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Kansas has an incarceration rate of 698 per 100,000 people (including prisons, jails, immigration detention, and juvenile justice facilities), meaning that it locks up a higher percentage of its people than any democracy on earth. Read on to learn more about who is incarcerated in Kansas and why.

Jump to COVID-19 data.

21,000 people from Kansas are behind bars

Additionally, the number of people impacted by county and city jails in Kansas is much larger than the graph above would suggest, because people cycle through local jails relatively quickly. Each year, at least 60,000 different people are booked into local jails in Kansas.

Rates of imprisonment have grown dramatically in the last 40 years

Also see these Kansas graphs:

• total numbers rather than rates.
• Women’s prisons: Incarceration Rates | Total Population
• Men’s prisons: Incarceration Rates | Total Population

Today, Kansas’s incarceration rates stand out internationally

In the U.S., incarceration extends beyond prisons and local jails to include other systems of confinement. The U.S. and state incarceration rates in this graph include people held by these other parts of the justice system, so they may be slightly higher than the commonly reported incarceration rates that only include prisons and jails. Details on the data are available in States of Incarceration: The Global Context. We also have a version of this graph focusing on the incarceration of women.

People of color are overrepresented in prisons and jails

See also our detailed graphs about Whites, Hispanics, Blacks, and American Indians/Native Americans in Kansas prisons and jails.

Kansas's criminal justice system is more than just its prisons and jails

Data on COVID-19 in Kansas jails and prisons

We gave Kansas a failing grade in September 2021 for its response to the coronavirus in prisons, noting that:

• Kansas is one of 13 states that did not implement any policies to accelerate releases, promote medical parole or compassionate release, or hasten releases for people incarcerated on minor offenses.
• Kansas failed to utilize one of the most obvious, and easiest, tools for reducing the prison population — stopping prison admissions for technical violations of probation and parole (which are not crimes).

For more detail, see our report States of Emergency. Or check out these other resources:

• We're tracking Kansas's medical copay policies in prisons during the pandemic
• Our Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic page tracks criminal justice policy responses to the coronavirus all 50 states
• As of late April 2021, only 51% of corrections staff in Kansas prisons had gotten the COVID-19 vaccine
• How crowded are Kansas prisons, as of December 2020?
• How many COVID-19 cases in Kansas communities can be linked to outbreaks in correctional facilities? (data from our report Mass Incarceration, COVID-19, and Community Spread)
• State prison and jail population data for February 2022. (Previous data is available for October 2021, June 2021, February 2021, December 2020, September 2020, August 2020, and May 2020.) Data availability varies by state.

Our other articles about Kansas

• Kansas prisons release about 6,007 people every year
• Fees for sending money to a loved one in a Kansas prison are unreasonably high
• Kansas hurts jury diversity by excluding people with felony records
• Cruel and unusual punishment: When Kansas prisons don't provide air conditioning
• How much do incarcerated people in Kansas earn for their work in prison?
• Kansas prisons charge a $2 copay to incarcerated people, putting health at risk
• We graded the parole release systems of all 50 states - Kansas gets an F-
• Kansas has some of the highest jail phone rates in the country
• Who's helping the 25,652 women released from Kansas correctional facilities each year?
• One Last Chance to Avoid Prison-Based Gerrymandering in Kansas

Other resources

• Research on Kansas in our Research Library