By Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner
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Can it really be true that most people in jail are legally innocent? How much of mass incarceration is a result of the war on drugs, or the profit motives of private prisons? How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed decisions about how people are punished when they break the law? These essential questions are harder to answer than you might expect. The various government agencies involved in the criminal legal system collect a lot of data, but very little is designed to help policymakers or the public understand what’s going on. As public support for criminal justice reform continues to build — and as the pandemic raises the stakes higher — it’s more important than ever that we get the facts straight and understand the big picture. Further complicating matters is the fact that the U.S. doesn’t have one “criminal justice system;” instead, we have thousands of federal, state, local, and tribal systems. Together, these systems hold almost 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 2,850 local jails, 1,510 juvenile correctional facilities, 186 immigration detention facilities, and 82 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. 1 This report offers some much-needed clarity by piecing together the data about this country’s disparate systems of confinement. It provides a detailed look at where and why people are locked up in the U.S., and dispels some modern myths to focus attention on the real drivers of mass incarceration and overlooked issues that call for reform. This big-picture view is a lens through which the main drivers of mass incarceration come into focus;4 it allows us to identify important, but often ignored, systems of confinement. The detailed views bring these overlooked systems to light, from immigration detention to civil commitment and youth confinement. In particular, local jails often receive short shrift in larger discussions about criminal justice, but they play a critical role as “incarceration’s front door” and have a far greater impact than the daily population suggests. While this pie chart provides a comprehensive snapshot of our correctional system, the graphic does not capture the enormous churn in and out of our correctional facilities, nor the far larger universe of people whose lives are affected by the criminal justice system. In a typical year, about 600,000 people enter prison gates,5 but people go to jail over 10 million times each year.67 Jail churn is particularly high because most people in jails have not been convicted.8 Some have just been arrested and will make bail within hours or days, while many others are too poor to make bail and remain behind bars until their trial. Only a small number (about 103,000 on any given day) have been convicted, and are generally serving misdemeanors sentences under a year. At least 1 in 4 people who go to jail will be arrested again within the same year — often those dealing with poverty, mental illness, and substance use disorders, whose problems only worsen with incarceration. With a sense of the big picture, the next question is: why are so many people locked up? How many are incarcerated for drug offenses? Are the profit motives of private companies driving incarceration? Or is it really about public safety and keeping dangerous people off the streets? There are a plethora of modern myths about incarceration. Most have a kernel of truth, but these myths distract us from focusing on the most important drivers of incarceration. Eight myths about mass incarcerationThe overcriminalization of drug use, the use of private prisons, and low-paid or unpaid prison labor are among the most contentious issues in criminal justice today because they inspire moral outrage. But they do not answer the question of why most people are incarcerated or how we can dramatically — and safely — reduce our use of confinement. Likewise, emotional responses to sexual and violent offenses often derail important conversations about the social, economic, and moral costs of incarceration and lifelong punishment. False notions of what a “violent crime” conviction means about an individual’s dangerousness continue to be used in an attempt to justify long sentences — even though that’s not what victims want. At the same time, misguided beliefs about the “services” provided by jails are used to rationalize the construction of massive new “mental health jails.” Finally, simplistic solutions to reducing incarceration, such as moving people from jails and prisons to community supervision, ignore the fact that “alternatives” to incarceration often lead to incarceration anyway. Focusing on the policy changes that can end mass incarceration, and not just put a dent in it, requires the public to put these issues into perspective. The first myth: Private prisons are the corrupt heart of mass incarcerationIn fact, less than 8% of all incarcerated people are held in private prisons; the vast majority are in publicly-owned prisons and jails.11 Some states have more people in private prisons than others, of course, and the industry has lobbied to maintain high levels of incarceration, but private prisons are essentially a parasite on the massive publicly-owned system — not the root of it. Nevertheless, a range of private industries and even some public agencies continue to profit from mass incarceration. Many city and county jails rent space to other agencies, including state prison systems,12 the U.S. Marshals Service, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Private