On December 11, 2008, the United States Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics announced that about 3.2% of the U.S. adult population, or one in every 31 adults, was incarcerated or under community supervision at the end of 2007.
More than 7.3 million men and women were under correctional supervision in the nation’s prisons or jails or on probation or parole at the end of last year.
Federal and state prisons and local jails held just under 2.3 million inmates (2,293,157). Nineteen states and the federal system operated at more than 100% of prison capacity.
The number of prisoners in the United States is growing faster than the number of residents. From 2000 through 2007, the number of prisoners increased by 15%, while the general population rose by 6.4%.