In the first year of the pandemic, we saw significant reductions in prison and jail populations: the number of people in prisons dropped by 15% during 2020, and jail populations fell even faster, down 25% by the summer of 2020. It provides a detailed look at where and why people are locked up in the U.S., and dispels some modern myths to focus attention on the real drivers of mass incarceration and overlooked issues that call for reform. This report offers some much-needed clarity by piecing together the data about this country’s disparate systems of confinement.
Together, these systems hold almost 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 2,850 local jails, 1,510 juvenile correctional facilities, 186 immigration detention facilities, and 82 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. doesn’t have one “criminal justice system ” instead, we have thousands of federal, state, local, and tribal systems. 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.įurther complicating matters is the fact that the U.S. The various government agencies involved in the criminal legal system collect a lot of data, but very little is designed to help policymakers or the public understand what’s going on.
Can it really be true 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 changed decisions about how people are punished when they break the law? These essential questions are harder to answer than you might expect.
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