BJS: Bureau of Justice Statistics

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Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
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Special populations
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The Corrections Unit collects data for special populations in corrections through administrative records and inmate interviews (See Prison Data Sources for more information). Special population include inmates held by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Jails in Indian Country, the U.S. military, the U.S. Territories, and the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Juvenile data is limited to persons under 18 years of age held in adult correctional facilities. For data on youth in the juvenile system, please see statistics provided by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency and Prevention (OJJDP).

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Terms & Definitions

Custody count To have custody of a prisoner, a state or the Federal Bureau of Prisons must hold that person in one of its facilities. A state may have custody of a prisoner over whom another state maintains jurisdiction.
 
Federal prisons Prison facilities run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Prisoners housed in these facilities are under the legal authority of the federal government. This definition excludes the private facilities that are under exclusive contract with BOP.
 
Incarcerated population Incarcerated population is the population of inmates confined in a prison or a jail. This may also include halfway-houses, bootcamps, weekend programs, and other entities in which individuals are locked up overnight.
 
Jurisdiction count Includes prisoners under legal authority of state or federal correctional authorities who are housed in prison facilities (e.g., prisons, penitentiaries and correctional institutions; boot camps; prison farms; reception, diagnostic, and classification centers; release centers, halfway houses, and road camps; forestry and conservation camps; vocational training facilities; prison hospitals; and drug and alcohol treatment facilities for prisoners), regardless of which state they are physically held in. This number also includes prisoners who are temporarily absent (less than 30 days), out to court, or on work release; housed in local jails, private facilities, and other states' or federal facilities; serving a sentence for two jurisdictions at the same time. This count excludes prisoners held in a state or federal facility for another state or the Federal Bureau of Prisons. However, prisoners housed in another state and under the legal authority of the governing state are included.
 
Parole Parole refers to criminal offenders who are conditionally released from prison to serve the remaining portion of their sentence in the community. Prisoners may be released to parole by a parole board decision (discretionary release/discretionary parole), according to provisions of a statute (mandatory release/mandatory parole), through other types of post-custody conditional supervision, or as the result of a sentence to a term of supervised release. In the federal system, a term of supervised release is a sentence to a fixed period of supervision in the community that follows a sentence to a period of incarceration in federal prison, both of which are ordered at the time of sentencing by a federal judge. Parolees can have a number of different supervision statuses including active supervision, which means they are required to regularly report to a parole authority in person, by mail, or by telephone. Some parolees may be on an inactive status which means they are excluded from regularly reporting, and that could be due to a number of reasons. For instance, some may receive a reduction in supervision, possibly due to compliance or meeting all required conditions before the parole sentence terminates, and therefore may be moved from an active to inactive status. Other supervision statues include parolees who only have financial conditions remaining, have absconded, or who have active warrants. Parolees are also typically required to fulfill certain conditions and adhere to specific rules of conduct while in the community. Failure to comply with any of the conditions can result in a return to incarceration.
 
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