Booting Earth Optimization System
Thank you for your patience. Your civilization is very important to us.
Thank you for your patience. Your civilization is very important to us.
Agency Report Card
Protect public safety through correctional management
Protect public safety through correctional management
2008 US has 5% of world population, 25% of world prisoners. Incarceration rate 5x the OECD average. ↗
2010 Fair Sentencing Act — reduces crack/powder disparity from 100:1 to 18:1 (not eliminated) ↗
2018 First Step Act — first federal sentencing reform in decades. Population begins declining. ↗
Budget rose 134% (FY2000 $3.67B → FY2024 $8.57B, nominal) while the federal prison population rose 51% to a FY2013 peak of 219,298, then fell 28% to 158,864 by FY2024. Nearly half (49.3%) of federal offenders released in 2010 were rearrested within eight years.
| Year | BOP enacted appropriations, Salaries & Expenses + Buildings & Facilities (nominal USD, fiscal year; includes supplementals) | Federal prison population under BOP jurisdiction, end of fiscal year |
|---|---|---|
| 2000 | $3.67B | 145,125 |
| 2004 | $4.81B | 179,895 |
| 2008 | $5.72B | 201,668 |
| 2010 | $6.21B | 210,227 |
| 2012 | $6.64B | 218,687 |
| 2014 | $6.86B | 214,149 |
| 2016 | $7.48B | 192,170 |
| 2018 | $7.28B | 181,698 |
| 2020 | $7.78B | 155,562 |
| 2022 | $8.1B | 159,090 |
| 2024 | $8.57B | 158,864 |
“Contain the dangerous, restore the rest, and pay victims first”
Federal Bureau of Prisons budget in 2024
Approximate federal prison population in 2024
Rough repeat-offense rate cited in the dataset commentary
Approximate annual incarceration cost per federal prisoner
Did mass incarceration reduce crime?
Did mass incarceration reduce crime?
US incarceration rate was flat at ~100 per 100K from 1925-1972. After mandatory minimums, it exploded to 531 per 100K — the highest in the world. Violent crime dropped at the same rate in states that did NOT increase incarceration.
US incarceration rate was flat at ~100 per 100K from 1925-1972. After mandatory minimums, it exploded to 531 per 100K — the highest in the world. Violent crime dropped at the same rate in states that did NOT increase incarceration.
“Eight point six billion dollars a year to warehouse people at forty-seven thousand dollars per prisoner. Rearrested within eight years: forty-nine percent. You are running the most expensive failure factory in human history.”
Fair sentencing by reducing crack/powder cocaine disparity
Reduced the disparity from 100:1 to 18:1. Not eliminated. 5g of crack (used predominantly in Black communities) still triggers same sentence as 90g of powder cocaine.
Disparity reduced from 100:1 to 18:1, not eliminated
375/100K
Was 139/100K in 1980. US has 5% of world population, 25% of world prisoners.
363.8/100K
Crime peaked in 1991 and fell at the same rate in states that did NOT increase incarceration.
On a well-run planet, this agency would have been deprecated centuries ago. Here is what replaces it.
Restorative Justice Network — Bureau of Prisons