National

Regular PSJ readers know that the United States leads the world in the amount of its population that’s behind bars, but a recent report by the Pew Center on the States reveals that one out of every 100 adults in the U.S. is behind bars.

The State of Sentencing 2007 is a new report from the Sentencing Project that highlights positive changes in criminal justice policy made by state governments across the country.

The Children’s Defense Fund released a report at the end of 2007 titled "America’s Cradle to Prison Pipeline." The report looks at the connections between race, poverty, health and incarceration and demands that the United States stop channeling young people of color into its prisons.

In December, 2007, the Bureau of Justice Statistics released Prisoners in 2006, its annual summary of data about the U.S. prison and jail population. At the end of 2006, the U.S. incarcerated 2,385,213 people.

In the first half of 2007, the U. S. experienced a 1.8% decrease in violent crimes and a 2.6% decrease in property crimes.