{"id":19777,"date":"2013-04-08T11:53:21","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T16:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=19777"},"modified":"2013-04-08T12:05:21","modified_gmt":"2013-04-08T17:05:21","slug":"tale-of-three-states-minnesotas-surprisingly-large-supervised-population","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2013\/04\/tale-of-three-states-minnesotas-surprisingly-large-supervised-population\/","title":{"rendered":"Tale of Three States: Minnesota’s Surprisingly Large Supervised Population"},"content":{"rendered":"

As noted here a few weeks ago, my forthcoming article comparing imprisonment trends in Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin in now available on-line<\/a>.\u00a0 Due to space constraints, I was unable to include in the article all of the interesting data I have collected on the three states.\u00a0 I\u2019ll present some of that additional material in an occasional series of posts here.<\/p>\n

Today, let\u2019s take a look at the supervised populations of the three states.\u00a0 The supervised population is comprised of four subgroups: those in prisons, those in jails, those on probation, and those out on post-imprisonment supervised release (a status that goes by different names in different jurisdictions, but which I will call parole).\u00a0 As is well known, Minnesota has a remarkably low imprisonment<\/em> rate (at least by U.S. standards), although all three states have experienced an\u00a0 imprisonment boom since the 1970s.\u00a0 Here are the imprisonment numbers, reflecting the number of prisoners per 100,000 state residents:\u00a0 \"\"<\/p>\n

\"imprisonment<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As the graph indicates, Minnesota has maintained a consistently lower imprisonment rate than the other two states since the mid-1960s.\u00a0 Indeed, the Minnesota advantage has tended to widen over time.\u00a0 By contrast, Indiana has generally had the highest imprisonment rate, although Wisconsin has been close at times, and even took the lead for a few years.<\/p>\n

The story is quite different, however, if you consider the supervision <\/em>numbers more broadly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Here are the numbers of supervised individuals per 100,000 residents (excluding jail inmates):<\/p>\n

\"supervised\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In this graph, it is Wisconsin, not Minnesota, that stands out as being consistently the lowest.\u00a0 Minnesota\u2019s supervised population, by contrast, rivals that of Indiana and has sometimes been the highest of the three states.\u00a0 Whatever may be driving the Minnesota imprisonment advantage, it does not seem to result from a failure to respond to crime. Indeed, it is especially remarkable to see Minnesota rivaling Indiana here because Minnesota\u2019s crime rates have generally been much lower than Indiana\u2019s \u2014 less crime then, but about as many people being managed by the criminal-justice system.<\/p>\n

Jail numbers have been excluded from the graph, by the way, because historical jail numbers are hard to come by.<\/p>\n

Here is a more precise breakdown of the supervised populations from 2005, the most recent year for which I have been able to find published jail data:<\/p>\n

\"supervised<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

High probation numbers thus seem to drive Minnesota\u2019s high supervised population.\u00a0 About 85% of Minnesota\u2019s supervised offenders are on probation, as compared to little more than 50% in Wisconsin.\u00a0 Moreover, Minnesota\u2019s ratio of probationers to prisoners has consistently been higher than that of the other two states for a long time:<\/p>\n

\"probation<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

On the face of it, the numbers seem to reflect a very different criminal-justice strategy in Minnesota than the other two states \u2014 a strategy in which probation is emphasized to a much greater extent as the preferred form of supervision over imprisonment.\u00a0 From a fiscal standpoint anyway, this strategy would seem a very attractive one.<\/p>\n

All data come from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.<\/p>\n

Cross posted at Life Sentences Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As noted here a few weeks ago, my forthcoming article comparing imprisonment trends in Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin in now available on-line.\u00a0 Due to space constraints, I was unable to include in the article all of the interesting data I have collected on the three states.\u00a0 I\u2019ll present some of that additional material in an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-public","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}