Why Are Criminals More Likely Than Other Americans to End Up in Prison Again

Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2022

By Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner Tweet this
March fourteen, 2022
Printing release

Sections

The large picture show

The bear upon of COVID

viii Myths

High costs of low-level offenses

Youth, immigration & involuntary commitment

Across the Pie: Customs supervision, poverty, race, and gender

Necessary reforms

Sources

Can it really be truthful that most people in jail are legally innocent? How much of mass incarceration is a result of the war on drugs, or the profit motives of private prisons? How has the COVID-19 pandemic inverse decisions about how people are punished when they suspension the police? These essential questions are harder to answer than y'all might expect. The diverse government agencies involved in the criminal legal arrangement collect a lot of data, only very footling is designed to help policymakers or the public understand what'south going on. As public support for criminal justice reform continues to build — and as the pandemic raises the stakes higher — it's more important than ever that we get the facts straight and understand the big picture.

Further complicating matters is the fact that the U.Southward. doesn't take ane "criminal justice system;" instead, we have thousands of federal, land, local, and tribal systems. Together, these systems hold almost 2 one thousand thousand people in ane,566 land prisons, 102 federal prisons, 2,850 local jails, 1,510 juvenile correctional facilities, 186 immigration detention facilities, and 82 Indian country jails, besides as in armed services prisons, ceremonious commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.Southward. territories. ^ane

This report offers some much-needed clarity past piecing together the data nearly this country's disparate systems of confinement. Information technology provides a detailed expect at where and why people are locked upwards in the U.S., and dispels some modern myths to focus attention on the real drivers of mass incarceration and overlooked issues that phone call for reform.

Slideshow i. Swipe for more detailed views. For source dates and links, run across the Methodology.

This large-picture view is a lens through which the master drivers of mass incarceration come into focus;^four it allows us to place important, but frequently ignored, systems of confinement. The detailed views bring these overlooked systems to light, from immigration detention to ceremonious delivery and youth solitude. In particular, local jails frequently receive curt shrift in larger discussions about criminal justice, but they play a disquisitional part as "incarceration's front door" and have a far greater bear upon than the daily population suggests.

While this pie chart provides a comprehensive snapshot of our correctional system, the graphic does not capture the enormous churn in and out of our correctional facilities, nor the far larger universe of people whose lives are affected by the criminal justice system. In a typical year, almost 600,000 people enter prison gates,⁵ but people get to jail over x million times each year.^{half-dozen 7} Jail churn is particularly high because near people in jails have not been convicted.⁸ Some take just been arrested and will make bail within hours or days, while many others are too poor to make bond and remain backside bars until their trial. Only a small number (about 103,000 on any given twenty-four hour period) accept been convicted, and are generally serving misdemeanors sentences under a year. At least 1 in 4 people who become to jail will be arrested again within the same year — often those dealing with poverty, mental illness, and substance utilize disorders, whose problems only worsen with incarceration.

Slideshow 2. Swipe for more particular on pretrial detention.

With a sense of the big picture, the adjacent question is: why are so many people locked up? How many are incarcerated for drug offenses? Are the profit motives of private companies driving incarceration? Or is it really near public safety and keeping unsafe people off the streets? There are a plethora of mod myths well-nigh incarceration. Almost have a kernel of truth, but these myths distract us from focusing on the well-nigh important drivers of incarceration.

8 myths about mass incarceration

The overcriminalization of drug employ, the use of individual prisons, and low-paid or unpaid prison labor are among the most contentious issues in criminal justice today because they inspire moral outrage. Only they practise not answer the question of why near people are incarcerated or how nosotros tin dramatically — and safely — reduce our use of confinement. Likewise, emotional responses to sexual and violent offenses often derail important conversations about the social, economic, and moral costs of incarceration and lifelong penalisation. False notions of what a "fierce criminal offense" conviction means about an individual's dangerousness continue to exist used in an attempt to justify long sentences — even though that'due south not what victims desire. At the same time, misguided beliefs well-nigh the "services" provided by jails are used to rationalize the construction of massive new "mental wellness jails." Finally, simplistic solutions to reducing incarceration, such as moving people from jails and prisons to community supervision, ignore the fact that "alternatives" to incarceration often lead to incarceration anyway. Focusing on the policy changes that tin can end mass incarceration, and not simply put a dent in information technology, requires the public to put these issues into perspective.

The showtime myth: Private prisons are the corrupt center of mass incarceration

In fact, less than 8% of all incarcerated people are held in private prisons; the vast majority are in publicly-endemic prisons and jails.^eleven Some states have more people in private prisons than others, of grade, and the manufacture has lobbied to maintain high levels of incarceration, but private prisons are essentially a parasite on the massive publicly-owned system — not the root of information technology.

Nevertheless, a range of private industries and even some public agencies continue to turn a profit from mass incarceration. Many city and canton jails rent space to other agencies, including state prison systems,¹² the U.S. Marshals Service, and Clearing and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Private companies are frequently granted contracts to operate prison food and wellness services (often so bad they effect in major lawsuits), and prison and jail telecom and commissary functions take spawned multi-billion dollar private industries. Past privatizing services like phone calls, medical intendance, and commissary, prisons and jails are unloading the costs of incarceration onto incarcerated people and their families, trimming their budgets at an unconscionable social cost.

Private prisons and jails agree less than 8% of all incarcerated people, making them a relatively small part of a mostly publicly-run correctional system.

