According to
reports from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 29 states had a higher prison population percentage change in 1994 than in the previous year. Of those states, 16 had a prison population increase that was at least 10 percent higher in 1994 than in 1993.
The top five states with the highest prison population percentage increases were Texas at 28.3 percent, Georgia at 20.1 percent, Virginia at 14.9 percent, New Hampshire at 13.9 percent, and Idaho at 13.7 percent.
The incarceration rate of prisoners sentenced to more than one year in prison in Idaho during 1994 was 258 offenders per 100,000 residents.
The prison population between 1994 and 1995 increased 18.4 percent.
Reports from the
Idaho Legislature Law and Public Safety briefings show that the prison population growth had no intention of slowing down.
The prison population increased for both men and women almost every year for the next decade. The annual growth for 1995 was 13 percent, followed by a 10 percent growth in 1996 and another 13.3 percent growth rate in 1997.
In 1998, the prison population actually decreased by 0.1 percent, but rose again in 1999 and 2000 to 11.3 percent and 13.6 percent, respectively. This growth trend continues to be between 6.4 percent or above in following years.
Idaho experienced a prison population growth rate of 80.5 percent between 1995 and 2001 which is about a 10.3 percent annual growth rate during those five years.
Women seem to make up an extraordinarily high percentage of the Idaho prison population rate when compared to other states. Since the 1980s, it has been a nationwide trend for 50 percent more women than men to be incarcerated each year.
The Sentencing Project released a 2013 report that gave Idaho a second-place ranking right behind Oklahoma for having the highest state incarceration rate of women per 100,000 residents. In 2013, Idaho incarcerated 127 women per 100,000, which is almost double the national average of 65 women.
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