau of Justice Statistics, May 2004, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/jeeus01.pdf (accessed March 30, 2005)

		Justice expenditure across government and function		Police protection expenditure		Judicial and legal expenditure		Corrections expenditure
Year	Population	Total	Per capita	Total	Per capita	Total	Per capita	Total	Per capita
2001	285,094,000	$167,113,000,000	$586	$72,406,000,000	$254	$37,751,000,000	$132	$56,956,000,000	$200
1997	267,784,000	129,793,000,000	485	57,754,000,000	216	28,529,000,000	107	43,511,000,000	162
1992	245,807,000	93,777,000,000	382	41,327,000,000	168	20,989,000,000	85	31,461,000,000	128
1987	243,400,000	58,879,000,000	242	28,778,000,000	118	12,539,000,000	52	17,562,000,000	72
1982	226,548,000	35,685,000,000	158	19,022,000,000	84	7,771,000,000	34	8,892,000,000	39
Note: Using the Consumer Price Index (CPI) to adjust the 2001 per capita figure of $586 for inflation would yield approximately $320 in 1982 dollars.

TABLE 2.2
Expenditure for justice activities, by level of government and justice activity, fiscal year 2001 [In millions]
SOURCE: Lynn Bauer and Steven D. Owens, "Table 3. Expenditure, by Level of Government and Justice Activity, Fiscal Year 2001," in Justice Expenditure and Employment in the United States, 2001, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2004, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/jeeus01.pdf (accessed March 30, 2005)

	Amount spent fiscal year 2001
Activity	All governments	Federal government	State governments	Local governments
Total justice system	—	$30,443	$63,372	$83,377
Direct expenditure	$167,133	25,285	58,820	83,007
Intergovernmental	—	5,158	4,552	370
Police protection	—	$15,014	$10,497	$50,718
Direct expenditure	$72,406	12,470	9,220	50,716
Intergovernmental	—	2,544	1,277	1,519
Judicial and legal	—	$10,230	$14,444	$15,938
Direct expenditure	$37,751	8,497	13,523	15,732
Intergovernmental	—	1,733	921	207
Corrections	—	$5,199	$38,432	$16,721
Direct expenditure	$56,956	4,318	36,078	16,559
Intergovernmental	—	881	2,354	162
Notes: Detail may not add to total because of rounding. Local government data are estimates subject to sampling variability. The total lines for each justice activity, and for the total justice system, exclude duplicative intergovernmental amounts. Artificial inflation would result if an intergovernmental expenditure of a government were tabulated and then counted again when the recipient government(s) spent the amount. The intergovernmental expenditure lines are not totaled for the same reason.
—Not applicable.