The second myth: Prisons are "factories behind fences" that exist to provide companies with a huge slave labor forcefulness

Simply put, private companies using prison house labor are not what stands in the way of ending mass incarceration, nor are they the source of most prison jobs. But well-nigh five,000 people in prison — less than 1% — are employed by private companies through the federal PIECP program, which requires them to pay at least minimum wage before deductions. (A larger portion work for land-owned "correctional industries," which pay much less, merely this notwithstanding only represents about 6% of people incarcerated in land prisons.)^xiii

But prisons do rely on the labor of incarcerated people for food service, laundry, and other operations, and they pay incarcerated workers unconscionably low wages: our 2017 study found that on average, incarcerated people earn between 86 cents and $3.45 per day for the almost mutual prison house jobs. In at least v states, those jobs pay aught at all. Moreover, work in prison is compulsory, with little regulation or oversight, and incarcerated workers have few rights and protections. If they decline to work, incarcerated people face up disciplinary action. For those who practise work, the paltry wages they receive oftentimes become correct back to the prison, which charges them for bones necessities like medical visits and hygiene items. Forcing people to work for low or no pay and no benefits, while charging them for necessities, allows prisons to shift the costs of incarceration to incarcerated people — hiding the true price of running prisons from nearly Americans.

The third myth: Releasing "irenic drug offenders" would terminate mass incarceration

Information technology's true that police, prosecutors, and judges continue to punish people harshly for nothing more than drug possession. Drug offenses still account for the incarceration of almost 400,000 people, and drug convictions remain a defining feature of the federal prison house system. Police nevertheless brand over one million drug possession arrests each year,¹⁴ many of which pb to prison sentences. Drug arrests continue to give residents of over-policed communities criminal records, hurting their employment prospects and increasing the likelihood of longer sentences for whatever future offenses.

Nevertheless, 4 out of 5 people in prison or jail are locked up for something other than a drug offense — either a more serious criminal offense or an fifty-fifty less serious one. To end mass incarceration, we volition have to change how our society and our criminal legal system responds to crimes more serious than drug possession. We must also stop incarcerating people for behaviors that are even more than benign.

Slideshow three. Swipe for more particular on the War on Drugs

The fourth myth: By definition, "violent criminal offence" involves concrete harm

The distinction between "violent" and "nonviolent" crime means less than you might think; in fact, these terms are and so widely misused that they are generally unhelpful in a policy context. In the public discourse about crime, people typically utilise "vehement" and "nonviolent" as substitutes for serious versus nonserious criminal acts. That lone is a fallacy, but worse, these terms are besides used as coded (oftentimes racialized) language to label individuals as inherently dangerous versus non-unsafe.

In reality, land and federal laws apply the term "vehement" to a surprisingly wide range of criminal acts — including many that don't involve any physical harm. In some states, purse-snatching, manufacturing methamphetamines, and stealing drugs are considered violent crimes. Burglary is generally considered a property crime, but an array of country and federal laws classify burglary as a tearing criminal offense in certain situations, such equally when information technology occurs at night, in a residence, or with a weapon present. So fifty-fifty if the edifice was unoccupied, someone convicted of burglary could be punished for a violent criminal offence and cease upwards with a long prison house sentence and "trigger-happy" record.

The common misunderstanding of what "vehement crime" really refers to — a legal stardom that often has little to practice with bodily or intended harm — is i of the principal barriers to meaningful criminal justice reform. Reactionary responses to the idea of violent crime often lead policymakers to categorically exclude from reforms people convicted of legally "violent" crimes. Merely over 40% of people in prison and jail are there for offenses classified every bit "violent," and then these carveouts end up gutting the impact of otherwise well-crafted policies. As we and many others take explained before, cut incarceration rates to anything well-nigh international norms will be impossible without irresolute how we respond to trigger-happy criminal offense. To start, we have to exist clearer about what that loaded term really ways.

The fifth myth: People in prison for tearing or sexual crimes are too dangerous to exist released

Of course, many people convicted of violent offenses accept caused serious harm to others. Only how does the criminal legal arrangement determine the run a risk that they pose to their communities? Again, the answer is too often "we judge them by their criminal offense blazon," rather than "we evaluate their individual circumstances." This reflects the peculiarly harmful myth that people who commit violent or sexual crimes are incapable of rehabilitation and thus warrant many decades or fifty-fifty a lifetime of penalisation.

As lawmakers and the public increasingly agree that by policies have led to unnecessary incarceration, it's fourth dimension to consider policy changes that go beyond the depression-hanging fruit of "non-non-nons" — people bedevilled of non-vehement, non-serious, non-sexual offenses. Again, if we are serious about ending mass incarceration, we volition have to change our responses to more serious and violent crime.

Backsliding data do not support the belief that people who commit violent crimes ought to exist locked abroad for decades for the sake of public prophylactic. People bedevilled of violent and sexual offenses are actually amidst the to the lowest degree likely to exist rearrested, and those bedevilled of rape or sexual assail have rearrest rates 20% lower than all other offense categories combined. One reason for the lower rates of recidivism amongst people convicted of vehement offenses: age is one of the master predictors of violence. The adventure for violence peaks in boyhood or early machismo and then declines with age, notwithstanding we incarcerate people long after their risk has declined.¹⁵

Sadly, most country officials ignored this prove even every bit the pandemic fabricated obvious the need to reduce the number of people trapped in prisons and jails, where COVID-xix ran rampant. Instead of because the release of people based on their age or individual circumstances, most officials categorically refused to consider people bedevilled of trigger-happy or sexual offenses, dramatically reducing the number of people eligible for before release.¹⁶

The sixth myth: Crime victims support long prison house sentences

Policymakers, judges, and prosecutors often invoke the proper name of victims to justify long sentences for violent offenses. But contrary to the popular narrative, most victims of violence desire violence prevention, not incarceration. Harsh sentences don't deter violent criminal offense, and many victims believe that incarceration can make people more likely to appoint in crime. National survey data prove that most victims back up violence prevention, social investment, and alternatives to incarceration that address the root causes of criminal offence, not more investment in carceral systems that crusade more damage.¹⁷ This suggests that they care more nigh the wellness and safety of their communities than they exercise almost retribution.

