The U.S. is seeing "historic" progress in reducing both its crime and its incarceration rates, Attorney General Eric Holder said, with the federal prison population falling by some 4,800 inmates in the past year — "the first decrease we've seen in many decades."
The numbers reflect a reversal from predictions from as recently as last November, when the federal prison population was projected to stay level in 2014, with nearly 219,300 inmates. But the raw number fell — and Holder says the incarceration rate per 100,000 Americans did, too.
Looking at both state and federal statistics, the attorney general said that in a roughly five-year span, both the overall crime rate and overall incarceration rates fell by around 10 percent, something that hadn't happened in more than 40 years, he said.
A look at figures from the Bureau of Prisons shows that while the combined state and federal imprisonment rate topped 500 people per 100,000 Americans in 2006, it has fallen since reaching a peak of 506 people in 2007 and 2008. Last year, the rate was down to 478, just above the 2002 mark.
[For more of this story, written by Bill Chappell, go to http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetw...-general-holder-says]
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