companies are frequently granted contracts to operate prison food and health services (often so bad they result in major lawsuits), and prison and jail telecom and commissary functions have spawned multi-billion dollar private industries. By privatizing services like phone calls, medical care, and commissary, prisons and jails are unloading the costs of incarceration onto incarcerated people and their families, trimming their budgets at an unconscionable social cost. Private prisons and jails hold less than 8% of all incarcerated people, making them a relatively small part of a mostly publicly-run correctional system.The second myth: Prisons are “factories behind fences” that exist to provide companies with a huge slave labor forceSimply put, private companies using prison labor are not what stands in the way of ending mass incarceration, nor are they the source of most prison jobs. Only about 5,000 people in prison — less than 1% — are employed by private companies through the federal PIECP program, which requires them to pay at least minimum wage before deductions. (A larger portion work for state-owned “correctional industries,” which pay much less, but this still only represents about 6% of people incarcerated in state prisons.)13 But prisons do rely on the labor of incarcerated people for food service, laundry, and other operations, and they pay incarcerated workers unconscionably low wages: our 2017 study found that on average, incarcerated people earn between 86 cents and $3.45 per day for the most common prison jobs. In at least five states, those jobs pay nothing at all. Moreover, work in prison is compulsory, with little regulation or oversight, and incarcerated workers have few rights and protections. If they refuse to work, incarcerated people face disciplinary action. For those who do work, the paltry wages they receive often go right back to the prison, which charges them for basic necessities like medical visits and hygiene items. Forcing people to work for low or no pay and no benefits, while charging them for necessities, allows prisons to shift the costs of incarceration to incarcerated people — hiding the true cost of running prisons from most Americans. The third myth: Releasing “nonviolent drug offenders” would end mass incarcerationIt’s true that police, prosecutors, and judges continue to punish people harshly for nothing more than drug possession. Drug offenses still account for the incarceration of almost 400,000 people, and drug convictions remain a defining feature of the federal prison system. Police still make over 1 million drug possession arrests each year,14 many of which lead to prison sentences. Drug arrests continue to give residents of over-policed communities criminal records, hurting their employment prospects and increasing the likelihood of longer sentences for any future offenses. Nevertheless, 4 out of 5 people in prison or jail are locked up for something other than a drug offense — either a more serious offense or an even less serious one. To end mass incarceration, we will have to change how our society and our criminal legal system responds to crimes more serious than drug possession. We must also stop incarcerating people for behaviors that are even more benign. The fourth myth: By definition, “violent crime” involves physical harmThe distinction between “violent” and “nonviolent” crime means less than you might think; in fact, these terms are so widely misused that they are generally unhelpful in a policy context. In the public discourse about crime, people typically use “violent” and “nonviolent” as substitutes for serious versus nonserious criminal acts. That alone is a fallacy, but worse, these terms are also used as coded (often racialized) language to label individuals as inherently dangerous versus non-dangerous. In reality, state and federal laws apply the term “violent” to a surprisingly wide range of criminal acts — including many that don’t involve any physical harm. In some states, purse-snatching, manufacturing methamphetamines, and stealing drugs are considered violent crimes. Burglary is generally considered a property crime, but an array of state and federal laws classify burglary as a violent crime in certain situations, such as when it occurs at night, in a residence, or with a weapon present. So even if the building was unoccupied, someone convicted of burglary could be punished for a violent crime and end up with a long prison sentence and “violent” record. The common misunderstanding of what “violent crime” really refers to — a legal distinction that often has little to do with actual or intended harm — is one of the main barriers to meaningful criminal justice reform. Reactionary responses to the idea of violent crime often lead policymakers to categorically exclude from reforms people convicted of legally “violent” crimes. But over 40% of people in prison and jail are there for offenses classified as “violent,” so these carveouts end up gutting the impact of otherwise well-crafted policies. As we and many others have explained before, cutting incarceration rates to anything near international norms will be impossible without changing how we respond to violent crime. To start, we have to be clearer about what that loaded term really means. The fifth myth: People in prison for violent or sexual crimes are too dangerous to be releasedOf course, many people convicted of violent offenses have caused serious harm to others. But how does the criminal legal system determine the risk that they pose to their communities? Again, the answer is too often “we judge