Victims and survivors of crime prefer investments in crime prevention rather than long prison sentences.

Moreover, people convicted of crimes are often victims themselves, complicating the moral statement for harsh punishments as "justice." While conversations almost justice tend to care for perpetrators and victims of criminal offense as two entirely separate groups, people who engage in criminal acts are ofttimes victims of violence and trauma, too — a fact backside the aphorism that "hurt people hurt people."¹⁸ As victims of criminal offense know, breaking this cycle of damage volition crave greater investments in communities, not the carceral organisation.

The seventh myth: Some people need to become to jail to get treatment and services

It's absolutely true that people ensnared in the criminal legal organisation have a lot of unmet needs. But we shouldn't misconstrue the "services" offered in jails and prisons as reasons to lock people upwards. Local jails, particularly, are filled with people who demand medical care and social services, but jails accept repeatedly failed to provide these services. Many people terminate up cycling in and out of jail without ever receiving the help they need. People with mental health problems are oft put in solitary confinement, take express access to counseling, and are left unmonitored due to constant staffing shortages. The upshot: suicide is the leading cause of decease in local jails. Given this rails record, edifice new "mental wellness jails" to answer to decades of disinvestment in customs-based services is particularly alarming.

Similarly, while two-thirds of people in jail take substance use disorders, jails consistently fail to provide adequate treatment. A tiny fraction of all jails provide medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder—the gilt standard for care. That ways that rather than providing drug treatment, jails more often interrupt drug treatment by cutting patients off from their medications. Between 2000 and 2018, the number of people who died of intoxication while in jail increased by almost 400%; typically, these individuals died within just one day of access. Jails are not safe detox facilities, nor are they capable of providing the therapeutic environment people require for long-term recovery and healing.

The eighth myth: Expanding community supervision is the all-time fashion to reduce incarceration

Customs supervision, which includes probation, parole, and pretrial supervision, is oft seen every bit a "lenient" punishment or as an ideal "alternative" to incarceration. But while remaining in the customs is certainly preferable to beingness locked up, the atmospheric condition imposed on those under supervision are ofttimes so restrictive that they fix people upwardly to fail. The long supervision terms, numerous and burdensome requirements, and constant surveillance (especially with electronic monitoring) result in frequent "failures," often for pocket-sized infractions like breaking curfew or declining to pay unaffordable supervision fees.

In 2019, at least 153,000 people were incarcerated for not-criminal violations of probation or parole, oftentimes called "technical violations."^{19 20} Probation, in particular, leads to unnecessary incarceration; until it is reformed to support and advantage success rather than detect mistakes, information technology is not a reliable "culling."

Slideshow iv. Swipe for more details most what the data on backsliding really shows.

The loftier costs of depression-level offenses

Most justice-involved people in the U.S. are not accused of serious crimes; more often, they are charged with misdemeanors or not-criminal violations. Yet even low-level offenses, like technical violations of probation and parole, can lead to incarceration and other serious consequences. Rather than investing in community-driven safety initiatives, cities and counties are even so pouring vast amounts of public resources into the processing and penalty of these minor offenses.

Probation & parole violations and "holds" lead to unnecessary incarceration

Frequently overlooked in discussions about mass incarceration are the diverse "holds" that proceed people behind bars for administrative reasons. A common example is when people on probation or parole are jailed for violating their supervision, either for a new law-breaking or a not-criminal (or "technical") violation. If a parole or probation officer suspects that someone has violated supervision conditions, they tin file a "detainer" (or "concur"), rendering that person ineligible for release on bail. For people struggling to rebuild their lives after conviction or incarceration, returning to jail for a minor infraction can be profoundly destabilizing. The most recent data show that nationally, almost 1 in 5 (eighteen%) people in jail are there for a violation of probation or parole, though in some places these violations or detainers business relationship for over ane-third of the jail population. This trouble is not limited to local jails, either; in 2019, the Quango of State Governments found that almost 1 in 4 people in state prisons are incarcerated as a result of supervision violations. During the commencement yr of the pandemic, that number dropped only slightly, to one in v people in state prisons.

Misdemeanors: Small offenses with major consequences

The "massive misdemeanor organisation" in the U.S. is another of import but disregarded contributor to overcriminalization and mass incarceration. For behaviors as benign as jaywalking or sitting on a sidewalk, an estimated xiii million misdemeanor charges sweep droves of Americans into the criminal justice system each yr (and that'southward excluding ceremonious violations and speeding). These depression-level offenses typically account for about 25% of the daily jail population nationally, and much more than in some states and counties.

Misdemeanor charges may audio trivial, only they carry serious fiscal, personal, and social costs, especially for defendants simply also for broader society, which finances the processing of these courtroom cases and all of the unnecessary incarceration that comes with them. So at that place are the moral costs: People charged with misdemeanors are often not appointed counsel and are pressured to plead guilty and accept a probation sentence to avoid jail time. This means that innocent people routinely plead guilty and are then burdened with the many collateral consequences that come with a criminal record, every bit well as the heightened risk of future incarceration for probation violations. A misdemeanor organization that pressures innocent defendants to plead guilty seriously undermines American principles of justice.

"Low-level fugitives" live in fear of incarceration for missed court dates and unpaid fines

Defendants tin end up in jail fifty-fifty if their crime is not punishable with jail time. Why? Because if a defendant fails to appear in court or to pay fines and fees, the judge can issue a "bench warrant" for their arrest, directing law enforcement to jail them in order to bring them to court. While there is currently no national estimate of the number of agile bench warrants, their employ is widespread and, in some places, incredibly common. In Monroe County, N.Y., for case, over iii,000 people take an agile demote warrant at whatever time, more than iii times the number of people in the county jails.

But demote warrants are often unnecessary. Most people who miss courtroom are not trying to avert the law; more than frequently, they forget, are confused by the courtroom process, or have a schedule disharmonize. Once a bench warrant is issued, yet, defendants frequently stop up living as "depression-level fugitives," quitting their jobs, becoming transient, and/or avoiding public life (even hospitals) to avoid having to become to jail.

Lessons from the smaller "slices": Youth, immigration, and involuntary commitment

Looking more closely at incarceration by offense type besides exposes some disturbing facts about the 49,000 youth in solitude in the The states: as well many are in that location for a "near serious offense" that is not fifty-fifty a offense. For instance, there are over v,000 youth behind bars for not-criminal violations of their probation rather than for a new law-breaking. An boosted 1,400 youth are locked upwards for "condition" offenses, which are "behaviors that are non law violations for adults such as running abroad, truancy, and incorrigibility."²¹ About 1 in xiv youth held for a criminal or delinquent offense is locked in an adult jail or prison, and most of the others are held in juvenile facilities that expect and operate a lot like prisons and jails.

Turning to the people who are locked up criminally and civilly for immigration-related reasons, we find that almost half-dozen,000 people are in federal prisons for criminal convictions of immigration offenses, and sixteen,000 more are held pretrial by the U.S. Marshals. The vast bulk of people incarcerated for criminal immigration offenses are accused of illegal entry or illegal reentry — in other words, for no more serious law-breaking than crossing the edge without permission.²²

Slideshow five. Swipe for more particular about youth solitude, immigrant confinement, and psychiatric confinement.

Another 22,000 people are civilly detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) not for whatsoever criminal offense, only simply because they are facing deportation.²³ ICE detainees are physically confined in federally-run or privately-run immigration detention facilities, or in local jails under contract with Ice. This number is almost one-half what it was pre-pandemic, but it's actually climbing support from a record low of 13,500 people in Water ice detention in early 2021. Every bit in the criminal legal arrangement, these pandemic-era trends should non be interpreted as evidence of reforms.²⁴ In fact, Water ice is speedily expanding its overall surveillance and command over the non-criminal migrant population by growing its electronic monitoring-based "alternatives to detention" plan.²⁵

An additional 9,800 unaccompanied children are held in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), pending placement with parents, family unit members, or friends. Their number has more than doubled since January of 2020. While these children are not held for any criminal or delinquent offense, well-nigh are held in shelters or even juvenile placement facilities nether detention-like conditions.²⁶

Calculation to the universe of people who are confined because of justice system involvement, 22,000 people are involuntarily detained or committed to state psychiatric hospitals and civil commitment centers. Many of these people are non even convicted, and some are held indefinitely. 9,000 are being evaluated pretrial or treated for incompetency to stand trial; vi,000 take been found not guilty past reason of insanity or guilty but mentally ill; another 6,000 are people convicted of sexual crimes who are involuntarily committed or detained after their prison sentences are complete. While these facilities aren't typically run by departments of correction, they are in reality much similar prisons. Meanwhile, at least 38 states permit civil commitment for involuntary treatment for substance apply, and in many cases, people are sent to actual prisons and jails, which are inappropriate places for treatment.²⁷

Once we take wrapped our minds around the "whole pie" of mass incarceration, we should zoom out and note that people who are incarcerated are only a fraction of those impacted past the criminal justice system. There are another 822,000 people on parole and a staggering 2.9 million people on probation. Many millions more than have completed their sentences but are nonetheless living with a criminal tape, a stigmatizing characterization that comes with collateral consequences such every bit barriers to employment and housing.

Far more people are impacted by mass incarceration than the 1.ix million currently confined. An estimated nineteen million people are burdened with the collateral consequences of a felony conviction (this includes those currently and formerly incarcerated), and an estimated 79 million have a criminal tape of some kind; even this is likely an underestimate, leaving out many people who accept been arrested for misdemeanors. Finally, FWD.u.s.a. reports that 113 million adults (45%) take had an immediate family member incarcerated for at least ane night.

Beyond identifying how many people are impacted past the criminal justice organization, we should also focus on who is almost impacted and who is left behind by policy modify. Poverty, for example, plays a central part in mass incarceration. People in prison and jail are disproportionately poor compared to the overall U.S. population.²⁸ The criminal justice system punishes poverty, beginning with the loftier price of money bail: The median felony bail bond amount ($10,000) is the equivalent of 8 months' income for the typical detained defendant. As a result, people with low incomes are more than likely to face up the harms of pretrial detention. Poverty is not only a predictor of incarceration; it is besides frequently the consequence, as a criminal record and fourth dimension spent in prison house destroys wealth, creates debt, and decimates chore opportunities.²⁹

It's no surprise that people of color — who confront much greater rates of poverty — are dramatically overrepresented in the nation'south prisons and jails. These racial disparities are peculiarly stark for Black Americans, who make up 38% of the incarcerated population despite representing merely 12% of U.S residents. The same is true for women, whose incarceration rates have for decades risen faster than men'due south, and who are often behind bars because of financial obstacles such as an disability to pay bail. Equally policymakers keep to button for reforms that reduce incarceration, they should avoid changes that volition widen disparities, as has happened with juvenile confinement and with women in state prisons.

Slideshow vi. Swipe for more detail about race, gender, and income disparities.

Equipped with the full picture of how many people are locked upward in the United States, where, and why, we all accept a better foundation for moving the chat about criminal justice reform forward. For case, the data makes information technology articulate that ending the war on drugs will non alone end mass incarceration, though the federal government and some states have taken an important pace by reducing the number of people incarcerated for drug offenses. Looking at the "whole pie" of mass incarceration opens upward conversations well-nigh where it makes sense to focus our energies at the local, state, and national levels. For example:

• How tin can we effectively invest in communities to brand information technology less probable that someone comes into contact with the criminal legal system in the first place? And what measures tin assist aid successful reentry and end the brutal cycle of re-incarceration that so many individuals and families feel?
• Can nosotros persuade government officials and prosecutors to revisit the reflexive, simplistic policymaking that has served to increase incarceration for "violent" offenses? How tin can we eliminate policy "carveouts" that exclude broad categories of people from reforms and terminate up gutting the impact of reforms?
• What will it have to embolden policymakers and the public to do what it takes to shrink the second largest slice of the pie — the thousands of local jails? And what will it have to redirect public spending to smarter investments similar community-based drug treatment and task preparation?
• While the federal prison house arrangement is a pocket-sized slice of the total pie, how tin improved federal policies and fiscal incentives exist used to advance state and county level reforms? And for their function, how tin elected sheriffs, district attorneys, and judges — who all command larger shares of the correctional pie — slow the catamenia of people into the criminal justice organisation?
• Given that the companies with the greatest impact on incarcerated people are not private prison house operators, but service providers that contract with public facilities, how tin governments terminate contracts that squeeze coin from those behind bars and their families?
• What reforms can we implement to both reduce the number of people incarcerated in the U.S. and the well-known racial and indigenous disparities in the criminal justice arrangement?
• What lessons can we learn from the pandemic? Are federal, land, and local governments prepared to respond to future pandemics, epidemics, natural disasters, and other emergencies, including with plans to decarcerate? And how can states and the federal government ameliorate utilise compassionate release and clemency powers both during the ongoing pandemic and in the future?

The United states of america has the dubious distinction of having the highest incarceration charge per unit in the world. Looking at the big picture of the one.9 million people locked up in the United states on any given day, we tin can see that something needs to change. Both policymakers and the public have the responsibleness to carefully consider each private slice of the carceral pie and ask whether legitimate social goals are served by putting each group behind confined, and whether whatever benefit really outweighs the social and fiscal costs.

Even narrow policy changes, similar reforms to bail, tin can meaningfully reduce our society's utilize of incarceration. At the same time, we should be wary of proposed reforms that seem promising simply will accept merely minimal outcome, because they but transfer people from one piece of the correctional "pie" to another or needlessly exclude broad swaths of people. Keeping the big motion-picture show in mind is critical if we hope to develop strategies that actually compress the "whole pie."

People new to criminal justice issues might reasonably await that a big picture analysis like this would be produced not past reform advocates, simply by the criminal justice system itself. The unfortunate reality is that at that place isn't one centralized criminal justice system to practise such an assay. Instead, even thinking just most adult corrections, we take a federal arrangement, 50 country systems, iii,000+ county systems, 25,000+ municipal systems, and then on. Each of these systems collects data for its own purposes that may or may not be compatible with data from other systems and that might indistinguishable or omit people counted by other systems.

This isn't to discount the piece of work of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which, despite limited resources, undertakes the Herculean task of organizing and standardizing the data on correctional facilities. And it's non to say that the FBI doesn't work hard to aggregate and standardize police arrest and crime study data. But the fact is that the local, country, and federal agencies that conduct out the work of the criminal justice system — and are the sources of BJS and FBI data — weren't set up to answer many of the simple-sounding questions about the "arrangement."

Similarly, in that location are systems involved in the solitude of justice-involved people that might not consider themselves function of the criminal justice system, but should be included in a holistic view of incarceration. Juvenile justice, ceremonious detention and commitment, immigration detention, and commitment to psychiatric hospitals for criminal justice involvement are examples of this broader universe of confinement that is oft ignored. The "whole pie" incorporates data from these systems to provide the most comprehensive view of incarceration possible.

To produce this report, nosotros took the virtually recent data bachelor for each part of these systems, and, where necessary, adapted the information to ensure that each person was simply counted once, only once, and in the right place.

Finally, readers who rely on this report yr afterward twelvemonth may be pleased to learn that since the last version was published in 2020, the delays in government data reports that made tracking trends so hard under the previous administration take shortened, with publications almost returning to their previous cycles. Still, having entered the tertiary year of the pandemic, it'south frustrating that nosotros still only have national data from year 1 for most systems of confinement.

The ongoing trouble of data delays is not express to the regular data publications that this report relies on, but likewise special data collections that provide richly detailed, self-reported data about incarcerated people and their experiences in prison and jail, namely the Survey of Prison Inmates (conducted in 2016 for the first fourth dimension since 2004) and the Survey of Inmates in Local Jails (last conducted in 2002 and as of March 2020, next slated for 2022 — which would make a 2025 report on the information about 18 years off-schedule).

Data sources

This briefing uses the most recent data available on the number of people in various types of facilities and the virtually significant charge or conviction. Because the diverse systems of confinement collect and report data on unlike schedules, this report reflects population data collected between 2019 and 2022 (and some of the data for people in psychiatric facilities dates dorsum to 2014). Furthermore, because not all types of information are updated each yr, we sometimes had to calculate estimates; for case, we applied the per centum distribution of offense types from the previous year to the electric current year'south total count data. For this reason, we chose to round near labels in the graphics to the nearest thousand, except where rounding to the nearest ten, nearest one hundred, or (in two cases in the jails detail slide) the nearest 500 was more informative in that context. This rounding process may as well result in some parts not calculation upwardly precisely to the full.

