Right on Crime: According to statistics released today by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, state prisons across the United States continued a three-year decline in the number of prisoners in 2011.
The number of state prisoners fell from 1,314,446, to 1,289,376. This represents a 1.9 percent drop in state prisoners. This decline was sufficient to offset the increase in federal prisoners to create an overall drop in the number of all prisoners of 1.3 percent.
The entire correctional population (state and federal prisoners, jail inmates, parolees, and probationers) dropped 1.4 percent between 2010 and 2011. This is the third consecutive year of decreasing correctional populations.
...Earlier this year, data revealed that violent crime dropped 3.8 percent between 2010 and 2011, down 15.5 percent since 2002, while property crime dropped 0.5 percent, down 19.9 percent since 2002.