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Thursday, April 07, 2011

Drug Offenders in U.S. Federal Prisons

The U.S. Federal prison population for drug offenses is . . .
  • Over three times any other type of offense
  • More than all other types combined
  • Increasing by 4% in percentage of total over the last two years


This data visualization was done via IBM's Many Eyes. It shows the change of federal prison population over a 2-year period (2008-2010).


3 comments:

Vicki said...

It is scary that drugs represent such a high percentage of prison population. In addition, the rate of increase over just the last two years is too much to understand.

grjenkin said...

Ten years ago drug offenders were 21% of the prison population.

I gave the prison populations, thinking in terms of how this all affects families and communities.

I should have given the costs...which we certainly can't afford. One estimate is $23M per 100 prisoners.

Vicki said...

Thanks for the costs figures. I know it's not much when compared with our debt, but it is one more bit that could help. Just one more reason to re-think the war on drugs.