Our data sources were:

• State prisons: Vera Institute of Justice, People in Prison in Winter 2021-22 Table ii provides the total yearend 2021 population. This report does not include criminal offense data, however, then we practical the ratio of law-breaking types calculated from the most contempo Bureau of Justice Statistics written report on this population, Prisoners in 2020 Table 14 (as of December 31, 2019) to the 2021 full state prison population.
• Jails: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Jail Inmates in 2020 Table 1 and Tabular array 5, reporting average daily population and bedevilled condition for midyear 2020, and our assay of the Survey of Inmates in Local Jails, 2002^xxx for law-breaking types. Meet below and Who is in jail? Deep dive for why we used our own analysis rather than the otherwise excellent Agency of Justice Statistics analysis of the same dataset, Profile of Jail Inmates, 2002.
• Federal:
  • Bureau of Prisons: Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) Population Statistics, reporting data every bit of February 17, 2022 (total population of 153,053), and Prisoners in 2020 Table 18, reporting information every bit of September 30, 2020 (we practical the percentage distribution of criminal offence types from that table to the 2022 convicted population).
  • U.S. Marshals Service published its most recent population count in its 2022 Fact Sail, reporting the average daily population in fiscal yr 2021. It also provided a more detailed breakup of its "Prisoner Operations" population as of September 2019 by facility type (country and local, individual contracted, federal, and non-paid facilities) in response to our public records request. The number held in federal detention centers (8,376) came from the Fact Sheet; the number held in local jails (31,500) came from Jail Inmates in 2020 Table 8, and the number in individual, contracted facilities (21,480) came from the September 2019 breakup. To gauge the number held in state prisons for the Marshals Service (2,323), we calculated the difference between the total average daily population and the sum of those held in federal detention centers, local jails, and private facilities. We created our own estimated offense breakup by applying the ratios of reported offense types (excluding the vague "other new criminal offence" and "non reported" categories") to the total average daily population in 2021. Information technology is worth noting that the U.South. Marshals detainees held in federal facilities and private contracted facilities were non included in several previous editions of this report, as they are not included in about of the Bureau of Justice Statistics' jails or prisons data sets.
• Youth: Function of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Like shooting fish in a barrel Access to the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (EZACJRP), reporting full population and facility data for October 23, 2019. Our data on youth incarcerated in adult prisons comes from Prisoners in 2020 Table xiii, reporting data for Dec 31, 2020, and youth in adult jails from Jail Inmates in 2020 Table 2, reporting data for the last weekday in June 2020. The number of youth reported in Indian State facilities comes from the Bureau of Justice Statistics report Jails in Indian Country, 2019-2020 and the Impact of COVID-19 on the Tribal Jail Population Table 8, also reporting data for the terminal weekday in June, 2020. For more information on the geography of the juvenile system, see the No Kids in Prison campaign.
• Immigration detention: The average daily population of 22,041³¹ in Clearing and Customs Enforcement (Water ice) detention comes from Water ice'south FY 2022 ICE Statistics spreadsheet as of February 17, 2022. The count of 9,781 youth in Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) custody comes from the Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) Program Fact Sheet, reporting the population every bit of February 16, 2022. Our estimates of how many ICE detainees are held in federal, private, and local facilities come from our assay of a comprehensive Ice detention facility list from November 2017, obtained by the National Immigrant Justice Center. 7% were in federal Service Processing Centers, 66% in private contract facilities, and 27% in metropolis and county-operated jails.
• Justice-related involuntary delivery:
  • Country psychiatric hospitals (people committed to state psychiatric hospitals by courts afterwards being constitute "not guilty past reason of insanity" (NGRI) or, in some states, "guilty just mentally sick" (GBMI) and others held for pretrial evaluation or for treatment every bit "incompetent to stand trial" (IST)): These counts are from pages 92, 99, and 104 of the August 2017 NRI report, Forensic Patients in State Psychiatric Hospitals: 1999-2016, reporting data from 37 states for 2014. The categories NGRI and GBMI are combined in this data set, and for pretrial, nosotros chose to combine pretrial evaluation and those receiving services to restore competency for trial, because in nigh cases, these indicate people who accept not yet been convicted or sentenced. This is not a complete view of all justice-related involuntary commitments, merely we believe these categories and these facilities capture the largest share.
  • Civil detention and commitment: (At least twenty states and the federal government operate facilities for the purposes of detaining people bedevilled of sexual crimes afterwards their sentences are complete. These facilities and the solitude there are technically civil, but in reality are quite similar prisons. People nether civil commitment are held in custody continuously from the time they beginning serving their sentence at a correctional facility through their confinement in the civil facility.) The civil delivery counts come from an almanac survey conducted past the Sexual activity Offender Civil Commitment Programs Network shared by SOCCPN President Shan Jumper. Counts for most states are from the 2021 survey, but for states that did non participate in 2021, we included the near recent figures available: Nebraska'due south counts and the Federal Agency of Prisons' (BOP) committed population count are from 2018; the BOP's detained population count is from 2017.
• Territorial prisons (correctional facilities in the U.S. Territories of American Samoa, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and U.S. Commonwealths of the Northern Mariana Islands and Puerto Rico): Prisoners in 2020 Table 23, reporting data for December 31, 2020.
• Indian Country jails (correctional facilities operated by tribal authorities or the U.S. Department of the Interior'south Bureau of Indian Diplomacy): Jails in Indian Land, 2019-2020 and the Impact of COVID-xix on the Tribal Jail Population Table 1, reporting data for the last weekday in June, 2020.
• Military: Prisoners in 2020 Tables 21 (for total population) and 22 (for offense types) reporting data as of December 31, 2020.
• Probation and parole: Our counts of the number of people on probation and parole are from the Agency of Justice Statistics written report Probation and Parole in the U.s., 2020 Table i, reporting data for December 31, 2020, and were adapted to ensure that people with multiple statuses were counted only once in their most restrictive category. (Our information on the number of people on probation and on parole who were besides in jails is as of mid-year 2020 from Jail Inmates in 2020, Tabular array vii. Our information on the number of people on probation or parole who were also in state or federal prisons is every bit of December 31, 2019 from Correctional Populations in the United States, 2019, Table 5. Our information on the number of people on probation who are as well on parole is equally of December 31, 2020 from Probation and Parole in the Usa, 2020, Tabular array ix.) For readers interested in knowing the total number of people on parole and probation, ignoring any double-counting with other forms of correctional control, at that place are 862,100 people on parole and iii,053,700 people on probation as of December 31, 2020.
• Individual facilities: Except for local jails (which we will explain in the "Adjustments to avoid double counting" section below), our identification of the number of people held in private facilities was straightforward:
  • For state prisons, the number of people in private prisons came from Table 12 in Prisoners in 2020.
  • For the Federal Bureau of Prisons, we included the half-dozen,085 people in "privately managed facilities, the half dozen,561 in Residential Reentry Centers (halfway houses), and the 5,462 in dwelling confinement as of February 17, 2022, according to the Bureau of Prisons "Population Statistics" webpage. This definition is consistent with the one used by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in Table 12 of Prisoners in 2020, but uses more contempo data.
  • For the U.S. Marshals Service, we used the FOIA response reporting the average daily population equally of September 2019, including both "individual, in-direct" and "individual, direct contract" facilities.
  • For youth, we used the 2019 Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement, which provides a breakdown of the number of youth held in publicly and privately operated facilities.
  • For clearing detention, we relied on the work of the Tara Tidwell Cullen of the National Immigrant Justice Center, applying the percent held in individual facilities every bit of November 2017 to the February 2022 Ice population.

Adjustments to avoid double counting

To avoid counting anyone twice, we performed the post-obit adjustments:

• To avoid anyone in clearing detention being counted twice, we removed the 27% (v,951) of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detained population that is held under contract in local jails from the full jail population. Nosotros removed 34.1% of these ICE detainees from the jail convicted population and the residue from the unconvicted population. (We based these percentages of the population held for ICE on our analysis of the Profile of Jail Inmates, 2002, as detailed in our written report, Era of Mass Expansion: Why State Officials Should Fight Jail Growth.)
• To avoid anyone in local jails on behalf of land or federal prison house authorities from being counted twice, we removed the 73,321 people — cited in Table 12 of Prisoners in 2020 — confined in local jails on behalf of federal or state prison systems from the total jail population and from the numbers nosotros calculated for those in local jails that are convicted. To avoid those beingness held past the U.S. Marshals Service from being counted twice, nosotros removed from the jail full 31,500 Marshals detainees reported as held in local jails in Jail Inmates in 2020 Tabular array viii. We removed 75.ix% of these people held in jails for the Marshals from the jail convicted population, and the balance from the unconvicted jail population. (Once more, we based these percentages on our analysis of the Contour of Jail Inmates, 2002.)
• Because we removed Ice detainees and people under the jurisdiction of federal and state authorities from the jail population, we had to recalculate the offense distribution reported in Profile of Jail Inmates, 2002 who were "bedevilled" or "non bedevilled" without the people who reported that they were being held on behalf of state authorities, the Federal Agency of Prisons, the U.S. Marshals Service, or U.Due south. Immigration and Naturalization Service/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Water ice).³² Our definition of "bedevilled" was those who reported that they were "To serve a judgement in this jail," "To look sentencing for an offense," or "To await transfer to serve a sentence somewhere else." Our definition of not convicted was "To stand trial for an offense," "To await arraignment," or "To expect a hearing for revocation of probation/parole or community release."
• For our analysis of people held in private jails for local authorities, we applied the percent of the total custody population held in private facilities in midyear 2019 (calculated from Table 20 of Census of Jails, 2005-2019) to our count of people held in jails for local authorities (547,328) in 2020, subsequently making the adjustments described in this department.

Our graph of the racial and ethnic disparities in correctional facilities (equally shown in Slideshow 6) uses the only data source that has data for all types of adult correctional facilities: the U.S. Census. Because the relevant tables from the 2020 decennial Demography have non been published nonetheless, we used the 2019 American Customs Survey tables B02001and DP05 and represented the four named racial and ethnic groups that account for at least 2%, nationally, of the population in correctional facilities. Not included on the graphic are Asian people, who make up 1% of the correctional population, Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders, who make up 0.three%, people identifying as "Some other race," who account for 6.iii%, and those of "Two or more than races," who make up 4% of the full national correctional population.

Note that considering Latinos may be of whatever race and because of how the Census Bureau published race and ethnicity data in the relevant table, nosotros used the Census information for "White alone, Not Hispanic or Latino" for white people, but the Census Agency'south data for "Black or African American" and "American Indian and Alaska Native" people may include people who identify as both that race and Latino. Because this particular tabular array is not appropriate for country-level analyses, but the Prison house Policy Initiative will explore using the 2020 Demographic and Housing Characteristics file when it is published by the Census Bureau in late 2022 to provide detailed racial and ethnic information for the combined incarcerated population in each land. In past decades, this data was peculiarly useful in states where the system — particularly jails — did non publish race and ethnicity data or did not publish data with more precision than just "white, Black and other."

Read the entire methodology

To help readers link to specific images in this report, nosotros created these special urls:

How many people are locked upward in the United States?

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow1/1

1 in 3 people behind bars is in a jail. Well-nigh have yet to be tried in court.

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow1/2

Despite reforms, drug offenses are still a defining characteristic of the federal system

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow1/iii

Beyond "federal prison," multiple agencies and thousands of local facilities confine people for the federal government

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow1/4

Prison population drops accept leveled off since 2020

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#covid

Jail populations are creeping dorsum to normal

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#covid

Pretrial Detention

https://world wide web.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow2/1

Pretrial policies drive jail growth

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow2/2

Local Jails: The real scandal is the churn

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow2/3

Why are so many people detained in jails before trial?

https://world wide web.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow2/iv

Merely 8% of bars people are held in private prisons

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#private_facilities

one in 5 incarcerated people is locked up for a drug offense

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow3/i

Police make over a million drug possession arrests each year

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow3/2

Some states have largely ended the State of war on Drugs. Other states, not so much.

