HELP US END MASS INCARCERATION The Prison Policy Initiative uses research, advocacy, and organizing to dismantle mass incarceration. We’ve been in this movement for 23 years, thanks to individual donors like you.

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Graph showing the number of justice system employees from 1982 to 2012 by level of government (federal, state, local and total. After total, local is the highest, then state, then federal. In 2012, more than 2.4 million people worked for the justice system.

Data Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Justice Employment and Expenditures Extracts series. (Graph: Emily Widra, 2017)

This graph originally appeared in Tracking the impact of the prison system on the economy.

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