The District is releasing fewer prisoners during overnight hours than it did in the past, a trend that could relieve long-held neighborhood concerns about freed convicts roaming the streets around the jail in Southeast Washington after dark. In a report issued by the District’s chief financial officer, the Department of Corrections said that in the 2010 fiscal year, it released up to 15 inmates per month during a nine-hour window beginning at 10 p.m.

But during the first five months of the 2012 fiscal year, that number fell sharply, with the jail releasing a total of five inmates during that period.