Individuals supervised by the adult correctional systems include those under the authority of probation or parole agencies and those in the custody of state or federal prisons or local jails. This report provides statistics on the size of and change in the total correctional population during 2011. It compares the rate of offenders under correctional supervision at the end of 2000 and 2011, the rates of offenders supervised in the community, and those incarcerated at year-end 2011.

Adult correctional authorities supervised 6,977,700 offenders at the end of 2011, a decrease of 1.4% during the year. The decline of 98,900 offenders during 2011 marked the third consecutive year of decrease in the correctional population, which includes probationers, parolees, local jail inmates, and prisoners in the custody of state and federal facilities. About 2.9% of adults in the U.S., 1 in every 34 adults, were under some form of correctional supervision at year-end 2011, a rate comparable to 1998. At the end of 2011, 1 in every 50 adults in the U.S. was supervised in the community on probation or parole while about 1 in every 107 adults was incarcerated in prison or jail. The community supervision population, including probationers and parolees, which was down 1.5%, and the incarcerated population, including local jail inmates and federal and state prisoners, which was down 1.3%, decreased at about the same rate in 2011. For additional information on this report (NCJ 239972), access the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ Web site, http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4537.