According to a report recently released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the overall US prison population has dropped year over year for the first time in four decades. That’s good news for families, communities and overburdened correctional systems, but we still have a long way to go.
At year-end 2010, the percentage of American adults under correctional supervision dropped 1.3 percent in a 12-month period. That’s the first decrease since BJS started collecting jurisdictional statistics in 1977. Why the change in a longstanding trend? Among other factors, states have responded to budgetary pressures by pursuing early release for inmates deemed low-risk, and by cutting back on prison time for drug offenders.
The downside is that, with a prison population hovering near 2.3 million, “the land of the free” is still the world’s leader in incarceration, imprisoning a greater number of its own citizens than Russia, China, or any other nation.
The population decrease is a positive first step, but a long journey remains ahead of us. More work is needed at the local, state and federal levels to ensure that our justice system is not just punitive, but restorative, and that correctional facilities are places where the redemptive truth of God’s love can take root and flourish.