them by their offense type,” rather than “we evaluate their individual circumstances.” This reflects the particularly harmful myth that people who commit violent or sexual crimes are incapable of rehabilitation and thus warrant many decades or even a lifetime of punishment. As lawmakers and the public increasingly agree that past policies have led to unnecessary incarceration, it’s time to consider policy changes that go beyond the low-hanging fruit of “non-non-nons” — people convicted of non-violent, non-serious, non-sexual offenses. Again, if we are serious about ending mass incarceration, we will have to change our responses to more serious and violent crime. Recidivism data do not support the belief that people who commit violent crimes ought to be locked away for decades for the sake of public safety. People convicted of violent and sexual offenses are actually among the least likely to be rearrested, and those convicted of rape or sexual assault have rearrest rates 20% lower than all other offense categories combined. One reason for the lower rates of recidivism among people convicted of violent offenses: age is one of the main predictors of violence. The risk for violence peaks in adolescence or early adulthood and then declines with age, yet we incarcerate people long after their risk has declined.15 Sadly, most state officials ignored this evidence even as the pandemic made obvious the need to reduce the number of people trapped in prisons and jails, where COVID-19 ran rampant. Instead of considering the release of people based on their age or individual circumstances, most officials categorically refused to consider people convicted of violent or sexual offenses, dramatically reducing the number of people eligible for earlier release.16 The sixth myth: Crime victims support long prison sentencesPolicymakers, judges, and prosecutors often invoke the name of victims to justify long sentences for violent offenses. But contrary to the popular narrative, most victims of violence want violence prevention, not incarceration. Harsh sentences don’t deter violent crime, and many victims believe that incarceration can make people more likely to engage in crime. National survey data show that most victims support violence prevention, social investment, and alternatives to incarceration that address the root causes of crime, not more investment in carceral systems that cause more harm.17 This suggests that they care more about the health and safety of their communities than they do about retribution. Victims and survivors of crime prefer investments in crime prevention rather than long prison sentences.Moreover, people convicted of crimes are often victims themselves, complicating the moral argument for harsh punishments as “justice.” While conversations about justice tend to treat perpetrators and victims of crime as two entirely separate groups, people who engage in criminal acts are often victims of violence and trauma, too — a fact behind the adage that “hurt people hurt people.”18 As victims of crime know, breaking this cycle of harm will require greater investments in communities, not the carceral system. The seventh myth: Some people need to go to jail to get treatment and servicesIt’s absolutely true that people ensnared in the criminal legal system have a lot of unmet needs. But we shouldn’t misconstrue the “services” offered in jails and prisons as reasons to lock people up. Local jails, especially, are filled with people who need medical care and social services, but jails have repeatedly failed to provide these services. Many people end up cycling in and out of jail without ever receiving the help they need. People with mental health problems are often put in solitary confinement, have limited access to counseling, and are left unmonitored due to constant staffing shortages. The result: suicide is the leading cause of death in local jails. Given this track record, building new “mental health jails” to respond to decades of disinvestment in community-based services is particularly alarming. Similarly, while two-thirds of people in jail have substance use disorders, jails consistently fail to provide adequate treatment. A tiny fraction of all jails provide medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder—the gold standard for care. That means that rather than providing drug treatment, jails more often interrupt drug treatment by cutting patients off from their medications. Between 2000 and 2018, the number of people who died of intoxication while in jail increased by almost 400%; typically, these individuals died within just one day of admission. Jails are not safe detox facilities, nor are they capable of providing the therapeutic environment people require for long-term recovery and healing. The eighth myth: Expanding community supervision is the best way to reduce incarcerationCommunity supervision, which includes probation, parole, and pretrial supervision, is often seen as a “lenient” punishment or as an ideal “alternative” to incarceration. But while remaining in the community is certainly preferable to being locked up, the conditions imposed on those under supervision are often so restrictive that they set people up to fail. The long supervision terms, numerous and burdensome requirements, and constant surveillance (especially with electronic monitoring) result in frequent “failures,” often for minor infractions like breaking curfew or failing to pay unaffordable supervision fees. In 2019, at least 153,000 people were incarcerated for non-criminal violations of probation or parole, often called “technical