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Massachusetts has an incarceration rate of 275 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 almost any democracy on earth. Read on to learn more about who is incarcerated in Massachusetts and why.

Jump to COVID-19 data.

22,000 people from Massachusetts are behind bars

Additionally, the number of people impacted by county and city jails in Massachusetts is much larger than the graph above would suggest, because people cycle through local jails relatively quickly. Each year, at least 70,000 different people are booked into local jails in Massachusetts.

Rates of imprisonment have grown dramatically in the last 40 years

Also see these Massachusetts graphs:

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

Today, Massachusetts’s incarceration rates stand out internationally

graphic comparing the incarceration rates of the founding NATO members with the incarceration rates of the United States and the state of Massachusetts. The incarceration rate of 664 per 100,000 for the United States and 275 for Massachusetts is much higher than any of the founding NATO members 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

racial and ethnic disparities between the prison/jail and general population in MA as of 2010

See also our detailed graphs about Whites, Hispanics, and Blacks in Massachusetts prisons and jails.

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

Data on COVID-19 in Massachusetts jails and prisons

We gave Massachusetts a "D" grade in September 2021 for its response to the coronavirus in prisons, noting that:

Massachusetts prioritized incarcerated people in their vaccination plans, and was able to vaccinate 75% of their incarcerated population.
Low rates of staff vaccinations are leading to an uptick in cases among incarcerated population.

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

Our Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic page tracks criminal justice policy responses to the coronavirus all 50 states
State prison and jail population data for May, August, September, December 2020, and February, June, October 2021 (data availability varies by state)
As of late April 2021, only 67% of corrections staff in Massachusetts prisons had gotten the COVID-19 vaccine
How crowded are Massachusetts prisons, as of December 2020?
How many COVID-19 cases in Massachusetts communities can be linked to outbreaks in correctional facilities? (data from our report Mass Incarceration, COVID-19, and Community Spread)
As of August 2020, Massachusetts prisons were not even requiring staff to wear masks at work
Massachusetts was right to suspend all medical copays in prisons at the beginning of the pandemic. The state should make this change permanent

Our other articles about Massachusetts

Our advocacy in Massachusetts

The Prison Policy Initiative is headquartered in Easthampton, Massachusetts. In addition to our national research, we have joined and led several campaigns for criminal justice reform in Massachusetts, including the following: