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North Carolina has an incarceration rate of 639 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 many wealthy democracies do. Read on to learn more about who is incarcerated in North Carolina and why.

Are you looking for information on what jails and prisons in North Carolina are doing to stop COVID-19? See our regularly-updated coronavirus response page.

67,000 people from North Carolina are behind bars

Additionally, the number of people impacted by county and city jails in North Carolina 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 North Carolina.

Rates of imprisonment have grown dramatically in the last 40 years

Also see these North Carolina graphs:

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

Today, North Carolina’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 North Carolina. The incarceration rate of 698 per 100,000 for the United States and 639 for North Carolina 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.