“Reformers and policymakers who are concerned about the vast U.S. prison system have called for reducing the number of people behind bars. By that standard, they’ve made progress over the past several years, as the incarcerated population has declined from its peak in 2009.
“Yet even as fewer people are behind bars, the number going to prison nationally changed little during that time — outside of California, where the Supreme Court ordered major reforms to the state’s overcrowded system in 2011.”