AP Photo / John Locher
This April 15, 2015, photo shows guard towers at High Desert State Prison in Indian Springs.
Saturday, Sept. 15, 2018 | 2 a.m.
CARSON CITY — Nevada's imprisonment rate is 15 percent higher than the national average and growing.
The Nevada Appeal reports an analyst for the Crime and Justice Institute told the state Commission on the Administration of Justice on Wednesday Nevada incarcerates 468 people per 100,000 residents compared with the national average of 406 in other states.
Nevada currently has 13,757 prison inmates.
Institute analyst Alison Silveira said Nevada prison admissions have increased 6 percent in the past decade. She said that while women make up less than 10 percent of the inmate population, their share of that has increased 39 percent in the past 10 years.
More than half of the female inmates have no prior felony record and nearly 80 percent are for non-violent offenses. She said slightly more than half of them have been identified as having mental health issues.
