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Vermont has an incarceration rate of 288 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 Vermont and why.

2,200 people from Vermont are behind bars

Additionally, the number of people impacted by county and city jails in Vermont is much larger than the graph above would suggest, because people cycle through local jails relatively quickly. Each year, at least 9,000 different people are booked into local jails in Vermont.

Rates of imprisonment have grown dramatically in the last 40 years

We inquired about the drop in Vermont's incarceration rate in the mid to late-1990s and learned it was the result of a new intermediate sanctions program and the increased use of furlough. This was a one time improvement after which a new law decreased the use of bail, causing the population to rise again.
Also see these Vermont graphs:

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

Today, Vermont’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 Vermont prisons.

Vermont's criminal justice system is more than just its prisons

Our other articles about Vermont

• Vermont prisons release about 2,528 people every year
• Vermont has granted zero commutations to incarcerated people in recent years, including during COVID-19
• Vermont is one of just a handful of states that do not charge incarcerated people copays for medical care.
• Vermont hurts jury diversity by excluding people with felony records
• How much do incarcerated people in Vermont earn for their work in prison?
• We graded the parole release systems of all 50 states - Vermont gets a D+
• Who's helping the 280 women released from Vermont correctional facilities each year?

Data on COVID-19 in Vermont jails and prisons

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

• Vermont 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).
• Vermont is one of 15 prison systems that does not have a policy making hand sanitizer widely available or providing free hygiene products — like soap — to incarcerated people.

For more detail, see our report States of Emergency.

Other resources

• Research on Vermont in our Research Library