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Changes in the Composition of the Prison Populations, 1981-1982 to 1990-1991

NCJ Number
140767
Date Published
1992
Length
4 pages
Annotation
Seventeen key indicators of the characteristics of prison populations for each jurisdiction and for Australia for the 1981-1982 to 1990-1991 decade are presented.
Abstract
The data on prison populations include demographic information as well as information on offense types, legal status, and sentence lengths. For all jurisdictions, the trends in percentages under age 25 are downward. The percentage of females has increased in all jurisdictions except Northern Territory, and the percentage of Aboriginals has changed little over the decade except in the Northern Territory and in New South Wales where they have increased their share of the prison population. Between half and two-thirds of all prisoners each year were unemployed at the time of arrest. The composition of prison populations by offense types has not changed markedly over the decade. Slightly more than 40 percent of prisoners are incarcerated for violent offenses and about one-third for property offenses. Percentages of prisoners sentenced to 5 years or less followed a U-shaped trend during the decade. 1 figure and 1 table