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New Hampshire has an incarceration rate of 328 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 New Hampshire and why.

Jump to COVID-19 data.

5,300 people from New Hampshire are behind bars

Additionally, the number of people impacted by county and city jails in New Hampshire is much larger than the graph above would suggest, because people cycle through local jails relatively quickly. Each year, at least 25,000 different people are booked into local jails in New Hampshire.

Rates of imprisonment have grown dramatically in the last 40 years

Also see these New Hampshire graphs:

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

Today, New Hampshire’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, and Blacks in New Hampshire prisons and jails.

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

Data on COVID-19 in New Hampshire jails and prisons

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

• New Hampshire is one of 13 states that did not explicitly mention incarcerated people in their vaccination rollout plan.
• New Hampshire is one of 13 states that did not implement any policies to accelerate releases, promote medical parole or compassionate release, prevent incarceration for technical violations of probation and parole, or hasten releases for people incarcerated on minor offenses.

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 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.
• As of late April 2021, only 60% of corrections staff in New Hampshire prisons had gotten the COVID-19 vaccine
• How crowded are New Hampshire prisons, as of December 2020?
• How many COVID-19 cases in New Hampshire communities can be linked to outbreaks in correctional facilities? (data from our report Mass Incarceration, COVID-19, and Community Spread)
• We're tracking New Hampshire's medical copay policies in prisons during the pandemic

Our other articles about New Hampshire

• New Hampshire prisons release about 1,339 people every year
• New Hampshire granted extremely few commutations to incarcerated people in recent years, and granted zero commutations during COVID-19
• New Hampshire hurts jury diversity by excluding people with felony records
• How much do incarcerated people in New Hampshire earn for their work in prison?
• New Hampshire prisons charge a $3 copay to incarcerated people, putting health at risk
• We graded the parole release systems of all 50 states - New Hampshire gets a D-
• People in New Hampshire jails often face high first-minute rates for phone calls
• Who's helping the 5,972 women released from New Hampshire correctional facilities each year?

Other resources

• Research on New Hampshire in our Research Library