"Thanks to a falling crime rate and the tightening of law enforcement budgets, the number of people in U.S. prisons could decline in 2009 for the first time in almost four decades, the Associated Press reports. The American crime rate has risen steadily every year since 1972, but the 0.8 percent increase in inmate population in 2009 is the smallest annual increase of the decade. During the 1990s, inmate population grew by 6.5 percent each year." (Quoted from article)