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by iguy 2084 days ago
But only about 10% of prisoners are in Federal custody.

Among those in state prisons, drug possession is about 3% of cases (about equal to DUI plus fraud cases). Other drug charges make up about 10%.

1 comments

> in state prisons, drug possession is about 3% of cases

You're going to need to source that unbelievably low number.

In my state, drug crimes represent the second largest proportion of prison inmates - a bit fewer than criminal sexual conduct a bit more than homicide: https://mn.gov/doc/assets/Adult%20Prison%20Population%20Summ...

Source is [1], 45k / 1290k for drug possession (and nothing harder), plus 145k for other drug charges (which I guess is closer to 11% not 10% as I said).

Minnesota's 17% isn't that far off the national number it seems. They don't give a breakdown for simple possession. Violent crimes at 55% are again a majority.

[1] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2020.html