violations.”1920 Probation, in particular, leads to unnecessary incarceration; until it is reformed to support and reward success rather than detect mistakes, it is not a reliable “alternative.” The high costs of low-level offensesMost justice-involved people in the U.S. are not accused of serious crimes; more often, they are charged with misdemeanors or non-criminal violations. Yet even low-level offenses, like technical violations of probation and parole, can lead to incarceration and other serious consequences. Rather than investing in community-driven safety initiatives, cities and counties are still pouring vast amounts of public resources into the processing and punishment of these minor offenses. Probation & parole violations and “holds” lead to unnecessary incarcerationOften overlooked in discussions about mass incarceration are the various “holds” that keep people behind bars for administrative reasons. A common example is when people on probation or parole are jailed for violating their supervision, either for a new crime or a non-criminal (or “technical”) violation. If a parole or probation officer suspects that someone has violated supervision conditions, they can file a “detainer” (or “hold”), rendering that person ineligible for release on bail. For people struggling to rebuild their lives after conviction or incarceration, returning to jail for a minor infraction can be profoundly destabilizing. The most recent data show that nationally, almost 1 in 5 (18%) people in jail are there for a violation of probation or parole, though in some places these violations or detainers account for over one-third of the jail population. This problem is not limited to local jails, either; in 2019, the Council of State Governments found that nearly 1 in 4 people in state prisons are incarcerated as a result of supervision violations. During the first year of the pandemic, that number dropped only slightly, to 1 in 5 people in state prisons. Misdemeanors: Minor offenses with major consequencesThe “massive misdemeanor system” in the U.S. is another important but overlooked contributor to overcriminalization and mass incarceration. For behaviors as benign as jaywalking or sitting on a sidewalk, an estimated 13 million misdemeanor charges sweep droves of Americans into the criminal justice system each year (and that’s excluding civil violations and speeding). These low-level offenses typically account for about 25% of the daily jail population nationally, and much more in some states and counties. Misdemeanor charges may sound trivial, but they carry serious financial, personal, and social costs, especially for defendants but also for broader society, which finances the processing of these court cases and all of the unnecessary incarceration that comes with them. And then there are the moral costs: People charged with misdemeanors are often not appointed counsel and are pressured to plead guilty and accept a probation sentence to avoid jail time. This means that innocent people routinely plead guilty and are then burdened with the many collateral consequences that come with a criminal record, as well as the heightened risk of future incarceration for probation violations. A misdemeanor system that pressures innocent defendants to plead guilty seriously undermines American principles of justice. “Low-level fugitives” live in fear of incarceration for missed court dates and unpaid finesDefendants can end up in jail even if their offense is not punishable with jail time. Why? Because if a defendant fails to appear in court or to pay fines and fees, the judge can issue a “bench warrant” for their arrest, directing law enforcement to jail them in order to bring them to court. While there is currently no national estimate of the number of active bench warrants, their use is widespread and, in some places, incredibly common. In Monroe County, N.Y., for example, over 3,000 people have an active bench warrant at any time, more than 3 times the number of people in the county jails. But bench warrants are often unnecessary. Most people who miss court are not trying to avoid the law; more often, they forget, are confused by the court process, or have a schedule conflict. Once a bench warrant is issued, however, defendants frequently end up living as “low-level fugitives,” quitting their jobs, becoming transient, and/or avoiding public life (even hospitals) to avoid having to go to jail. Lessons from the smaller “slices”: Youth, immigration, and involuntary commitmentLooking more closely at incarceration by offense type also exposes some disturbing facts about the 49,000 youth in confinement in the United States: too many are there for a “most serious offense” that is not even a crime. For example, there are over 5,000 youth behind bars for non-criminal violations of their probation rather than for a new offense. An additional 1,400 youth are locked up for “status” offenses, which are “behaviors that are not law violations for adults such as running away, truancy, and incorrigibility.”21 About 1 in 14 youth held for a criminal or delinquent offense is locked in an adult jail or prison, and most of the others are held in juvenile facilities that look and operate a lot like prisons and jails. Turning to the people who are locked up criminally and civilly for immigration-related reasons, we find that almost 6,000 people are in federal prisons for criminal convictions of immigration offenses, and 16,000 more are held pretrial by the U.S. Marshals. The vast majority of people incarcerated for criminal immigration offenses are accused of illegal entry or illegal reentry — in other words, for no more serious offense than crossing the border without permission.22 Another 22,000 people are civilly detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) not for any crime, but simply because they are facing deportation.23 ICE detainees are physically confined in federally-run or privately-run immigration detention facilities, or in local jails under contract with ICE. This number is almost half what it was pre-pandemic, but it’s actually climbing back up from a record low of 13,500 people in ICE detention in early 2021. As in the criminal legal system, these pandemic-era trends should not be interpreted as evidence of reforms.24 In fact, ICE is rapidly expanding its overall surveillance and control over the non-criminal migrant population by growing its electronic monitoring-based “alternatives to detention” program.25 An additional 9,800 unaccompanied children are held in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), awaiting placement with parents, family members, or friends. Their number has more than doubled since January of 2020. While these children are not held for any criminal or delinquent offense, most are held in shelters or even juvenile placement facilities under detention-like conditions.26 Adding to the universe of people who are confined because of justice system involvement, 22,000 people are involuntarily detained or committed to state psychiatric hospitals and civil commitment centers. Many of these people are not even convicted, and some are held indefinitely. 9,000 are being evaluated pretrial or treated for incompetency to stand trial; 6,000 have been found not guilty by reason of insanity or guilty but mentally ill; another 6,000 are people convicted of sexual crimes who are involuntarily committed or detained after their prison sentences are complete. While these facilities aren’t typically run by departments of correction, they are in reality much like prisons. Meanwhile, at least 38 states allow civil commitment for involuntary treatment for substance use, and in many cases, people are sent to actual prisons and jails, which are inappropriate places for treatment.27 Once we have wrapped our minds around the “whole pie” of mass incarceration, we should zoom out and note that people who are incarcerated are only a fraction of those impacted by the criminal justice system. There are another 822,000 people on parole and a staggering 2.9 million people on probation. Many millions more have completed their sentences but are still living with a criminal record, a stigmatizing label that comes with collateral consequences such as barriers to employment and housing. Far more people are impacted by mass incarceration than the 1.9 million currently confined. An estimated 19 million people are burdened with the collateral consequences of a felony conviction (this includes those currently and formerly incarcerated), and an estimated 79 million have a criminal record of some kind; even this is likely an underestimate, leaving out many people who have been arrested for misdemeanors. Finally, FWD.us reports that 113 million adults (45%) have had an immediate family member incarcerated for at least one night.Beyond identifying how many people are impacted by the criminal justice system, we should also focus on who is most impacted and who is left behind by policy change. Poverty, for example, plays a central role in mass incarceration. People in prison and jail are disproportionately poor compared to the overall U.S. population.28 The criminal justice system punishes poverty, beginning with the high price of money bail: The median felony bail bond amount ($10,000) is the equivalent of 8 months’ income for the typical detained defendant. As a result, people with low incomes are more likely to face the harms of pretrial detention. Poverty is not only a predictor of incarceration; it is also frequently the outcome, as a criminal record and time spent in prison destroys wealth, creates debt, and decimates job opportunities.29 It’s no surprise that people of color — who face much greater rates of poverty — are dramatically overrepresented in the nation’s prisons and jails. These racial disparities are particularly stark for Black Americans, who make up 38% of the incarcerated population despite representing only 12% of U.S residents. The same is true for women, whose incarceration rates have for decades risen faster than men’s, and who are often behind bars because of financial obstacles such as an inability to pay bail. As policymakers continue to push for reforms that reduce incarceration, they should avoid changes that will widen disparities, as has happened with juvenile confinement and with women in state prisons. Equipped with the full picture of how many people are locked up in the United States, where, and why, we all have a better foundation for moving the conversation about criminal justice reform forward. For example, the data makes it clear that ending the war on drugs will not alone end mass incarceration, though the federal government and some states have taken an important step by reducing the number of people incarcerated for drug offenses. Looking at the “whole pie” of mass incarceration opens up conversations about where it makes sense to focus our energies at the local, state, and national levels. For example:
The United States has the dubious distinction of having the highest incarceration rate in the world. Looking at the big picture of the 1.9 million people locked up in the United States on any given day, we can see that something needs to change. Both policymakers and the public have the responsibility to carefully consider each individual slice of the carceral pie and ask whether legitimate social goals are served by putting each group behind bars, and whether any benefit really outweighs the social and fiscal costs. Even narrow policy changes, like reforms to bail, can meaningfully reduce our society’s use of incarceration. At the same time, we should be wary of proposed reforms that seem promising but will have only minimal effect, because they simply transfer people from one slice of the correctional “pie” to another or needlessly exclude broad swaths of people. Keeping the big picture in mind is critical if we hope to develop strategies that actually shrink the “whole pie.” People new to criminal justice issues might reasonably expect that a big picture analysis like this would be produced not by reform advocates, but by the criminal justice system itself. The unfortunate reality is that there isn’t one centralized criminal justice system to do such an analysis. Instead, even thinking just about adult corrections, we have a federal system, 50 state systems, 3,000+ county systems, 25,000+ municipal systems, and so on. Each of these systems collects data for its own purposes that may or may not be compatible with data from other systems and that might duplicate or omit people counted by other systems. This isn’t to discount the work of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which, despite limited resources, undertakes the Herculean task of organizing and standardizing the data on correctional facilities. And it’s not to say that the FBI doesn’t work hard to aggregate and standardize police arrest and crime report data. But the fact is that the local, state, and federal agencies that carry out the work of the criminal justice system — and are the sources of BJS and FBI data — weren’t set up to answer many of the simple-sounding questions about the “system.” Similarly, there are systems involved in the confinement of justice-involved people that might not consider themselves part of the criminal justice system, but should be included in a holistic view of incarceration. Juvenile justice, civil detention and commitment, immigration detention, and commitment to psychiatric hospitals for criminal justice involvement are examples of this broader universe of confinement that is often ignored. The “whole pie” incorporates data from these systems to provide the most comprehensive view of incarceration possible. To produce this report, we took the most recent data available for each part of these systems, and, where necessary, adjusted the data to ensure that each person was only counted once, only once, and in the right place. Finally, readers who rely on this report year after year may be pleased to learn that since the last version was published in 2020, the delays in government data reports that made tracking trends so difficult under the previous administration have shortened, with publications almost returning to their previous cycles. Still, having entered the third year of the pandemic, it’s frustrating that we still only have national data from year one for most systems of confinement.
The ongoing problem of data delays is not limited to the regular data publications that this report relies on, but also special data collections that provide richly detailed, self-reported data about incarcerated people and their experiences in prison and jail, namely the Survey of Prison Inmates (conducted in 2016 for the first time since 2004) and the Survey of Inmates in Local Jails (last conducted in 2002 and as of March 2020, next slated for 2022 — which would make a 2025 report on the data about 18 years off-schedule). Data sourcesThis briefing uses the most recent data available on the number of people in various types of facilities and the most significant charge or conviction. Because the various systems of confinement collect and report data on different schedules, this report reflects population data collected between 2019 and 2022 (and some of the data for people in psychiatric facilities dates back to 2014). Furthermore, because not all types of data are updated each year, we sometimes had to calculate estimates; for example, we applied the percentage distribution of offense types from the previous year to the current year’s total count data. For this reason, we chose to round most labels in the graphics to the nearest thousand, except where rounding to the nearest ten, nearest one hundred, or (in two cases in the jails detail slide) the nearest 500 was more informative in that context. This rounding process may also result in some parts not adding up precisely to the total. Our data sources were:
Adjustments to avoid double countingTo avoid counting anyone twice, we performed the following adjustments:
