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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

pie chart showing the number of people locked up on a given day in the United States by facility type and, where available, the underlying offense

Global comparisons

US incarceration rates vs other nato countries

The United States is an undisputed global leader in mass incarceration. See how your state stacks up globally.

Probation and Parole

Incarceration over time

graph showing the incarceration rates per 100,000 for (separately) United States state prisons, federal prisons and local jails from 1925 through 2022, showing that the state rate is the most important part

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

Or see individual graphs for:

Racial and ethnic disparities

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

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.

Map showing the growing national momentum to end prison-based gerrymandering, including actions by state and local governments