The Sentencing Project releases updated report on “Mass Incarceration Trends”

The Sentencing Project has today released this new 19-page document titled “Mass Incarceration Trends.”  The report is full of data and visuals covering topic ranging from “Mass Incarceration’s Reach” to “Probation and Parole” to “Life and Long-Term Imprisonment” to “Voting Rights” to lots of topics in between.  Here is a small portion of the report’s first section:

The United States is unparalleled historically and ranks among the highest worldwide in its dependence on incarceration.  Over five million people in total are under supervision by the criminal legal system.  Of these, nearly two million people, disproportionately Black, are living in prisons and jails instead of their communities.  Compare this to the figures of the early 1970s when this count was 360,000….

In 1972, the imprisonment rate was 93 per 100,000 people.  The prison population expansion that commenced in 1973 reached its peak in 2009, achieving a seven-fold increase over the intervening years.  Between 1985 and 1995 alone, the total prison population grew an average of eight percent annually.  And between 1990 and 1995, all states, with the exception of Maine, substantially increased their prison populations, from 13% in South Carolina to as high as 130% in Texas.  The federal system grew 53% larger during this five-year period alone.

The number of people in prison began a marginal decline beginning in 201013 and continued along this course for more than a decade, including a remarkable 14% decline in 2020 alone, which was principally caused by accelerated releases and reduced admissions during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.  The year 2022, however, marked the first year in more than a decade where the prison population rose again, by two percent, led by increases in 36 states and the federal government.  Mississippi alone raised its population of imprisoned persons 15% between 2021 and 2022.