One in 37 US adults ‘has been in prison’
The 5.6 million people with "prison experience" represented about 2.7% of the adult population of 210 million as of December 31, 2001, the report found. The study by the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics looked at people who served a criminal sentence in state or federal prison, not those temporarily held in jail.
Last month, the bureau reported that a record 2.1m people were in federal, state or local custody at the end of 2002.
