Getting your player ready...
WASHINGTON — The nation’s local jail population is declining for the first time since the government began keeping count, reflecting what some experts say is a growing belief that jails are housing too many people who do not belong there.
The number of inmates in county and city jails was about 767,600 at the end of June 2009, down by nearly 18,000 inmates from a year earlier. The latest total was down 2.3 percent and represented the first decline since the Bureau of Justice Statistics began its annual survey in 1982.
