The Numbers

Statistics and Graphs
https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_age.jsp

This chart is based on age, and was updated on September 26th, 2015. As you can see the highest age gap for prison inmates are between the ages of 36-40. Within this age category the number is 37,593, and the percentage is 18.3%. This number shocked me because depending on the crime I would thought that the number of prison inmates would be around in the mid-late teen year and early 20s especially in the local news you normally hear about how young the criminals are. Although this chart provides great statistical numbers this is also vague.

Chart Label	Age Range	# of Inmates	% of Inmates
<18	Under 18	33	0.0%
18	Ages 18-21	2,305	1.1%
22	Ages 22-25	11,660	5.7%
26	Ages 26-30	26,718	13.0%
31	Ages 31-35	37,238	18.1%
36	Ages 36-40	37,593	18.3%
41	Ages 41-45	31,261	15.2%
46	Ages 46-50	22,328	10.9%
51	Ages 51-55	16,142	7.9%
56	Ages 56-60	9,856	4.8%
61	Ages 61-65	5,681	2.8%
>65	Over 65	4,693	2.3%

https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_sentences.jsp 
Updated in September 2015 the number of life sentence inmates is 5,387 which results a 2.8% average, and the death sentence is much lower ranking in 57 people. In the news we hear more about the death sentence. But, could the life and the death sentence equal each other? I think so because if you think about it if you are sent to prison for the rest of your life then you are going to die there so why not get rid of the death sentence. I think it's pretty much the same thing, but categorized differently.

Sentence	# of Inmates	% of Inmates
Less than 1 year	5,592	2.3 %
1-3 years	22,185	11.4%
3-5 years	25,861	13.3%
5-10 years	49,398	25.5%
10-15 years	39,579	20.4%
15-20 years	21,663	11.2%
More than 20 years	24,106	12.4%
Life	5,387	2.8%
Death	57	0.0%

http://sentencingproject.org/doc/publications/inc_Trends_in_Corrections_Fact_sheet.pdf

Sentencing Project provides information from 1984-2012. Although this is not recently updated these graphs give increasing amount of inmates serving life sentences. In 1984 there were 34,000 inmates serving time. Jump to 2012 there were 159,520 inmates. Is this a major issue? I think it is! The huge increase should question whether or not .

Not only did I come across this graph, I also came upon a graph observing racial background in prisons in 2012. Mostly the race that holds more prison life sentences are the African-American population holding a 47.2%. The White population holds a 34.7%, and lastly the Latino population with a 16% holding. We can view this as a serious matter or a racist issue. Lately we have seen many arrests shown on social media, and many of them look like a race issue. I think that there should be more information on what and why African-American people are in prison, and why the rate is high in 2012.

https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.jsp

Jump to 2015 the race numbers have increased to where white inmates have increased up to 58.9%.



http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/09/19/2645781/prisoners-serving-life-sentences/

This was a blog written in 2013 that I found with more numbers and reasons why prisoners are serving life sentences. The author shows dedication towards this topic, and reading this post was interesting for me.