According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the current population of the federal prison system is 189,984. Looking over the most recent data confirms that men are more likely to commit crime and be convicted than women. Of the 189,984 inmates, just 12,786—6.7%—are female. An overwhelming 93.3% of the inmates populating federal prisons are males. This journalist set out to determine the breakdown of the population’s race and offenses.

Over half of the prison population, 56.6%, is classified as white. Black inmates make up 40.2%. However, these numbers are misleading. Apparently those of Hispanic origin are classified under white. Further analysis revealed that 31.5% of the federal prison population is Hispanic. Adjusting for this fact reduces the number of white non-Hispanic inmates to 47,277, which is 24.8% of the population. It’s also worth noting that 31,891 inmates in the federal prison system have Mexican citizenship.

Having accomplished the first goal, it was now time to find out how the prison space was being utilized. The offense breakdown might be somewhat surprising. First, the lowest offense in the prison population was National Security issues. There are currently 103 inmates serving time for offenses of this nature. Most inmates are serving time for drug related offenses. 93,347 inmates, which is just over half of the entire prison population, is serving time for drug offenses. Coming in a distant second, at 24,277 inmates, was Weapons, Explosives and Arson offenses.

Just about half of the prison population is serving sentences 5-15 years in length. Roughly 66% of the inmates, who have an average age of 38, are serving their time in low and medium security prisons. The information from the Federal Bureau of Prisons clearly illustrates that drugs are the major issue in the country. However, the initial data did not break down the offenses in further detail, so there is no way to tell how serious the offenses were in general. Also noteworthy is the fact that 18,886 (10.8%) of federal inmates are locked up for immigration offenses.