Special Facilities and Populations - U.s. Territories And Commonwealths

The reach of crime and of corrections is worldwide, extending even to tiny islands in the Caribbean or in the Pacific Ocean—two regions where U.S. territories and commonwealths are located. In the Pacific are American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands; in the Caribbean are Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The largest of the U.S. possessions, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, is an island approximately three times the size of Rhode Island in land area. According to the Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/), Puerto Rico had a population of TABLE 10.1
Prisoners under military jurisdiction, by branch of service, yearend 2002 and 2003
SOURCE: Paige M. Harrison and Allen J. Beck, "Prisoners under Military Jurisdiction, by Branch of Service, Yearend 2002 and 2003," in Prisoners in 2003, Bureau of Justice Statistics, November 2004, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/p03.pdf (accessed March 30, 2005)

Branch of service	Total		Percent change, 2002–03	Sentenced to more than 1 year		Percent change, 2002–03
	2003	2002		2003	2002
To which prisoners belonged
Total	2,165	2,377	−8.9%	1,258	1,361	−7.6%
Air Force	391	450	−13.1	251	264	−4.9
Army	840	860	−2.3	572	610	−6.2
Marine Corps	539	565	−4.6	229	265	−13.6
Navy	377	489	−22.9	199	219	−9.1
Coast Guard	18	13	38.5	7	3	*
Holding prisoners
Total	2,165	2,377	−8.9%	1,258	1,361	−7.6%
Air Force	105	128	−18.0	17	14	21.4
Army	967	966	0.1	763	767	−0.5
Marine Corps	441	478	−7.7	134	171	−21.6
Navy	652	805	−19.0	344	409	−15.9
*Not calculated.

3.9 million people in 2005. The smallest territory is American Samoa, two islands inhabited by about 57,900 people. U.S. territories and associated commonwealths had a combined total population in 2004 of 4.31 million. The commonwealths are self-governing entities. The territories are administered by the U.S. Department of the Interior, but these territories also have self-governing political bodies; their judicial officials are named by the Secretary of the Interior.

Nearly 16,500 people were in the custody of correctional authorities in the territories/commonwealths in 2003. (See Table 10.3.) Out of this number, 12,532 had been sentenced to serve more than one year, more than 75%. The incarceration rate in the territories/commonwealths for 2003 was 292 per 100,000 persons in the resident population, compared to 482 per 100,000 in the United States. The lowest incarceration rate was experienced by the Northern Mariana Islands, 101 per 100,000; some fourteen small islands provide this commonwealth with a territory about 2.5 times the size of Washington, D.C. The highest rate was experienced by the U.S. Virgin Islands, 338 per 100,000. Puerto Rico's experience, at 301 per 100,000, dominated results for all U.S. possessions in 2003 because of its large population; the 15,046 prisoners in custody of correctional authorities in Puerto Rico in 2003 represented more than 91% of all prisoners in U.S. territories and commonwealths.