The number of people in Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) custody for cannabis is down 61% from 2013 to 2018, according to the latest Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics report.
While this shows a decline in cannabis incarcerations since the launch of numerous legal cannabis markets, data for 2018 to the present is not included in the report – a time period which has seen multiple other legal cannabis markets launch.
In a statement regarding the report, Dr. Alexis Piquero, Director of BJS, commented: “Although the number of people in federal prison for drug offences decreased over this 5-year span, they still accounted for a large share—almost half—of the people in BOP custody in 2018.
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“At the same time, we saw differences by the type of drug involved, with more people incarcerated for heroin and methamphetamines and fewer for marijuana and cocaine.”
Alongside data showing the decrease in cannabis incarcerations, the report data also shows that around 60% of all people in BOP custody for drug offences at fiscal year end 2018 had received mandatory minimum penalties, including 4% for cannabis.
Additionally, The report analysed the federal prison population of people who could have received penalties for their drug offence, showing that those serving time for crack cocaine were more likely to receive penalties (94%) than those held for cannabis (82%).
Piquero stated: “Additionally, and regardless of any penalties they received, six in 10 people in BOP custody in 2018 were serving long drug sentences of 10 years or more. As for those sentenced to at least 20 years, more than half of the males were black and over 40% of the females were white.”
