The Bureau of Justice Statistics puts out an annual called
"Correctional Populations in the United States. I don't have a recent
one handy, but it has tables on prisons -- State and Federal -- and
jails, plus those on probation.
A glance at a back issue suggests that women are around 5%
-7%. Theree is a huge number of people on probation -- 1 million 900
thousand in 1985. Ahigher percentage of the women are on probation than
are men in that year, 84% versus 61%. Of the grand total of probation,
jail, prison and parole, women made up about 13% in 1985.
Separetely , there is a Bureau of Justice Statistics "Special
Report" titled "Women in Prison" which is a survey of State prison
inmante for 1991. The authors are Tracy L. Snell, BJS statistician,
assisted by Danielle C. Morton. This is only prisons, not jail. A
note at the end says that data used in the report are available from
the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data at the University of
Michigan, telephone (800) 999-0960..The data set is archived as the
Survery of Inmates of State Correctinal Facilities 1991 (ICPSR 6068)
It might be worth calling that 800 number to see if they can help.
Gene Coyle
