Old 10-07-2009, 02:51 PM
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DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS AND REHABILITATION
INFORMATION ON POPULATION AND INMATE CHARACTERISTICS
AUGUST 15, 2006
• We currently have over 172,000 inmates as of August 9, 2006. Of
these, over 160,000 are males and almost 12,000 are females housed
in 33 institutions, 40 camps, and 12 community correctional centers
throughout the state.
• According to a recently released report by the Public Policy Institute
of California, our prison population is aging, with inmates under the
age of 25 representing a steadily declining share while the number of
prisoners in older age groups continues to grow.
• This most likely has a correlation with the fact that prisoners serving
time for violent crimes are now a majority of our population, and that
share is growing. In contrast, drug offenders are representing a
smaller share of the prison population and now comprises
approximately 20 percent of the prison population.
• Our male population is comprised of
38% Latino,
29% African American,
27% White,
6% Other.
Females are comprised of
39% White,
29% African American
28% Latina
5% Other.
• After California’s incarceration rate per 100,000 persons peaked in
1998 at 673, our rate has declined over the last eight years to its
current rate of 616. At the same time, the incarceration rate in the rest
of the United States has continued to increase slightly. Today,
California’s ranks 17th among all states for incarceration rates, with
our rate of 616 slightly above the national average of 573.
• In terms of the yearly admissions to California’s prisons, in 2005 we
had 70,573 admissions, and 61,999 parole violators.
• The next page puts our population into perspective. While we have
almost 62,000 parole violators returned during the year, this only
makes up a little over 11 percent of our total inmate population at any
given time. In addition, this percentage is projected to decrease over
time.
• The growth in our population over the last several years, and the
population that continues to grow at the greatest rate, as shown in our
chart, is the population of inmates who are serving life terms.
• What is the makeup of each of these groups of felons in prison?
Starting with felons serving a life term, these are people convicted of
first and second degree murder, certain acts of attempted murder,
kidnap for ransom and robbery, and “third-strike” felons.
• Parole Violators—there is a tendency to refer to any parolee returned
to prison without a new term as a “technical” parole violator. In
looking at the reasons why parolees return to prison over a year’s
period, however, the data show that 82% of parolees returned to
prison for these so-called “technical” violations were actually returned
for criminal conduct.
• Only 18% of the returns could truly be considered a technical or
“status” offense. In addition, of these returns, the majority of the 18%
of these returns were in cases where parolees had absconded while on
parole—these made up 65% of these cases—in which parole and local
law enforcement authorities had issued a warrant for the arrest of the
parolee for absconding while on parole. While this is not technically
a crime, parole absconders do pose a risk to public safety.
• Of the 18,508 parole violators in prison, a little over 3,000 are there
for “technical” parole violations. Factoring 65% of those for parole
absconders would leave you with a little over 2,000 parolees in for
technical violations.
• If the Department stopped returning technical parole violators to
prison, the inmate population would only be reduced by 2,000 to
3,000 inmates.
• Determinately-sentenced felons—Currently, this is the breakdown by
offense category of the felons housed in our facilities—over 85,000
were sentenced for crimes against a person, over 36,000 for property
offenses, over 35,000 for drug offenses, and almost 13,000 for other
crimes.
• Of our property offenders, almost 7,000 had one prior conviction for a
serious or violent felony, and another 6,000 had two or more
convictions.
• Of our drug offenders, almost 7,000 had one prior conviction for a
serious or violent felony, and another 5,000 had two or more
convictions.
• How many of our property and drug offenders are truly first time
offenders? Our data show that approximately two-thirds of these
offenders have at least one prior conviction.
http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=c...O1-cO7Tqrh_fDw