16 February 2006

Who Is In Federal Prison?

The federal prison population is quite different from the state prison population. An examination of the offenses in question is the first clue of this fact:

Drug Offenses: 91,914 (53.5 %)
Weapons, Explosives, Arson: 23,495 (13.7 %)
Immigration: 18,773 (10.9 %)
Robbery: 9,916 (5.8 %)
Burglary, Larceny, Property Offenses: 6,866 (4.0 %)
Extortion, Fraud, Bribery: 7,235 (4.2 %)
Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Kidnapping Offenses: 5,419 (3.2 %)
Miscellaneous: 4,129 (2.4 %)
Sex Offenses: 1,795 (1.0 %)
Banking and Insurance, Counterfeit, Embezzlement: 989 (0.6 %)
Courts or Corrections: 706 (0.4 %)
Continuing Criminal Enterprise: 591 (0.3 %)
National Security: 100 (0.1 %)

About 73% of federal prisoners are there for non-violent offenses.

The sentence breakdown is as follows:

Less than 1 year: 3,467 (2.0 %)
1-3 years: 23,556 (13.7 %)
3-5 years: 27,463 (16.0 %)
5-10 years: 50,205 (29.2 %)
10-15 years: 31,441 (18.3 %)
15-20 years: 14,668 (8.5 %)
More than 20 years: 15,910 (9.2 %)
Life: 5,433 (3.2 %)
Death: 36

About 28% of federal prisoners are not U.S. citizens. About 93.3% are men. The percentage that are Hispanic is 31.8%. And, 40.1% are black, 1.7% are American Indian, and 1.7% are Asian.

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