Crime Overview - Drug Wars: Incarcerations

Between 1980 and 2000, the U.S. population increased 21.5%. Prisoners in state institutions incarcerated for drug-related crimes increased 988% when measured as inmates per 100,000 population. Inmates in Federal prison were up even more steeply on the same basis: 1,008%. All incarcerations had increased in this period as well, but nowhere near the level of drug-related confinements. In 1980, at the state level, 6.5% of prisoners were behind bars for drug-related offenses (19,000 people). In 2000, these prisoners, 251,100 in number, were 20.9% of all state prisoners. The data are graphed on logarithmic scale to show growth rates most accurately. The steepest curves have the greatest rates of growth.

Growth rates in actual prisoners, of course, are even higher — but expressing the data in prisoners per 100,000 population normalizes the series for year-to-year comparison. The data indicate that our society has grown much more lawless since 1980 — or, at any rate, we're putting more people in jails and prisons.

More people are arrested for possession of drugs than for trafficking, but more people are imprisoned for trafficking. Of those sentenced to do time in 1998 for drug offenses at the state level, 36% were sentenced for possession, the rest for trafficking. In the Federal system, the overwhelming majority were sentenced to prison terms for trafficking. Sentences for possession were typically shorter, of course.

The graphic to the left charts the official crime rate, the FBI's Crime Index, produced from the agency's Uniform Crime Reports. Against that index, which is built up from violent and property crime rates, we have charted drug arrests. All incidents (crimes or arrests) are expressed as a ratio per 100,000 of U.S. population in each year shown. The graphic indicates that the official crime rate is trending down. It dropped nearly 31% in the 1980 to 2000 period. Drug arrests increased in the same period by nearly 124%. Note here that drug offenses are not included in the official Crime Index except that violent crimes (murder, assault, armed robbery) committed in connection with drug-related events are included — as are property crimes (thefts, larcenies, burglaries) committed to obtain funds to support a drug habit. The influence of the drug culture on these types of crimes will be explored elsewhere. Here the point we make is that drug-related offenses are rising sharply in an environment where the index that tracks "serious" crime is dropping.

The drug war is certainly having an impact on the nation's correctional system. In 2000, nearly 272,700 people were imprisoned for drug offenses (8% in Federal facilities, the rest in state facilities), up from 25,500 in 1980. That's rather a large number of people being housed and fed at public expense — bigger than the population of Amarillo, TX or Binghamton, NY or Duluth, MN — and nearly as large as Savannah, GA.

To complete our overview of the extent of crime — and some of the major components within that phenomenon — we look next at the crime rate and the incarceration rate over some period of time.

Sources: State data: U.S. Department of Justice, Correctional Populations in the United States, 1997 and Prisoners in 2000, available from http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/welcome.html. Federal data from: Federal Drug Offenders, 1999, with trends 1984-99 (NCJ 187285), from the same agency. Crime rate from Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reports, various years, available from http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/00cius.htm.