As of 2022, Black people were more likely than those of other races to be imprisoned in the United States. In that year, the rate of imprisonment for Black men stood at 1,826 per 100,000 of the population. For Black women, this rate stood at 64 per 100,000 of the population.

In 2022, the incarceration rate of African Americans in local jails in the United States was *** incarcerations per 100,000 of the population -- the highest rate of any race or ethnicity. The second-highest incarceration rate was among American Indians/Alaska Natives, at *** incarcerations per 100,000 of the population.

The National Prisoner Statistics (NPS) data collection began in 1926 in response to a congressional mandate to gather information on persons incarcerated in state and federal prisons. Originally under the auspices of the U.S. Census Bureau, the collection moved to the Bureau of Prisons in 1950, and then in 1971 to the National Criminal Justice Information and Statistics Service, the precursor to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) which was established in 1979. From 1979 to 2013, the Census Bureau was the NPS data collection agent. In 2014, the collection was competitively bid in conjunction with the National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP), since many of the respondents for NPS and NCRP are the same. The contract was awarded to Abt Associates, Inc. The NPS is administered to 51 respondents. Before 2001, the District of Columbia was also a respondent, but responsibility for housing the District of Columbia's sentenced prisoners was transferred to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and by yearend 2001 the District of Columbia no longer operated a prison system. The NPS provides an enumeration of persons in state and federal prisons and collects data on key characteristics of the nation's prison population. NPS has been adapted over time to keep pace with the changing information needs of the public, researchers, and federal, state, and local governments.

In 2022, about 1,826 Black men per 100,000 residents were imprisoned in the United States. This rate was much lower for Black women, at 64 per 100,000 residents. The overall imprisonment rate in 2022 stood at 355 per 100,000 Americans.

This data collection includes tabulations of annual adult admissions to federal and state correctional institutions by race. Data are provided for the years 1926 to 1986 and include tabulations for prisons in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia, as well as federal prison totals and United States totals. The figures were derived from a voluntary reporting program in which each state, the District of Columbia, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons reported summary and detailed statistics as a part of the National Prisoner Statistics series. Individual state and United States population figures according to racial categories also are provided.

The National Prisoner Statistics (NPS) data collection began in 1926 in response to a congressional mandate to gather information on persons incarcerated in state and federal prisons. Originally under the auspices of the U.S. Census Bureau, the collection moved to the Bureau of Prisons in 1950, and then in 1971 to the National Criminal Justice Information and Statistics Service, the precursor to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) which was established in 1979. From 1979 to 2013, the Census Bureau was the NPS data collection agent. In 2014, the collection was competitively bid in conjunction with the National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP), since many of the respondents for NPS and NCRP are the same. The contract was awarded to Abt Associates, Inc. The NPS is administered to 51 respondents. Before 2001, the District of Columbia was also a respondent, but responsibility for housing the District of Columbia's sentenced prisoners was transferred to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and by yearend 2001 the District of Columbia no longer operated a prison system. The NPS provides an enumeration of persons in state and federal prisons and collects data on key characteristics of the nation's prison population. NPS has been adapted over time to keep pace with the changing information needs of the public, researchers, and federal, state, and local governments.

As of February 2025, El Salvador had the highest prisoner rate worldwide, with over 1,600 prisoners per 100,000 of the national population. Cuba, Rwanda, Turkmenistan, and the United States, rounded out the top five countries with the highest rate of incarceration. Homicides in El Salvador Interestingly, El Salvador, which long had the highest global homicide rates, has dropped out of the top 20 after a high number of gang members have been incarcerated. A high number of the countries with the highest homicide rate are located in Latin America. Prisoners in the United StatesThe United States is home to the largest number of prisoners worldwide. More than 1.8 million people were incarcerated in the U.S. at the beginning of 2025. In China, the estimated prison population totaled 1.69 million people that year. Other nations had far fewer prisoners. The largest share of the U.S. prisoners in federal correctional facilities were of African-American origin. As of 2020, there were 345,500 black, non-Hispanic prisoners, compared to 327,300 white, non-Hispanic inmates. The U.S. states with the largest number of prisoners in 2022 were Texas, California, and Florida. Over 160,000 prisoners in state facilities were sentenced for rape or sexual assault, which was the most common cause of imprisonment. The second most common was murder, followed by aggravated or simple assault.