Our graph of the racial and ethnic disparitiesin correctional facilities (as shown in Slideshow 6) uses the only data source that has data for all types of adult correctional facilities: the U.S. Census. Because the relevant tables from the 2020 decennial Census have not been published yet, we used the 2019 American Community Survey tables B02001and DP05 and represented the four named racial and ethnic groups that account for at least 2%, nationally, of the population in correctional facilities. Not included on the graphic are Asian people, who make up 1% of the correctional population, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, who make up 0.3%, people identifying as “Some other race,” who account for 6.3%, and those of “Two or more races,” who make up 4% of the total national correctional population. Note that because Latinos may be of any race and because of how the Census Bureau published race and ethnicity data in the relevant table, we used the Census data for “White alone, Not Hispanic or Latino” for white people, but the Census Bureau’s data for “Black or African American” and “American Indian and Alaska Native” people may include people who identify as both that race and Latino. Because this particular table is not appropriate for state-level analyses, but the Prison Policy Initiative will explore using the 2020 Demographic and Housing Characteristics file when it is published by the Census Bureau in late 2022 to provide detailed racial and ethnic data for the combined incarcerated population in each state. In past decades, this data was particularly useful in states where the system — particularly jails — did not publish race and ethnicity data or did not publish data with more precision than just “white, Black and other.” Read the entire methodology To help readers link to specific images in this report, we created these special urls: How many people are locked up in the United States?https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow1/11 in 3 people behind bars is in a jail. Most have yet to be tried in court.https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow1/2Despite reforms, drug offenses are still a defining characteristic of the federal systemhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow1/3Beyond “federal prison,” multiple agencies and thousands of local facilities confine people for the federal governmenthttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow1/4Prison population drops have leveled off since 2020https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#covidJail populations are creeping back to normalhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#covidPretrial Detentionhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow2/1Pretrial policies drive jail growthhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow2/2Local Jails: The real scandal is the churnhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow2/3Why are so many people detained in jails before trial? https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow2/4Only 8% of confined people are held in private prisonshttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#private_facilities1 in 5 incarcerated people is locked up for a drug offensehttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow3/1Police make over a million drug possession arrests each yearhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow3/2Some states have largely ended the War on Drugs. Other states, not so much.https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow3/3Most states track and publish just one measure of post-release recidivismhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#releaserecidivismVery few states track and publish any recidivism data for people on probationhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#probationrecidivismWhat do victims of violent crimes really want?https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#victimswantNon-criminal (or “technical”) violations are the main reason for incarceration of people on probation and parolehttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow4/1Contrary to myth, people incarcerated for violent offenses and released are least likely to be arrested againhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow4/1Most confined youth are held for non-person offenses, many for acts that are not “crimes” at allhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow5/1Almost 54,000 people are confined for immigration reasonshttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow5/2Psychiatric facilities confine 22,000 justice-involved people every day https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow5/3Most people in Indian Country jails are locked up for property, drug, and public order charges https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow5/4Mass incarceration directly impacts millions of people: But just how many, and in what ways?https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#impactedIncarceration is just one piece of the much larger system of correctional controlhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow6/1Racial and ethnic disparities in correctional facilitieshttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow6/2Women’s incarceration patterns are very different than men’shttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow6/3Women’s prison populations have grown faster than men’s (and before the pandemic, women’s populations were declining more slowly)https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow6/4Most people in prison are poor, and the poorest are women and people of colorhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow6/51 out of 5 incarcerated people in the world is incarcerated in the U.S.https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow6/6To help readers link to specific report sections or paragraphs, we created these special urls: What actually happened to prison and jail populations during the pandemic?https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#covidJails vs. prisons: What’s the difference?https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#jailsvprisonsEight myths about mass incarcerationhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#mythsThe first myth: Private prisons are the corrupt heart of mass incarcerationhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#firstmythOffense categories might not mean what you thinkhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#offensecategoriesThe second myth: Prisons are “factories behind fences” that exist to provide companies with a huge slave labor forcehttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#secondmythThe third myth: Releasing “nonviolent drug offenders” would end mass incarcerationhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#thirdmythThe fourth myth: By definition, “violent crime” involves physical harm https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#fourthmythThe fifth myth: People in prison for violent or sexual crimes are too dangerous to be releasedhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#fifthmythRecidivism: A slippery statistichttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#recidivism_measuresThe sixth myth: Crime victims support long prison sentenceshttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#fifthmythThe seventh myth: Some people need to go to jail to get treatment and serviceshttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#fifthmythThe eighth myth: Expanding community supervision is the best way to reduce incarcerationhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#fifthmythThe high costs of low-level offenseshttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#lowlevelProbation & parole violations and “holds” lead to unnecessary incarcerationhttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#holdsMisdemeanors: Minor offenses with major consequenceshttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#misdemeanors“Low-level fugitives” live in fear of incarceration for missed court dates and unpaid fineshttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#benchwarrantsLessons from the smaller “slices”: Youth, immigration, and involuntary commitmenthttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#smallerslicesBeyond the “Whole Pie”: Community supervision, poverty, and race and gender disparitieshttps://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#communityEach paragraph is also numbered, so you can use urls in this format:https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#paragraph2https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#paragraph2 https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#paragraph3 etc… Learn how to link to specific images and sections AcknowledgmentsAll Prison Policy Initiative reports are collaborative endeavors, but this report builds on the successful collaborations of the 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 versions. For this year’s report, the authors are particularly indebted to Lena Graber of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center and Heidi Altman of the National Immigrant Justice Center for their feedback and help putting the changes to immigration detention into context, Jacob Kang-Brown of the Vera Institute of Justice for sharing state prison data, Shan Jumper for sharing updated civil detention and commitment data, Emily Widra and Leah Wang for research support, Naila Awan and Wanda Bertram for their helpful edits, Ed Epping for help with one of the visuals, and Jordan Miner for upgrading our slideshow technology. However, any errors or omissions, and final responsibility for all of the many value judgements required to produce a data visualization like this, are the sole responsibility of the authors. We thank the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Safety and Justice Challenge for their support of our research into the use and misuse of jails in this country. We also thank Public Welfare Foundation for their support of our reports that fill key data and messaging gaps. Finally, we’d like to thank each of our individual donors — your commitment to ending mass incarceration makes our work possible. About the authorsWendy Sawyer is the Research Director at the Prison Policy Initiative. She is the author of Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie, The Gender Divide: Tracking women’s state prison growth, and the 2016 report Punishing Poverty: The high cost of probation fees in Massachusetts. She recently co-authored Arrest, Release, Repeat: How police and jails are misused to respond to social problems with Alexi Jones. In addition to these reports, Wendy frequently contributes briefings on recent data releases, academic research, women’s incarceration, pretrial detention, probation, and more. Peter Wagner is an attorney and the Executive Director of the Prison Policy Initiative. He co-founded the Prison Policy Initiative in 2001 in order to spark a national discussion about mass incarceration. About the Prison Policy InitiativeThe non-profit, non-partisan Prison Policy Initiative was founded in 2001 to expose the broader harm of mass criminalization and spark advocacy campaigns to create a more just society. Alongside reports like this that help the public more fully engage in criminal justice reform, the organization leads the nation’s fight to keep the prison system from exerting undue influence on the political process (a.k.a. prison gerrymandering) and plays a leading role in protecting the families of incarcerated people from the predatory prison and jail telephone industry and the video visitation industry. The organization also sounded the alarm in 2020 on the danger of COVID-19 outbreaks in prisons and jails, and throughout the pandemic has provided frequent updates on releases, vaccines, and other prison policies critical to saving lives behind bars. |