State prison populations, which have grown for nearly four decades, have begun to dip, according to a new report, largely because of recent efforts to keep parolees out of prison and reduce prison time for nonviolent offenders.

Cash-strapped states are increasingly turning to alternative sentencing methods and to streamlined probation and parole as a way to keep low-level offenders out of prison and in their communities.

Prison companies are preparing for a wave of new business as the economic downturn makes it increasingly difficult for federal and state government officials to build and operate their own jails.

When she hit 60, Sarah Coleman thought she was done raising children. But today she is among the millions of Americans left to fill the void for family members gone to jail.

The United States is the world's leading prison state. For the first time in our history, more than one out of every 100 adults is behind bars.

After three decades of explosive growth, the nation’s prison population has reached some grim milestones: More than 1 in 100 American adults are behind bars. One in nine black men, ages 20 to 34, are serving time, as are 1 in 36 adult Hispanic men.

The United States has failed to uphold its international obligations to protect the human rights of migrants, subjecting too many to prolonged detention in substandard facilities while depriving them of an adequate appeals process and labor protections...

For the first time in the nation’s history, more than one in 100 American adults are behind bars, according to a new report.

The United States leads the world in a shameful category: the number of people it has locked up for life without parole for crimes committed by juveniles.

Minnesota also remains a state that - despite some recent changes - bucks the nationwide trend for hyper-incarceration, and actually saw a fall in the number of people being sent to its jails between 2005 and 2006.

Given the choices that African Americans have and the environmental issues at the root of their problems, should blacks go green?

Blacks in the United States are imprisoned at more than five times the rate of whites, and Hispanics are locked up at nearly double the white rate, according to a study released Wednesday by a criminal justice policy group. The report by the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based think tank, found that states in the Midwest and Northeast have the greatest black-to-white disparity in incarceration. Iowa had the widest disparity in the nation, imprisoning blacks at more than 13 times the rate of whites.