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Missouri has an incarceration rate of 735 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 Missouri and why.

41,000 people from Missouri are behind bars

Additionally, the number of people impacted by county and city jails in Missouri is much larger than the graph above would suggest, because people cycle through local jails relatively quickly. Each year, at least 128,000 different people are booked into local jails in Missouri.

Rates of imprisonment have grown dramatically in the last 40 years

Also see these Missouri graphs:

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

Today, Missouri’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 and Blacks in Missouri prisons and jails.

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

The high cost of being incarcerated in Missouri

Prisons and jails in Missouri are increasingly shifting the cost of incarceration to people behind bars and their families, hiding the true economic costs of mass incarceration:

• Jails in Missouri charge up to $3.15 for a 15-minute phone call, reaping profits for companies, while prisons charge 75¢ for a 15-minute call.
• Missouri is one of just a handful of states that do not charge incarcerated people copays for medical care.
• Missouri prisons charge families up to a 20% fee to transfer money to an incarcerated loved one.
• Missouri’s policy on resources for the poorest people in prisons lacks important information.
• People in Missouri prisons earn as little as 5¢ an hour for their work.
• The hidden costs in Missouri’s “no-cost” prison tablet contract
• Missouri charges up to 25¢ for an e-message to or from prison.

Our other articles about Missouri

• Missouri is one of 20 states that locks up some people convicted of sex offenses in shadowy "civil commitment" facilities, long after their sentences are over — and often indefinitely
• Missouri passed a caregiver mitigation and diversion law that expands the use of sentencing alternatives to incarceration for primary caregivers.
• Missouri prisons are replacing incarcerated people's personal mail with scans, stifling family contact
• Bail companies in Missouri have a track record of avoiding accountability, our report All Profit, No Risk and review of state-by-state evidence show
• Missouri prisons release about 18,533 people every year
• How the end of Roe v. Wade will impact the 15,167 women on probation and parole in Missouri
• Missouri hurts jury diversity by excluding people with felony records
• Cruel and unusual punishment: When Missouri prisons don't provide air conditioning
• We graded the parole release systems of all 50 states — Missouri gets an F
• Who's helping the 39,849 women released from Missouri correctional facilities each year?

Prison-based gerrymandering in Missouri

• Prison Populations Create Complications at Redistricting Time, by Peter Wagner, Missouri Municipal Review, January 2012
• Local governments still struggling with Census' prison counts
• One person, two votes in Pacific, Missouri?

Data on COVID-19 in Missouri jails and prisons

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

• Missouri 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.
• Missouri 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:

• How many COVID-19 cases in Missouri communities can be linked to outbreaks in correctional facilities? (data from our report Mass Incarceration, COVID-19, and Community Spread)

Other resources

• Research on Missouri in our Research Library