3 ms·

It's pretty misleading to look only at federal inmates as they're a relatively small percentage of the overall prison population. There are currently 189,520 to

It's pretty misleading to look only at federal inmates as they're a relatively small percentage of the overall prison population. There are currently 189,520 total federal inmates (https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/population_statistics.jsp https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/population_statistics.j...) out of the total 2,173,800 incarcerated individuals (as per original article) in the US. Probably better to look for a figure that includes state prisons and local jails as well. Edit: here's a handy infographic: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2016.html https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2016.html

1_2__3 10y ago
So if you're right then doesn't that mean that half of all federal inmates are there for marijuana possession?
- nodamage 10y ago
  Drug offenses, not marijuana possession specifically.
- Spare_account 10y ago
  From the grandfather post to yours: "There's about 95,000 people in federal prison with a drug offense as their most serious charge. About 11,500 of those charges involved primarily marijuana. (The overwhelming majority of that is for trafficking, not possession.)" So no, your statement is not correct. If we take 'overwhelming majority' of 11,500 as 60%, that would leave ~5000 prisoners whose 'most serious charge' is possession of marijuana. Or about 2.5% of the federal inmate population (all this assuming that the figures quoted are correct, I didn't source them myself).
rayiner 10y ago
My post mentions both federal (about 11,500) and federal + state (about 20,000-40,000). The reason for mentioning federal is because BJS has data for marijuana versus other drug offenses for the federal system. Note that while only a small proportion of the overall prison population is in federal prison, a much larger proportion of drug convicts are in federal prison.

3 ms·

It's pretty misleading to look only at federal inmates as they're a relatively small percentage of the overall prison population. There are currently 189,520 to

by nodamage 10y ago

1_2__3 10y ago
So if you're right then doesn't that mean that half of all federal inmates are there for marijuana possession?
- nodamage 10y ago
  Drug offenses, not marijuana possession specifically.
- Spare_account 10y ago
  From the grandfather post to yours: "There's about 95,000 people in federal prison with a drug offense as their most serious charge. About 11,500 of those charges involved primarily marijuana. (The overwhelming majority of that is for trafficking, not possession.)" So no, your statement is not correct. If we take 'overwhelming majority' of 11,500 as 60%, that would leave ~5000 prisoners whose 'most serious charge' is possession of marijuana. Or about 2.5% of the federal inmate population (all this assuming that the figures quoted are correct, I didn't source them myself).
rayiner 10y ago
My post mentions both federal (about 11,500) and federal + state (about 20,000-40,000). The reason for mentioning federal is because BJS has data for marijuana versus other drug offenses for the federal system. Note that while only a small proportion of the overall prison population is in federal prison, a much larger proportion of drug convicts are in federal prison.