U.S. Prisons Are Bursting at the Seams, and More From CRS
The U.S. federal prison population has been growing steadily for decades, and it now exceeds the capacity of the prison system to properly house and maintain it, according to an updated report from the Congressional Research Service on the Bureau of Prisons [BOP].
“The number of inmates under the BOP’s jurisdiction has increased nearly eight-fold (790%) from approximately 24,600 inmates in FY1980 to nearly 219,300 inmates in FY2013. Since FY1980, the federal prison population has increased, on average, by approximately 5,900 inmates each year,” the report said. “The annual growth in the federal prison population has outstripped the BOP’s prison capacity, resulting in overcrowding in the federal prison system.”
The CRS report identified various options for Congress to address the situation, whether by expanding prison capacity or by reducing the prison population through alternatives to incarceration. See The Bureau of Prisons (BOP): Operations and Budget, March 4, 2014.
Other new and updated CRS reports that Congress has withheld from online public access include the following.
Congress’s Contempt Power and the Enforcement of Congressional Subpoenas: Law, History, Practice, and Procedure, April 10, 2014
Congress’s Contempt Power and the Enforcement of Congressional Subpoenas: A Sketch, April 10, 2014
The Article V Convention to Propose Constitutional Amendments: Contemporary Issues for Congress, April 11, 2014
Former Presidents: Pensions, Office Allowances, and Other Federal Benefits, April 9, 2014
Retirement Benefits for Members of Congress, March 19, 2014
Campaign Contribution Limits: Selected Questions About McCutcheon and Policy Issues for Congress, April 7, 2014
What Is the Farm Bill?, April 7, 2014
The Federal Budget: Overview and Issues for FY2015 and Beyond, April 11, 2014
U.S. Foreign Aid to Israel, April 11, 2014
Security Assistance Reform: “Section 1206” Background and Issues for Congress, April 4, 2014
Implementation of Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS): Issues for Congress, April 2, 2014
Brazil: Political and Economic Situation and U.S. Relations, March 27, 2014
Bee Health: Background and Issues for Congress, April 9, 2014
The Distribution of Household Income and the Middle Class, March 10, 2014
The current lack of public trust in AI risks inhibiting innovation and adoption of AI systems, meaning new methods will not be discovered and new benefits won’t be felt. A failure to uphold high standards in the technology we deploy will also place our nation at a strategic disadvantage compared to our competitors.
Using the NIST as an example, the Radiation Physics Building (still without the funding to complete its renovation) is crucial to national security and the medical community. If it were to go down (or away), every medical device in the United States that uses radiation would be decertified within 6 months, creating a significant single point of failure that cannot be quickly mitigated.
The federal government can support more proactive, efficient, and cost-effective resiliency planning by certifying predictive models to validate and publicly indicate their quality.
We need a new agency that specializes in uncovering funding opportunities that were overlooked elsewhere. Judging from the history of scientific breakthroughs, the benefits could be quite substantial.