As of December 2022, there was a total of 139,631 prisoners in the state of Texas, the most out of any state. California, Florida, Georgia, and Ohio rounded out the top five states with the most prisoners in the United States.

At the beginning of 2025, the United States had the highest number of incarcerated individuals worldwide, with around 1.8 million people in prison. China followed with around 100,000 fewer prisoners. Brazil followed in third. The incarceration problem in the U.S. The United States has an incredibly high number of incarcerated individuals. Therefore, the incarceration problem has become a widely contested issue, because it impacts disadvantaged people and minorities the most. Additionally, the prison system has become capitalized by outside corporations that fund prisons, but there is still a high cost to taxpayers. Furthermore, there has been an increase in the amount of private prisons that have been created. For-profit prison companies have come under scrutiny because of their lack of satisfactory staff and widespread lobbying. Violent offenses are the most common type of offense among prisoners in the U.S. Incarceration rates worldwide El Salvador had the highest rate of incarceration worldwide, at 1,659 prisoners per 100,000 residents as of February 2025. Cuba followed in second with 794 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. The incarceration rate is a better measure to use when comparing countries than the total prison populations, which will naturally have the most populous countries topping the list.

The data contain records of sentenced offenders in the custody of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) at year-end of fiscal year 2022. The data include commitments of United States District Court, violators of conditions of release (e.g., parole, probation, or supervised release violators), offenders convicted in other courts (e.g., military or District of Columbia courts), and persons admitted to prison as material witnesses or for purposes of treatment, examination, or transfer to another authority. These data include variables that describe the offender, such as age, race, citizenship, as well as variables that describe the sentences and expected prison terms. The data file contains original variables from the Bureau of Prisons' SENTRY database as well as additional analysis variables. Variables containing identifying information (e.g., name, Social Security Number) were either removed, coarsened, or blanked in order to protect the identities of individuals. These data are part of a series designed by Abt Associates and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Data and documentation were prepared by Abt Associates.

The data contain records of sentenced offenders committed to the custody of the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) during fiscal year 2009. The data include commitments of United States District Court, violators of conditions of release (e.g., parole, probation, or supervised release violators), offenders convicted in other courts (e.g., military or District of Columbia courts), and persons admitted to prison as material witnesses or for purposes of treatment, examination, or transfer to another authority. These data include variables that describe the offender, such as age, race, citizenship, as well as variables that describe the sentences and expected prison terms. The data file contains original variables from the Bureau of Prisons' SENTRY database, as well as "SAF" variables that denote subsets of the data. These SAF variables are related to statistics reported in the Compendium of Federal Justice Statistics, Tables 7.9-7.16. Variables containing identifying information (e.g., name, Social Security Number) were replaced with blanks, and the day portions of date fields were also sanitized in order to protect the identities of individuals. These data are part of a series designed by the Urban Institute (Washington, DC) and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Data and documentation were prepared by the Urban Institute.

The 2019 Census of State and Federal Adult Correctional Facilities (CCF) was the ninth enumeration of state institutions and the sixth enumeration of federal institutions sponsored by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and its predecessors. Earlier censuses were completed in 1979 (ICPSR 7852), 1984 (ICPSR 8444), 1990 (ICPSR 9908), 1995 (ICPSR 6953), 2000 (ICPSR 4021), 2005 (ICPSR 24642), and 2012 (ICPSR 37294). The 2019 CCF consisted of two data collection instruments - one for confinement facilities and one for community-based facilities. For each facility, information was provided on facility operator; sex of prisoners authorized to be housed by facility; facility functions; percentage of prisoners authorized to leave the facility; one-day counts of prisoners by sex, race/ethnicity, special populations, and holding authority; number of walkaways occurring over a one-year period; and educational and other special programs offered to prisoners. Additional information was collected from confinement facilities, including physical security level; housing for special populations; capacity; court orders for specific conditions; one-day count of correctional staff by payroll status and sex; one-day count of security staff by sex and race/ethnicity; assaults and incidents caused by prisoners; number of escapes occurring over a one-year period; and work assignments available to prisoners. Late in the data collection to avoid complete nonresponse from facilities, BJS offered the option of providing critical data elements from the two data collection instruments. These elements included facility operator; sex of prisoners authorized to be housed by facility; facility functions; percentage of prisoners authorized to leave the facility; one-day counts of prisoners by sex, and holding authority. Physical security level was an additional critical data element for confinement facilities. The census counted prisoners held in the facilities, a custody count. Some prisoners who are held in the custody of one jurisdiction may be under the authority of a different jurisdiction. The custody count is distinct from a count of prisoners under a correctional authority's jurisdiction, which includes all prisoners over whom a correctional authority exercises control, regardless of where the prisoner is housed. A jurisdictional count is more inclusive than a prison custody count and includes state and federal prisoners housed in local jails or other non-correctional facilities.

