Lots of new data from BJS on prisoners and from USSC on federal sentencing

Sentencing and corrections data junkies have the opportunity for heavy dose of notable new data runs from two federal sources.  Both of these recently released reports have a number of interesting and important modern sentencing stories buried inside lots of notable new numbers:

From the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, "Prisoners in 2014"

From the US Sentencing Commission, "FY 2015 Third Quarterly Sentencing Data Report"

Importantly, the BJS prisoners document has data on only prison populations and thus does not include total incarcerated persons in the US because jail populations are not in the statistics.  With that important statistical reality in mind, here are some highlights identified by BJS concerning "Prisoners in 2014" that I found particularly noteworthy:

• The number of prisoners held by state and federal correctional authorities on December 31, 2014 (1,561,500) decreased by 15,400 (down 1%) from yearend 2013. „

• The federal prison population decreased by 5,300 inmates (down 2.5%) from 2013 to 2014, the second consecutive year of decline.

• The number of women in prison who were sentenced to more than 1 year increased by 1,900 offenders (up 2%) in 2014 from 104,300 in 2013 to 106,200 in 2014.

• In 2014, 6% of all black males ages 30 to 39 were in prison, compared to 2% of Hispanic and 1% of white males in the same age group.

• Violent offenders made up 54% of the state male prison population at yearend 2013, the most recent year for which data were available. „

• Half of males (50%) and more than half of females (59%) in federal prison were serving time for drug offenses on September 30, 2014