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Sections:: Overview; Incarceration over time; Racial and ethnic disparities; Ending prison gerrymandering; Other national research and advocacy materials

With nearly two million people behind bars at any given time, the United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world.

We spend about $182 billion every year — not to mention the significant social cost — to lock up nearly 1% of our adult population. To be able to evaluate this policy choice, our communities must have access to reliable and up-to-date information about the trajectory and scope of our nation’s experiment with mass incarceration. With this page, and the accompanying 50 State Incarceration Profile series, we hope bring some of the most important and under-discussed national facts into the public discourse.

Overview

For more information: See Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2023, Women's Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie, or Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie.

Incarceration over time

See the same graph expressed as total numbers rather than rates.

Or see individual graphs for:

Federal prisons: rates or total numbers
State prisons: rates or total numbers
Local jails: rates, total numbers, and by conviction status
Women in state prisons: rates or total numbers
Men in state prisons: rates or total numbers

Racial and ethnic disparities

racial and ethnic disparities between the prison/jail and general population in the US

See similar graphs including: Incarceration rates per 100,000 and detailed graphs about Whites, Hispanics, Blacks, and American Indians/Native Americans in U.S. prisons and jails.

Graph showing the $182 billion system of mass incarceration and the relative size of its sub-parts from policing, to courts to private companies. Private prisons are a very small part of the total.

Ending prison gerrymandering

The way the Census Bureau counts people in prison creates significant problems for democracy and for our nation’s future. It leads to a dramatic distortion of representation at local and state levels, and creates an inaccurate picture of community populations for research and planning purposes.