The number of Americans incarcerated in U.S. prisons in 2015 fell to its lowest level since 2004, according to a release from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) last week.
A division of the Department of Justice, the BJS announced a prison population of nearly 2.2 million people in 2015, a drop of 51,000 year-over-year and the lowest total since 2004 (2.1 million).
Further, the 51,000 reduction since 2014 signifies the biggest annual drop since 2009.
More from the BJS:
- At the end of 2015, an estimated 6,741,400 persons were supervised by adult correctional systems, a decrease of about 115,600 persons from 2014.
- About one in 37 adults (or 2.7 percent in the U.S.) was under some form of correctional supervision at year-end 2015, the lowest rate since 1994.
- By year-end 2015, the community supervision population (4,650,900) fell to the lowest level since 2000 (4,564,900).
Further, from 2010 through 2015, the nation's imprisonment rate fell 8.4 percent and violent and property crime rate declined by almost 15 percent, according to Pew.
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