|
California Schools Topics And Information Relating To California Schools |
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
#34
|
||||
|
||||
Old 10-07-2009, 02:51 PM
ilbegone ilbegone is offline Enlistee Join Date: Aug 2009 Posts: 316 Default 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 |
|
|