August 6, 2004: 'Land of the Free' has 6.9m people in prison, on probation, on parole

The USA’s combined federal, state and local adult correctional population reached a new record of almost 6.9 million men and women in 2003, according to figures just released by the US Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).  The bulletin, "Probation and Parole in the United States, 2003" was written by BJS statisticians Lauren E. Glaze and Seri Palla. This represents an increase of 130,700 people since December 31, 2002 .

In the ‘land of the free’, about 3.2% of the nation's adult population – about 1 in every 32 adults, were imprisoned, on probation or on parole in 2003.

The correctional population of 6,889,800 includes people incarcerated in prisons and jails as well as those on probation and parole. On June 30, 2003, 1,387,269 adults were incarcerated in federal and state prisons and 691,301 inmates in local jails.

As of December 31, 2003, 4,073,987 adults were on probation - a period of supervision in the community following a conviction - and 774,588 on parole - a period of conditional supervised release following a prison term.

At the end of last year, the number of adults on probation or parole reached a record high of more than 4.8 million, which was 70 percent of all persons under federal, state or local correctional supervision. More than 1 million of the nation's probationers and parolees were in Texas (534,260) and California (485,039).

More than half of the probationers were white, 30% were black, 12% were Hispanic and 25 were of other races. Women comprised 23% of all adults on probation.

Of the almost 2.2 million probationers discharged from supervision during 2003, about 3 in 5 had successfully met the conditions of their supervision. About 16 percent were incarcerated because of a rule violation or a new offense, and 4 percent had absconded.