Prison population drops along with the crime rate, Holder says
The federal prison population has dropped by about 4,800 inmates in the past year, and the downward trend is expected to continue, Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech on Tuesday.
The federal prison population is expected to drop by an additional 2,200 inmates in fiscal year 2015 and by 10,000 inmates in fiscal year 2016, Holder said in the speech, delivered at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York. The decline is the first since 1980. About 215,000 people are currently in federal prison, reports NPR.
Attorney General Eric Holder. ABA file photo
by Tony Avelar.
“This is nothing less than historic,” Holder said in the speech, available here. USA Today and the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.) also have stories.
Since President Obama took office, Holder said, both overall crime and overall incarceration have decreased by about 10 percent. “This is the first time these two critical markers have declined together in more than 40 years,” Holder said in his prepared remarks. According to NPR, Holder was referring to both federal and state statistics.
Holder cited a study by Pew Charitable Trusts that found some of the states with the most significant drops in crime from 1994 to 2012 also decreased their imprisonment rates. “States that took drastic steps to reduce their prison populations—in many cases by percentages well into the double digits—saw crime go down as well,” Holder said. “And the one state—West Virginia—with the greatest increase in its incarceration rate actually experienced an uptick in crime.” A Washington Post story on the study is here.
