Background and Trends

Kim English, Division of Criminal Justice

Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice

February 10, 2017

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ADULTS

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ADULTS

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JUVENILES

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JUVENILES

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Over the five-year period from 2010 to 2015, the nation’s imprisonment rate fell 8.4 percent while the combined violent and property crime rate declined 14.6 percent, according to statistics released by the U.S. Department of Justice.1 Thirty-one states cut both rates simultaneously.

The rates of violent and property crime reported to law enforcement both have declined by more than half since their 1991 peaks, returning to levels not seen since the late 1960s.2 National, state, and local crime rates shift for complex and poorly understood reasons, but experts believe that the long-term decline is the result of a combination of factors, including more effective policing, the waning of the crack cocaine epidemic, the spread of car theft-prevention devices and other anticrime technologies, reduced use of cash in favor of electronic payments, and increased incarceration of high-risk offenders.

States show tandem reductions in crime, prisons Table 1 below ranks states by their imprisonment-rate trends over the past five years and shows that 35 states reduced their imprisonment rates, led by California. The table also documents crime-rate changes for each state, showing that almost every state experienced a reduction in crime, with no apparent correlation to its trend in imprisonment:

• Across the 44 states with crime declines, imprisonment-rate changes ranged from a 25.2 percent decrease to a 13.5 percent increase.

• Crime trends were consistent across both the 35 states where imprisonment dropped and the 15 states where it increased.

• In the 10 states with the largest imprisonment declines, the crime rate fell an average of 14.4 percent, compared with 8.1 percent in the 10 states with the biggest growth in imprisonment.

The lack of a consistent relationship between the crime and imprisonment trends reinforces the findings of the National Research Council and others that the imprisonment rate in many states and the nation as a whole has long since passed the point of diminishing public safety returns.3

National Imprisonment and Crime Rates Continue to Fall

A fact sheet from Dec 2016

Crime dropped faster in 2015 in states with larger prison declines

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States Cut Imprisonment and Crime Over 5 YearsLatest data reveal little relationship between recent changes in rates

Notes: Imprisonment and crime rates are per 100,000 residents of all ages. Imprisonment rates count inmates sentenced to more than a year in prison and do not reflect jail populations. The U.S. imprisonment rate includes federal prisoners and excludes those held in local jails. Crime rates reflect Part I offenses as defined by the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report and combine violent and property crimes; 2015 violent crime rates use the legacy (not revised) definition of rape.

Sources: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners series, 2010-15; FBI, Crime in the United States series, 2010-15

© 2016 The Pew Charitable Trusts

CA VT AK NJ CO CT SC TX UT MD MA MS GA NY LA FL ME HI IA US ID WA MT NC AL IN IL NV MI PA OR WI VA SD TN AZ DE OH RI NH KS MO NM ND MN KY AR WV OK WY NE

2015 imprisonment rate per 100,000 residents of all ages

329 206 306 228 364 312 414 568 215 339 179 609 503 260 776 496 132 262 281 458 436 252 355 352 611 412 360 444 429 387 376 377 457 413 425 596 441 449 204 217 328 530 335 233 196 489 591 386 715 413 279

Imprisonment rate percent change, 2010-15

Crime rate percent change, 2010-15

3,036 1,522 3,514 1,878 2,946 2,025 3,786 3,231 3,198 2,764 2,075 3,098 3,392 1,975 3,883 3,265 1,951 4,078 2,324 2,860 1,950 3,741 2,962 3,090 3,439 2,974 2,362 3,349 2,278 2,119 3,196 2,270 2,052 2,320 3,538 3,431 3,180 2,871 2,129 1,933 3,097 3,340 4,332 2,347 2,453 2,385 3,752 2,344 3,295 2,117 2,504

2015 crime rate per 100,000 residents of all ages

Crime rate

-12% (average)

Crime rate

-12% (average)

Crime rate

-16% (average)

-25.2%

-21.8% -21.3% -19.8% -19.5%-16.2% -15.9%

-12.9% -12.2% -11.9% -11.4% -11.2% -10.7% -10.7% -10.6% -10.4%-9.3% -8.7% -8.4% -7.8% -6.7% -5.3% -5.0% -4.9% -4.5% -4.5% -4.4% -3.9% -3.6% -2.7% -2.3% -2.0% -1.7% -1.6% -0.5%

0.2% 0.2%2.9% 3.5% 3.6% 3.8% 4.6% 5.7% 6.3% 6.6% 6.9% 7.8%

9.7% 10.4%13.5%

-9.8%

16.8%

-1.1%

-36.4%

1.2%

-21.3%

-1.7%

-18.0%-16.0%

-23.3%

-5.8%

-22.0%

-26.6%

-4.7%

-16.1% -16.0%

-7.5%

-20.2%

12.9%

-7.9%

-14.6%-12.2%

-6.8%

4.3%

-18.8%

-12.1% -12.4%

-25.3%

-2.6%

-29.7%

-16.6%

-2.9%

-17.7%-19.5%

9.0%

-17.2%

-13.1%

-22.0%-19.8%

-24.5%

-19.0%

-11.2% -12.3%

7.9%

-12.5%-14.9%

-7.5% -7.3%

-16.0%-20.3%

-15.0%

-25.0%

Crime rate

-14% (average)

10 largest imprisonment rate decreases

Crime rate

-8% (average)

10 largest imprisonment rate increases

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Police Reports, Victim Surveys Capture Complementary Crime TrendsBoth measures find decades-long drops in violent, property crimes

