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Even while the violent crime rate is falling, prison populations are still rising.

Close to 1.47 million people are serving time in state and federal prisons across the United States. That means that one out of every 109 men in the United States is serving time in prison. One out of every 1,613 women is behind bars.

A new U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics report says the prison populations are growing older -- one- third of all inmates are now between 40 and 54 years old. The report says you can expect this trend to continue because sentences are getting longer. (Page 8 of the report.)

Nearly one out of 10 young black men is in prison currently. Blacks represent 44 percent of the prison population (while representing 13 percent of the nation's overall population.) Whites accounted for 35 percent of the prison population, with Hispanics making up 19 percent of all inmates serving time. (Page 9 of the report).

The report put it another way:

Among black males age 25 to 29, 9.3 percent were in prison at year-end, compared to 2.6 percent of Hispanic males and about 1.1 percent of white males of the same age group.

USA Today built this chart using the BOJ statistics:

More than 2,000 of the inmates held in prisons are American soldiers, Marines, and sailors accused of crimes. (Page 8 of the report)

The Chicago Tribune found another story in the Justice Department numbers:

The number of women in state and federal prisons is at an all-time high and is growing, with the incarceration rate for female felons increasing at nearly twice that of their male counterparts, the government reported Sunday.

There were 101,179 women in prisons last year, 3.6 percent more than in 2002, the Justice Department said. It marks the first time the figure has topped 100,000, and continues a trend of rapid growth.

Despite the gain, men are still far more likely than women to be imprisoned, with black men the most likely group to be locked up.

The government's report offers this snapshot: (Page 5)

Texas (13,487), the Federal system (11,635), and California (10,656) held more than a third of all female inmates (table 6). Mississippi (134 sentenced female inmates per 100,000 female residents), Oklahoma (127), and Louisiana (104) had the highest female incarceration rates.

States with the lowest female incarceration rates were concentrated in the Northeast --Rhode Island (10 sentenced female prisoners per 100,000 female residents), Massachusetts
(12), Maine and New Hampshire (both with 18).

The report continues:

Black females (with an incarceration rate of 185 per 100,000) were more than twice as likely as Hispanic females (84 per 100,000) and nearly 5 times more likely than white females (38 per 100,000) to be in prison on December 31, 2003. (Page 10 of the report.)

Stun gun maker Taser International Inc. said on Monday that the Department of Homeland Security has approved the use of the guns on commercial flights.

USA Today produced a comprehensive piece on the state of the Catholic Church. The problems go well beyond the sex-abuse scandal.

Today there are fewer parishes and fewer priests than in 1990 and fewer of the nation's 65 million Catholics in those pews. And there's no sign of return.

Some blame the explosive 2002 clergy sexual abuse scandal and its financial price tag. But a USA Today study of 176 Roman Catholic dioceses shows no statistically significant link between the decline in priests and parishes and the $772 million the church has spent to date on dealing with the scandal.

Rather, the changes are driven by a constellation of factors:

• Catholics are moving from cities in the Northeast and Midwest to the suburbs, South and Southwest.
• For decades, so few men have become priests that one in five dioceses now can't put a priest in every parish.
• Mass attendance has fallen as each generation has become less religiously observant.
• Bishops -- trained to bless, not to budget -- lack the managerial skills to govern multimillion-dollar institutions.

The Los Angeles Times wanted to know how many parents would take advantage of the new rules that allow parents of kids in failing schools to move their kids to better schools. The answer is: very few. It may not be for lack of trying. Some school districts have no space for transfers. This is certainly worth localizing.

The L.A. Times reports:

More than 1 million students in the nation's largest urban school districts have remained at poor-performing campuses despite a federal law that allows them a chance to escape to better schools.

The offer extended by the No Child Left Behind education law is intended to expand school choices for children in low-income communities.

But in Los Angeles, only 215 students switched to better campuses last year out of nearly 204,000 who were eligible.

In Chicago, 1,097 students out of 270,000 transferred.

And in New York, 6,828 out of 230,000 students moved to other campuses.

A lack of interest on the part of parents and a shortage of available seats in good schools have combined to weaken the impact of the law. Still, the Bush administration argues that its signature domestic policy strengthens local campuses by introducing competitive marketplace forces into public school districts.

The Times added this:

New York City schools, for example, are not offering high school students the opportunity to transfer this year through No Child Left Behind, saying the city's high school admissions process already allows choices.

And in Chicago, officials have reserved just 438 seats for transfers this year even though 8,000 students have asked to move.

Last year, the district set aside 1,097 seats for 18,000 students who expressed interest.

UnitedHealth, an insurance company, builds this list every year.

America's Health: State Health Rankings -- 2004 Edition shows Minnesota at the top of the list of healthiest states. Minnesota has been among the top two states since 1990.

New Hampshire is ranked second this year and has been in the top two states 11 times in the last 15 years. Vermont is number three, followed by Hawaii, Utah, and Massachusetts.

Louisiana is 50th and the least healthy state, while Mississippi is 49th. Tennessee, South Carolina, and Arkansas complete the bottom five states.

I hope you will take a few minutes to celebrate the career of one of my all-time favorite reporters, Robert Hager, who retired last week from NBC News. I interviewed Hager last week as he completed 35 years at the network. In that time he distinguished himself as one of network television's most prolific and respected correspondents.

This may be the buried lead. I am also pleased to tell you that Bob accepted my invitation to be a visiting faculty member in Poynter's April 10-15, 2005 TV Power Reporting seminar. It will be an amazing week. The application deadline is February 16.

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Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts, and other materials from a variety of websites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed, and a link will be provided, whenever possible.