Data Source: Compiled from data obtained via public records request from the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. (Graph: Wendy Sawyer, 2025)

This graph originally appeared in “You want to be in the hell you already know”: How prison transfers regularly upend incarcerated people’s lives.

The percentage of transfers recorded as happening by the request of the incarcerated individual increased between 2020 and 2022, but was greatly overshadowed by the percentage of transfers for all other reasons.