Investigator(s): United States. Bureau of Justice Statistics Produces annual national- and state-level data on the number of prisoners in state and federal prison facilities. Aggregate data are collected on race and sex of prison inmates, inmates held in private facilities and local jails, system capacity, noncitizens, and persons age 17 or younger. Findings are released in the Prisoners series and the Corrections Statistical Analysis Tool (CSAT) - Prisoners. Data are from the 50 states departments of correction, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and until 2001, from the District of Columbia (after 2001, felons sentenced under the District of Columbia criminal code were housed in federal facilities).

This collection provides nationally representative data on persons held prior to trial and on convicted offenders serving sentences in local jails or awaiting transfer to state prisons. Data cover demographic characteristics of jail inmates (sex, race, ethnicity, Hispanic origin, employment), current offenses and sentences, characteristics of victims, criminal histories, jail activities and programs, prior drug and alcohol use and treatment, and health care services provided while in jail.

The National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP) compiles offender-level data on admissions and releases from state and federal prisons and post-confinement community supervision. The data are used to monitor the nation's correctional population and address specific policy questions related to recidivism, prisoner reentry, and trends in demographic characteristics of the incarcerated and community supervision populations. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) has administered the NCRP since 1983. The United States Bureau of the Census served as data collection agent for BJS until October 2010, when Abt Associates assumed this position. From 2000 to 2009, NCRP data were archived each year in four, year-specific files that corresponded to the four files that states were asked to submit to the Census Bureau. The four files are: Prison Admissions (Part A), Prison Releases (Part B), Parole Exits (Part C), and Prison Custody (Part D). For example, the 2009 NCRP archive consists of prison admissions occurring in 2009, prison releases occurring in 2009, parole exits occurring in 2009, and prisoners in custody on December 31, 2009. Starting in 2011, NCRP data will be archived in a single, multi-year Term Record file. A Term Record represents a single period of incarceration for an individual offender. Each year, the archived Term Record file will be replaced by a new Term Record file that incorporates new NCRP data collected and processed during the previous year, as well as updates to previously collected data. The Term Records were created from the Prison Admissions (Part A), Prison Releases (Part B), and Prison Custody (Part D) records submitted by states since 2000. With a few lines of computing code (included with the archive), an analyst can create a prison admission, release, or custody file from the Term Record file. In addition to the Term Record file, two additional files are being archived: (1) Prison Admissions (Part A), Prison Releases (Part B), and Prison Custody (Part D) records that were not used in building the Term Record file and (2) Part C (Parole Exit) records collected from January 1, 2011 to October 31, 2012.

In 2021, around 221,200 Black/African American people were confined to local jails in the United States. In that year, Black and African American people were confined to local jails at a higher rate than any other ethnicity.

These data assess the effects of the risk of local jail incarceration and of police aggressiveness in patrol style on rates of violent offending. The collection includes arrest rates for public order offenses, size of county jail populations, and numbers of new prison admissions as they relate to arrest rates for index (serious) crimes. Data were collected from seven sources for each city. CENSUS OF POPULATION AND HOUSING, 1980 [UNITED STATES]: SUMMARY TAPE FILE 1A (ICPSR 7941), provided county-level data on number of persons by race, age, and age by race, number of persons in households, and types of households within each county. CENSUS OF POPULATION AND HOUSING, 1980 [UNITED STATES]: SUMMARY TAPE FILE 3A (ICPSR 8071), measured at the city level, provided data on total population, race, age, marital status by sex, persons in household, number of households, housing, children, and families above and below the poverty level by race, employment by race, and income by race within each city. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) 1980 data provided variables on total offenses and offense rates per 100,000 persons for homicides, rapes, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle offenses, and arson. Data from the FBI for 1980-1982, averaged per 100,000, provided variables for the above offenses by sex, age, and race, and the Uniform Crime Report arrest rates for index crimes within each city. The NATIONAL JAIL CENSUS for 1978 and 1983 (ICPSR 7737 and ICPSR 8203), aggregated to the county level, provided variables on jail capacity, number of inmates being held by sex, race, and status of inmate's case (awaiting trial, awaiting sentence, serving sentence, and technical violations), average daily jail populations, number of staff by full-time and part-time, number of volunteers, and number of correctional officers. The JUVENILE DETENTION AND CORRECTIONAL FACILITY CENSUS for 1979 and 1982-1983 (ICPSR 7846 and 8205), aggregated to the county level, provided data on the number of individuals being held by type of crime and sex, as well as age of juvenile offenders by sex, average daily prison population, and payroll and other expenditures for the institutions.