2 crime measures show dramatic long-term declinesEach year, two federal agencies measure crime in the United States: The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program aggregates offenses reported to law enforcement agencies, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey obtains data from about 160,000 people in 90,000 households. The survey complements the UCR by collecting information on crimes not reported to the police. According to the UCR, the violent crime rate rose 3.1 percent during 2015, although it was still half what it was when it peaked in 1991.4 In contrast, the victimization survey found that the violent crime rate dropped during 2015, though by a statistically insignificant amount, to just a quarter of 1993 levels.5 The survey captures data on a broader range of violent crimes than the UCR, which may partially explain this discrepancy. The UCR reported a rise in the murder rate in 2015, but the increase was concentrated in a number of large cities. Leading criminologists posit that the rise could be the result of growing heroin and prescription opioid markets, strained relationships between police and residents in some communities, or other local factors.6 For property crime, the UCR rate fell 3.4 percent from 2014 to 2015, down more than 50 percent since its peak in 1991. The victimization survey also recorded a statistically significant decline of 4.4 percent in 2015, falling to less than a third of its 1993 high.

Sources: FBI, Crime in the United States series, 1960-2015; Bureau of Justice Statistics, Criminal Victimization series, 1993-2015

© 2016 The Pew Charitable Trusts

Endnotes1 E. Ann Carson, “Prisoners in 2015,” Bureau of Justice Statistics (December 2016), https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p15.pdf; FBI,

Crime in the United States series, 2010-15, https://ucr.fbi.gov/ucr-publications.

2 FBI, Crime in the United States series, 1960-2015.

3 National Research Council, The Growth of Incarceration in the United States (National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2014).

4 FBI, Crime in the United States series, 2015, https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015.

5 Jennifer L. Truman and Rachel E. Morgan, “Criminal Victimization, 2015,” Bureau of Justice Statistics (October 2016), https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv15.pdf.

6 Richard Rosenfeld, “Documenting and Explaining the 2015 Homicide Rise: Research Directions,” National Institute of Justice (June 2016), https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/249895.pdf.

Contact: Tom Lalley, communications  Email: tlalley@pewtrusts.org  Project website: pewtrusts.org/publicsafety

The Pew Charitable Trusts is driven by the power of knowledge to solve today’s most challenging problems. Pew applies a rigorous, analytical approach to improve public policy, inform the public, and invigorate civic life.

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Office of Research and Statistics/Division of Criminal Justice for Handout for the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile

DCJ December 2016 prison population forecast: Actual and projected total prison population FY 2005 through FY 2023

Data source: Actual population figures FY 2005 through FY 2016: Colorado Department of Corrections Monthly Capacity and Population Reports. Available at: https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cdoc/departmental-reports-and-statistics

Even though the most recent year ended with a 4.9% decline in the adult prison population, the number of inmates in Colorado is expected to increase 9.9% between fiscal years 2016 and 2023, from an actual year-end population of 19,619 to a projected population of 21,569 inmates. This growth is expected to be very slow, averaging 1.4% per year over the next seven years. The reasons for this reversal are outlined below.

• While the prison population fell by over 1000 beds across FY 2016, this drop mainly occurred in the first 9 months of the year. Renewed growth began in the final quarter of the year and into the first half of FY 2017.

• The decline observed in FY 2016 was mainly the result of a reduction in the number of parolees returned to prison for technical violations of parole. Such returns fell by 10.9% in FY 2015 and by 21.5% in FY 2016. This decline was expected due to recent legislation, but the reality far exceeded expectations.

o However, this decline in parole returns occurred mainly in the second quarter of FY 2016. Returns increased slightly though steadily in the second half of the year, and have remained stable though at a lowered level through first half of FY 2017.

• Parole releases increased 4.7% in FY 2016, driving the population down. However, releases dropped off significantly in the last half of FY 2016 and early FY 2017. This will exert upward pressure on the prison population.

• The proportion of admissions made up of new court commitments is much larger than observed over the past 7 years. As these inmates will remain in prison much longer than parole returns, this will serve to put upward pressure on the population in future years.

15000

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2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023Fiscal Year

December 2016 projection

Actual population

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Office of Research and Statistics/Division of Criminal Justice for Handout for the Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile

DCJ December 2016 juvenile commitment forecast: Actual and projected total average daily population (ADP) FY 2002 through FY 2021

Note: FY 2000-2016 data points reflect actual year-end average daily population figures. Data Sources: Colorado Department of Human Services Division of Youth Corrections Management Reference Manuals and Monthly Population Reports, available at https://sites.google.com/a/state.co.us/cdhs-dyc/home/resources-publications/reports-and-evaluations

The two factors driving the size of the population committed to the Colorado Division of Youth Corrections (DYC) are the number of youth adjudicated and sentenced to DYC, and the length of their incarceration. The number of youth committed to the DYC has consistently declined over the past twelve fiscal years.

• Juvenile delinquency filings in court are the driver of new commitments. The number of juvenile filings has halved over the past 15 years.

o However, the number of filings has varied by less than 2 percent over the past three years. This may moderate the decline ADP in future years.

• The decline averaged 4.6% per year between FY 2007 and FY 2010, and accelerated to an average of 10.0% over the following three years. In FY 2014, the rate of decline slowed to 6.3% and has remained fairly consistent since. If the reduction in ADP experienced in early FY 2017 continues, the rate of decline can be expected to accelerate.

• The profile of sentence types for new commitments contributes to the expected decline. Juveniles committed to DYC can be given either non-mandatory or mandatory sentences

o The proportion of non-mandatory sentences increased from approximately 69% of all commitments for several years prior to FY 2014 to 80.4% in FY 2016.

o Sentences for non-mandatory commitments and for probation revocations are generally shorter than for other commitment types, which serves to drive the commitment population down in upcoming years.

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DCJ January 2017 forecast

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