The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports:
* At year end 2007, federal and state prisons and local jails held just under 2.3 million inmates (2,293,157). The number of inmates incarcerated in prison or jail increased by 1.5% during the year.
* About 1 in 198 U.S. residents was imprisoned with a sentence of more than 1 year in a federal or state prison.
* Overall, more than 7.3 million people were under correctional supervision, 1 in every 31 adults.
Adam Gelb Of the Pew Center said “this report is yet another reminder to states of the size of the prison problem. Especially in tough economic times, they have to ask whether spending nearly $50 billion a year to keep one in 100 adults behind bars is giving us our money’s worth in terms of public safety.”