This project sought to investigate a possible relationship between sentencing guidelines and family structure in the United States. The research team developed three research modules that employed a variety of data sources and approaches to understand family destabilization and community distress, which cannot be observed directly. These three research modules were used to discover causal relationships between male withdrawal from productive spheres of the economy and resulting changes in the community and families. The research modules approached the issue of sentencing guidelines and family structure by studying: (1) the flow of inmates into prison (Module A), (2) the role of and issues related to sentencing reform (Module B), and family disruption in a single state (Module C). Module A utilized the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program data for 1984 and 1993 (Parts 1 and 2), the 1984 and 1993 National Correctional Reporting Program (NCRP) data (Parts 3-6), the Urban Institute's 1980 and 1990 Underclass Database (UDB) (Part 7), the 1985 and 1994 National Longitudinal Survey on Youth (NLSY) (Parts 8 and 9), and county population, social, and economic data from the Current Population Survey, County Business Patterns, and United States Vital Statistics (Parts 10-12). The focus of this module was the relationship between family instability, as measured by female-headed families, and three societal characteristics, namely underclass measures in county of residence, individual characteristics, and flows of inmates. Module B examined the effects of statewide incarceration and sentencing changes on marriage markets and family structure. Module B utilized data from the Current Population Survey for 1985 and 1994 (Part 12) and the United States Statistical Abstracts (Part 13), as well as state-level data (Parts 14 and 15) to measure the Darity-Myers sex ratio and expected welfare income. The relationship between these two factors and family structure, sentencing guidelines, and minimum sentences for drug-related crimes was then measured. Module C used data collected from inmates entering the Minnesota prison system in 1997 and 1998 (Part 16), information from the 1990 Census (Part 17), and the Minnesota Crime Survey (Part 18) to assess any connections between incarceration and family structure. Module C focused on a single state with sentencing guidelines with the goal of understanding how sentencing reforms and the impacts of the local community factors affect inmate family structure. The researchers wanted to know if the aspects of locations that lose marriageable males to prison were more important than individual inmate characteristics with respect to the probability that someone will be imprisoned and leave behind dependent children. Variables in Parts 1 and 2 document arrests by race for arson, assault, auto theft, burglary, drugs, homicide, larceny, manslaughter, rape, robbery, sexual assault, and weapons. Variables in Parts 3 and 4 document prison admissions, while variables in Parts 5 and 6 document prison releases. Variables in Part 7 include the number of households on public assistance, education and income levels of residents by race, labor force participation by race, unemployment by race, percentage of population of different races, poverty rate by race, men in the military by race, and marriage pool by race. Variables in Parts 8 and 9 include age, county, education, employment status, family income, marital status, race, residence type, sex, and state. Part 10 provides county population data. Part 11 contains two different state identifiers. Variables in Part 12 describe mortality data and welfare data. Part 13 contains data from the United States Statistical Abstracts, including welfare and poverty variables. Variables in Parts 14 and 15 include number of children, age, education, family type, gender, head of household, marital status, race, religion, and state. Variables in Part 16 cover admission date, admission type, age, county, education, language, length of sentence, marital status, military status, sentence, sex, state, and ZIP code. Part 17 contains demographic data by Minnesota ZIP code, such as age categories, race, divorces, number of children, home ownership, and unemployment. Part 18 includes Minnesota crime data as well as some demographic variables, such as race, education, and poverty ratio.

As of January 2024, about *** inmates on death row in the United States were white. A further *** death row inmates in that same year were Black, and ** people on death row in the country were Native Americans.

This statistic depicts the share of Americans who believe that felons serving time in prison should be allowed to vote in 2019, by ethnicity. During the survey, 57 percent of Black or African American respondents said that felons serving time in prison should be allowed to vote, the most out of any ethnicity.