| The U.S. prison population increased 79 percent (from 774,000 to 1,382,000) in the decade 1990-2000. Many of these imprisoned offenders were urban residents that served their sentences in rural prisons. This paper examines the magnitude of the population shift caused by the concentration of prisons in rural areas, along with the effect of this population shift on the demographic characteristics of rural areas that experienced prison construction and expansion. |
Updated 05/20/2006