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Wyoming has an incarceration rate of 850 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 any democracy on earth. Read on to learn more about who is incarcerated in Wyoming and why.

4,400 people from Wyoming are behind bars

Additionally, the number of people impacted by county and city jails in Wyoming is much larger than the graph above would suggest, because people cycle through local jails relatively quickly. Each year, at least 8,000 different people are booked into local jails in Wyoming.

Rates of imprisonment have grown dramatically in the last 40 years

Also see these Wyoming graphs:

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

Today, Wyoming’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

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

The high cost of being incarcerated in Wyoming

Prisons and jails in Wyoming are increasingly shifting the cost of incarceration to people behind bars and their families, hiding the true economic costs of mass incarceration:

• Jails in Wyoming charge up to $3.15 for a 15-minute phone call, reaping profits for companies, while prisons charge 90¢ for a 15-minute call.
• Wyoming is one of a handful of states that doesn’t charge copays — and other states should follow its lead.
• Wyoming prisons charge families up to a 30% fee to transfer money to an incarcerated loved one.
• People in Wyoming prisons must pay for hygiene items and other basics like replacement glasses unless they have no source of income or money their account. People have to pay the prison back for any expenses related to mailing and printing.
• People in Wyoming prisons earn as little as 35¢ an hour for their work.

Our other articles about Wyoming

• Wyoming's choice to criminalize "failure to appear" may be hurting public safety
• The cost of incarcerating older people is incredibly high, and their risk of reincarceration is incredibly low, yet 15% of people in Wyoming prisons are over the age of 55. Why is the state keeping so many older people locked up?
• Wyoming makes it difficult or even risky for incarcerated journalists to tell their stories.
• Wyoming prisons release about 1,010 people every year
• How the end of Roe v. Wade will impact the 1,510 women on probation and parole in Wyoming
• Wyoming hurts jury diversity by excluding people with felony records
• We graded the parole release systems of all 50 states - Wyoming gets a B-
• Who's helping the 2,729 women released from Wyoming correctional facilities each year?
• Intentional prison-based gerrymandering found in Wyoming

Other resources

• Research on Wyoming in our Research Library

Data on COVID-19 in Wyoming jails and prisons

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

• Wyoming is one of only 8 states that have failed to reduce their prison population by more than 10% during the pandemic.
• Wyoming 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.