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Pennsylvania has an incarceration rate of 659 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 Pennsylvania and why.

Jump to COVID-19 data.

96,000 people from Pennsylvania are behind bars

Additionally, the number of people impacted by county and city jails in Pennsylvania is much larger than the graph above would suggest, because people cycle through local jails relatively quickly. Each year, at least 170,000 different people are booked into local jails in Pennsylvania.

Rates of imprisonment have grown dramatically in the last 40 years

Also see these Pennsylvania graphs:

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

Today, Pennsylvania’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 Pennsylvania. The incarceration rate of 664 per 100,000 for the United States and 659 for Pennsylvania 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 PA as of 2010

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

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

Data on COVID-19 in Pennsylvania jails and prisons

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

Pennsylvania used multiple release mechanisms to reduce their populations, including accelerated release policies, medical or compassionate release, not incarcerating people for technical parole violations, and releasing people held for minor offenses.
Nevertheless, Pennsylvania had the sixth highest COVID-19 death rate in prisons of any US state.

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
As of late April, only 21% of corrections staff in Pennsylvania prisons had gotten the COVID-19 vaccine
Pennsylvania released fewer people on parole in 2020 than in 2019
How crowded are Pennsylvania prisons, as of December 2020?
How many COVID-19 cases in Pennsylvania communities can be linked to outbreaks in correctional facilities? (data from our report Mass Incarceration, COVID-19, and Community Spread)
We're tracking Pennsylvania's medical copay policies in prisons during the pandemic
State prison and jail population data for May, August, September, and December 2020 (data availability varies by state)