Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
7 Figures: How long do criminals spend in prison?
7 Figures: How long do criminals spend in prison?
Jun 16, 2026 8:49 AM

As the old saying goes, “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.” But how much time do you have to do if mit a crime? Probably not as long as you’d imagine.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics recently released a report—Time Served in State Prison 2016—that reveals how long prisoners serve for a variety of criminal offenses. Here are seven figures from the report you should know:

1. The average time served by state prisoners released in 2016, from initial admission to initial release, was 2.6 years, and the median time served was 1.3 years.

2. Criminals served an average of 46 percent of their maximum sentence length before their initial release. State prisoners initially released in 2016 served an average of 62 percent of their sentence if they were serving time for rape or sexual assault, and 38 percent if serving time for drug possession. Persons serving less than one year in state prison represented 40 percent of first releases in 2016.

3. Persons sentenced for murder or non-negligent manslaughter served an average of 15 years in state prison before their initial release.

4. Ninety-six percent of violent offenders released in 2016, including 70 percent of those sentenced for murder or non-negligent manslaughter, served less than 20 years before initial release from state prison. About three-quarters of violent offenders released from state prison in 2016 served at least one year before initial release.

5. Roughly 1 in 5 state prisoners released in 2016 after being sentenced for rape or sexual assault served 10 or more years before initial release.

6. On average, state prisoners serving time for property, drug, or public-order offenses served less than two years before initial release. Most offenders (59 percent) released from state prison in 2016 after serving time for drug possession served less than one year before their initial release.

7. By offense type, the median time served was 13.4 years for murder, 2.2 years for violent crimes excluding murder, 17 months for drug trafficking, and 10 months for drug possession.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
ABC’s Nannies & Mommies
One of ABC’s new dramas, Brothers & Sisters, features Calista Flockhart as a hard-hitting conservative pundit named Kitty Walker. Despite its title, the show is not all that family friendly (although it has not yet been rated by the Parents Television Council). But for this post, I won’t be focusing on the questionable social and sexual mores of the show. Instead, I’m going to focus on an aspect of the show’s portrayal of politics. “Politics is about the privilege and...
Today is MLK Day
Today is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, and rightly so. Here’s a bit from his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”: How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a...
Wealth, moral development, and Paris Hilton
In his latest TCS Daily essay, Arnold Kling writes, “As we get wealthier, we also e enhanced physically, cognitively, and morally, leading to a virtuous cycle of improvements to the standard of living.” Does affluence leads to moral progress? I don’t think there’s any necessary connection, and there’s plenty of counter-evidence, not least of which are the moral atrocities of the 20th century. But what about more mundane examples? In today’s WSJ, Kay S. Horowitz writes about the exploits of...
Today’s snippet of wisdom
There is no ordering of the state so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man as such. —Deus Caritas Est ...
The Issachar Project: The importance of film
Last weekend I had the joy of sharing in a special meeting in Newport Beach, California, that was appropriately named the Issachar Project. This small project is the work, primarily, of my friend Andrew Sandlin of the Center for Cultural Leadership. Andrew is convinced that there must be an intellectual and existential coalition of (1) Christians working in Hollywood and elsewhere in the film industry and (2) serious Christian thinkers in the arts. You may recall that the sons of...
Should Muslims have…
…faith-based health services? Change is unlikely to occur without adequate … representation of munities in positions of influence – be they government bodies, research charities, or NHS trusts” Professor Sheikh says. He concludes that the long-term goal must be “to mainstream the understanding of the importance of religious identity.” But Professor Aneez Esmail from Manchester University argues that whilst it is “reasonable [that] we try to plan and configure our services to take account of needs that may have their...
MLK and Environmental Justice
Environmental Justice Blog: “If Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. was alive today he would be an environmental justice activist.” Perhaps. MLK went to Memphis in 1968 on a mission for black garbage workers demanding equal pay and better work conditions. He was killed before he got there. 15 years later, black activists would stop a hazardous waste landfill in Warren County, North Carolina, often pointed to as the beginning of the environmental justice movement. Are the two related? Sure....
It must start with the church
The question of cultural transformation looms over American Christianity. Should we engage culture? If so, how? In a battle for supremacy over American institutions? Or for the hearts and minds of the people? Reading through a sermon from Augustine, I was struck by a passage that illustrates how transformation of the world begins (and sometimes ends) in the church: …pray as much as you can. Evils abound, and God has willed that evils abound. If only evil people didn’t abound,...
More dispatches from the fall of Western culture
There’s nothing like a few dreary Michigan winter days to get me into a midwinter funk. And because I’m a nice guy, I thought I’d share some of my funkyness with you, gentle reader. Especially if you’re in a warmer climate. First of all, David Warren notes that the foundations of society in Canada are still under assault: The names of the plaintiffs in that case were suppressed by the court. I would be very curious to know who they...
‘I was in prison’
In the great discourse regarding the separation of the sheep and the goats found in Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus refers to the kinds of actions, done in obediential faith that works through love, that demonstrates those who truly love him and those who do not. I have heard a dozen different ways of explaining, or explaining away, these verses over the course of my lifetime. Many consign them to Israel and how we treat the Jews. Others say they must be...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2026 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved