By Associated Press
Birmingham, AL – A new report shows Alabama's prison population continued to increase last year while the number of inmates declined nationwide.
The report by the Public Safety Performance Project of the Pew Center on the States shows the number of inmates housed by the state was 31,561 on Jan. 1, an increase of 3.5 percent from a year earlier.
Meanwhile, the report says the nationwide population of state prisons declined by 0.4 percent.
Alabama Corrections Commissioner Richard Allen says his department has been working to reduce the prison populationm. He says if the state had not adopted new sentencing guidelines several years ago, the population would be even higher.