Land of the Free Redux

Well, now here’s a surprise: one in 100 U.S.adults is now behind bars, per the New York Times.(link). Only one in 355 white women (35 to 39) but one in nine black men (20-34).

Okay, I jest. But this is a surprise, at least to me: incarceration rates are going down in 14 states, including the largest—Texas, California and New York. Is there some kind of policy shift here or is it just systemic bloat—unless we start treating them like cargo, there simply isn’t room enough?

Here are some other places where the prison population is going down: New Mexivco, Oklahoma, Kansas, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Michigan, New York and the leader, Montana, with an ’06-’07 drop of 3.9 percent. The biggest increases: Kentucky with 12 percent (whoo, must have been a stiff gubernatorial race back there); New Hampshire; Iowa. If you can see a general pattern there, tell me about it; certainly not obvious to me.