A helpful reader recently reminded me that the last federal prison population headcount from the Bureau of Prisons in 2019 — specifically from December 26, 2019 — reported "175,858 Total Federal Inmates." That number was itself a pretty notable decarceration achievement for the federal system: just six years earlier, in 2013, the federal prison population clocked in at around 220,000 total inmates according to the BOP.
I am focused on the last federal prison population headcount from last year because the Bureau of Prisons this morning reported at this webpage the "Total Federal Inmates" count at the very end of 2020. Remarkably, this remarkable year has brought a decline of over 23,500 inmates, as the total now stands at 152,184.
The COVID pandemic, of course, accounts in various ways for these 2020 decarceral developments. It is hard to unpack just how much this year's decline can be attributed to a lot more persons being moved out of federal prisons or a lot fewer people being moved into federal prison. (As noted in this post, the US Sentencing Commission released some early COVID-era sentencing data showing that the number of federal sentences imposed between April and June 2020 dropped about 40% from the usual rate.) Interestingly, after the pace of declines in the federal prison population seemed to slow considerably in the late summer and fall, there has now been a 2000-person decline in the BOP population since Thanksgiving. These data make me a bit more hopeful that we could end up below 150,000 total federal inmates during the first few months of 2021.
A few of many prior related posts:
- Federal prison population, thanks in part to the FIRST STEP Act, hits lowest level in over 15 years (from July 2019)
- Federal prison population drops below 170,000 for first time in nearly two decades (from May 2020)
- "Total Federal Inmates," as reported by BOP, drops below 165,000 (from June 2020)
- Federal prison population, per BOP report of "Total Federal Inmates," drops below 160,000 (from July 2020)
- Federal prison population, per BOP report of "Total Federal Inmates," drops below 155,000 (from Oct 2020)
- US Sentencing Commission releases data revealing COVID's impact on federal sentencings
- Thankful the federal prison population is at lowest level in two decades (from Nov 2020)
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