New BJS reports on "Probation and Parole in the United States, 2020" and "Profile of Prison Inmates, 2016"

Earlier this week, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released its latest detailed accounting of US prison populations (discussed here), and today brought two more notable data reports from BJS.  Here is a brief summary (with links) via the email I received this morning from the office of Justice Programs:

The Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics today released Probation and Parole in the United States, 2020.  The report is the 29th in a series that began in 1981. It includes characteristics of the population such as sex, race or ethnicity and most serious offense of adult U.S. residents under correctional supervision in the community. The report details how people move onto and off community supervision, such as completing their term of supervision, being incarcerated, absconding or other unsatisfactory outcomes while in the community.  Findings are based on data from BJS’s 2020 Annual Probation Survey and Annual Parole Survey.

BJS also released Profile of Prison Inmates, 2016.  This report describes the characteristics of state and federal prisoners in 2016, including demographics, education and marital status.  Findings are based on data from BJS’s 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates (SPI), which is conducted periodically and consists of personal interviews with prisoners.  For the first time, the 2016 SPI measured sexual orientation and gender identity, and those estimates are included in this report.  Statistics on prisoners’ offenses, time served, prior criminal history and any housing status prior to imprisonment, including homelessness, are also presented.  The report concludes with a summary of the family background of prisoners while they were growing up and any family members who have ever been incarcerated.

I am hoping in the weeks ahead to find some time to really mine some interesting factoids from all this notable new BJS data. For now I will be content to flag just a few "highlights" from the start of these two new document:

• At yearend 2020, an estimated 3,890,400 adults were under community supervision (probation or parole), down 276,500 from January 1, 2020.
• At yearend 2020, 862,100 adults were on parole supervision, an increase of 1.3% from January 1, 2020.
• The percentage of state prisoners who were incarcerated for a violent offense increased between 2004 (48%) and 2016 (56%).
• State prisoners in 2016 averaged 10.5 years of education prior to admission, and almost two-thirds (62%) had not completed high school.