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West Virginia has an incarceration rate of 690 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 West Virginia and why.

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

13,000 people from West Virginia are behind bars

Rates of imprisonment have grown dramatically in the last 40 years

Also see these West Virginia graphs:

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

This graph excludes people held for state or federal authorities from the total count of people held in West Virginia jails. Because a significant proportion (31%) of the population in West Virginia’s jails is held for the state prison system and the U.S. Marshals Service, this graph likely overstates the convicted population and understates the pre-trial population.

Today, West Virginia’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 West Virginia prisons and jails.

These graphs use U.S. Census data for all people incarcerated in the state, including people in federal and state prisons, local jails, halfway houses, etc. While state and local facilities contain people processed by the West Virginia judicial systems, the federal prisons contain people sent to those facilities by courts all over the country.

For our purposes, the fact that federal prison populations are included in the Census Bureau's data as residents of West Virginia would be an unimportant statistical quirk except for that fact that there are so many federal prisons in West Virginia. In fact, slightly more than half of the incarcerated people that the Census counted in West Virginia were in a federal prison. This has a dramatic impact of the demographics of the incarcerated population. If the Census Bureau's federal prison counts were removed from this analysis, the incarceration rates would be 396 for Whites, 370 for Hispanics, 1911 for Blacks, and 726 for American Indian and Alaska Natives.

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

Our other articles about West Virginia

• We graded every state’s response to the coronavirus in prisons and jails. West Virginia got a D-
• Why is West Virginia the federal prison capital of the country?
• How much do incarcerated people in West Virginia earn for their work in prison?
• West Virginia prisons charge a $5 copay to incarcerated people, putting health at risk
• We graded the parole release systems of all 50 states - West Virginia gets a D
• Who's helping the 11,784 women released from West Virginia correctional facilities each year?
• New graphic shows that states with harshest disenfranchisement laws will likely pick the next president
• Fixing prison-based gerrymandering after the 2010 Census: West Virginia

Other resources

• Research on West Virginia in our Research Library