scatterplot graph showing changes in jail budgets since 2011 versus changes in jail populations since 2011. Cities that reduced jail budgets also saw reduced jail populations.

Data Source: Compiled by the Prison Policy Initiative from the Vera Institute of Justice's What Jails Cost: A Look at Spending in America's Largest Cities, available at https://www.vera.org/publications/what-jails-cost-cities. (Graph: Emily Widra, 2021)

This graph originally appeared in Jail incarceration rates vary widely, but inexplicably, across U.S. cities.

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