Study: New Mexico, Georgia had highest jail rates in US
Source: Associated Press
Russell Contreras, Associated Press Updated 5:15 pm, Wednesday, May 31, 2017
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico and Georgia — two states with some of the nation's largest percentages of minority residents in the United States — had the nation's highest rates of inmates in county jails, according to a report made public Wednesday by a non-partisan criminal justice reform group.
The study by the Massachusetts-based Prison Policy Initiative that lobbies for reducing U.S. jail and prison populations showed that New Mexico had a jail incarceration rate of 340.8 per 100,000 residents in 2013 — the latest year of federal data tracking all local jail populations. Georgia had the second highest rate that year with 317.3 per 100,000 residents.
County officials who oversee jails in New Mexico and Georgia say they have since enacted reforms that have significantly decreased the number of people held in those jails.
The study found that pre-trail detentions tripled jail population growth nationwide over since 1978, said Joshua Aiken, the report's author. He blamed most of the increase on inmates too poor to post bail after their arrests on minor infractions.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Study-New-Mexico-Georgia-had-nation-s-highest-11184472.php