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow3/three

Well-nigh states rails and publish but one measure of mail-release recidivism

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#releaserecidivism

Very few states rails and publish any recidivism data for people on probation

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#probationrecidivism

What practice victims of vehement crimes really desire?

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#victimswant

Non-criminal (or "technical") violations are the main reason for incarceration of people on probation and parole

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow4/i

Contrary to myth, people incarcerated for trigger-happy offenses and released are to the lowest degree likely to be arrested again

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow4/1

Virtually bars youth are held for not-person offenses, many for acts that are not "crimes" at all

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow5/1

Almost 54,000 people are confined for clearing reasons

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow5/2

Psychiatric facilities confine 22,000 justice-involved people every mean solar day

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow5/3

Most people in Indian Country jails are locked upward for property, drug, and public society charges

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow5/4

Mass incarceration directly impacts millions of people: Simply just how many, and in what ways?

https://world wide web.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#impacted

Incarceration is just i piece of the much larger system of correctional control

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow6/1

Racial and ethnic disparities in correctional facilities

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow6/2

Women'southward incarceration patterns are very unlike than men's

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow6/3

Women's prison house populations accept grown faster than men'due south (and before the pandemic, women's populations were failing more slowly)

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow6/iv

Most people in prison house are poor, and the poorest are women and people of color

https://world wide web.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow6/5

1 out of 5 incarcerated people in the world is incarcerated in the U.S.

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#slideshows/slideshow6/6

To aid readers link to specific report sections or paragraphs, we created these special urls:

What actually happened to prison house and jail populations during the pandemic?

https://world wide web.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#covid

Jails vs. prisons: What'south the divergence?

https://world wide web.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#jailsvprisons

Eight myths about mass incarceration

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#myths

The beginning myth: Private prisons are the corrupt heart of mass incarceration

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#firstmyth

Offense categories might not mean what you think

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#offensecategories

The second myth: Prisons are "factories behind fences" that be to provide companies with a huge slave labor force

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#secondmyth

The third myth: Releasing "nonviolent drug offenders" would end mass incarceration

https://world wide web.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#thirdmyth

The quaternary myth: Past definition, "fierce crime" involves concrete harm

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#fourthmyth

The fifth myth: People in prison for violent or sexual crimes are too unsafe to be released

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#fifthmyth

Recidivism: A glace statistic

https://world wide web.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#recidivism_measures

The sixth myth: Crime victims back up long prison house sentences

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#fifthmyth

The seventh myth: Some people demand to go to jail to go handling and services

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#fifthmyth

The eighth myth: Expanding community supervision is the best way to reduce incarceration

https://world wide web.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#fifthmyth

The high costs of low-level offenses

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#lowlevel

Probation & parole violations and "holds" lead to unnecessary incarceration

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#holds

Misdemeanors: Small-scale offenses with major consequences

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#misdemeanors

"Low-level fugitives" alive in fright of incarceration for missed court dates and unpaid fines

https://world wide web.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#benchwarrants

Lessons from the smaller "slices": Youth, immigration, and involuntary commitment

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#smallerslices

Beyond the "Whole Pie": Customs supervision, poverty, and race and gender disparities

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#community

Each paragraph is too numbered, so you can utilise urls in this format:

https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#paragraph1
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#paragraph2
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html#paragraph3
etc…

Acquire how to link to specific images and sections

Acknowledgments

All Prison Policy Initiative reports are collaborative endeavors, but this report builds on the successful collaborations of the 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 versions. For this twelvemonth'due south report, the authors are especially indebted to Lena Graber of the Immigrant Legal Resource Centre and Heidi Altman of the National Immigrant Justice Center for their feedback and help putting the changes to immigration detention into context, Jacob Kang-Brown of the Vera Institute of Justice for sharing state prison house information, Shan Jumper for sharing updated civil detention and commitment information, Emily Widra and Leah Wang for research back up, Naila Awan and Wanda Bertram for their helpful edits, Ed Epping for assist with 1 of the visuals, and Jordan Miner for upgrading our slideshow applied science. However, any errors or omissions, and terminal responsibility for all of the many value judgements required to produce a data visualization like this, are the sole responsibleness of the authors.

We thank the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Safety and Justice Challenge for their back up of our enquiry into the use and misuse of jails in this country. Nosotros likewise thank Public Welfare Foundation for their support of our reports that fill key data and messaging gaps. Finally, we'd like to thank each of our individual donors — your commitment to ending mass incarceration makes our work possible.

About the authors

Wendy Sawyer is the Research Director at the Prison house Policy Initiative. She is the author of Youth Confinement: The Whole Pie, The Gender Divide: Tracking women's country prison growth, and the 2016 report Punishing Poverty: The high toll of probation fees in Massachusetts. She recently co-authored Abort, Release, Echo: How constabulary and jails are misused to respond to social problems with Alexi Jones. In addition to these reports, Wendy oftentimes contributes briefings on recent data releases, academic research, women's incarceration, pretrial detention, probation, and more than.

Peter Wagner is an attorney and the Executive Director of the Prison Policy Initiative. He co-founded the Prison house Policy Initiative in 2001 in lodge to spark a national discussion almost mass incarceration.

About the Prison Policy Initiative

The not-profit, non-partisan Prison Policy Initiative was founded in 2001 to expose the broader harm of mass criminalization and spark advocacy campaigns to create a more just society. Alongside reports like this that assistance the public more fully engage in criminal justice reform, the organization leads the nation'southward fight to continue the prison system from exerting undue influence on the political procedure (a.k.a. prison house gerrymandering) and plays a leading part in protecting the families of incarcerated people from the predatory prison house and jail telephone industry and the video visitation industry. The organization also sounded the alarm in 2020 on the danger of COVID-19 outbreaks in prisons and jails, and throughout the pandemic has provided frequent updates on releases, vaccines, and other prison policies disquisitional to saving lives behind bars.

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Source: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html

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