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| Jail, Prison Populations on Decline |
| By newsvirginian.com |
| Published: 07/27/2009 |
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Jail, prison populations on decline By Frank Green-Media General News Service July 27, 2009 RICHMOND — A little more than a year ago, state officials warned that so many people were being locked up in Virginia that it might take a new prison a year at a cost of $100 million each to keep pace. Instead, the number of people being sent behind bars has slowed to the point, for the moment at least, that the population of state prisons and local jails is dropping. No one is fully sure why it is happening or whether it will last. But after decades of steady growth, the news is welcome on a number of fronts, particularly for the strapped state budget, which dedicates more than $1 billion a year for prisons. Prisons are where long-term felons are sent to serve their sentences; local and regional jails primarily hold people awaiting trial and those serving relatively short sentences. According to state figures: n The number of inmates in prisons grew an average of almost 3 percent a year from 2001 to the end of June 2008. Since then, it has dropped by 1.1 percent, or more than 400 inmates. n The average daily population of jails grew 5 percent a year from 2001 through 2007. However, in 2008 the number of jail inmates declined 1.7 percent, and it has fallen almost 3 percent this year. Barry R. Green, director of the Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice, has been assisting in forecasts of inmate populations for more than two decades. “This is the first time I’ve seen an annual decline in the number of state inmates and a two-year decline in jail inmates since I’ve been involved in the process,” Green said. “While we can find explanations for part of the drop, we haven’t yet been able to [explain] it in total and are still trying to determine whether this trend will continue.” There are about 33,200 inmates in state prisons and nearly 28,000 in local and regional jails, of which almost 6,000 are “state-responsible inmates” awaiting transfer to a state prison. Each year, about one-third of the state prison population enters, and one-third leaves. The recent declines are believed to be the result of a number of causes. According to state police, while some types of crime have shown increases, violent crime — which can lead to stiff prison sentences — has been down two years in a row across the state, by 4.7 percent in 2008 and by 2.6 percent in 2007. In a recent report to a legislative subcommittee, officials pointed to several other factors believed to be contributing to the slowing number of inmates entering prisons and jails. Read More. |
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