Preliminary data released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) revealed a notable increase in the number of individuals held in local jails nationwide. As of midyear 2022, the incarcerated population stood at 663,100, marking a 4% surge compared to the previous year’s 636,100. This surge is part of a more significant trend that has seen jail admissions rise by 6.6% from July 2021 to June 2022, totaling 7.3 million entries. However, the figure is still 37% lower than ten years prior, when admissions peaked at 11.6 million.
According to the new data, of the incarcerated population in mid-2022, 14% were female, representing an increase over the previous year. The female population experienced a growth of 9%, surpassing the 3% growth seen in the male population during the same period.
Among those in custody, approximately 30% (197,000) were convicted or awaiting sentencing, while the remaining 70% (466,100) were not convicted, pending court action, or held for other reasons. This distribution mirrors the proportions observed in 2021.
The numbers saw a 2% increase for state and federal prisons from yearend 2021 to yearend 2022, with the population rising from 1,205,100 to 1,230,100. Notably, 35 states and the federal prison system saw an uptick in the number of individuals sentenced to more than one year.
Most prisoners, approximately 96% in 2021 and 2022, had sentences of over a year. The demographic distribution remained consistent over the two years, with 32% being Black, 31% white, 23% Hispanic, 10% multiracial or of another race, 2% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 1% Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Other Pacific Islander.
BJS Principal Deputy Director Kevin M. Scott, Ph.D., emphasized the significance of releasing preliminary data, stating in a news release that, “BJS is publishing advanced estimates of key statistics on this topic to provide our stakeholders with timely data as quickly as possible.”
In response to the report, the Jobs Opportunity Task Force (JOTF), a nonprofit advocating for improved skills, jobs, and incomes, drew attention to the wide-reaching effects of incarceration. They revealed that approximately 113 million adults in the U.S., or roughly 45%, have a family member with a history of imprisonment, and 79 million individuals possess a criminal record. JOTF officials pointed out that the post-pandemic era has witnessed a resurgence in incarceration rates, attributing the prior decline to COVID-19 responses rather than systemic changes.
Highlighting concerns specific to Maryland, JOTF warned that the state already incarcerates more individuals per capita than Canada, France, the U.K., and China. They cautioned that should Maryland continue this trajectory, it could face economic repercussions, including high unemployment rates among returning citizens, potentially leading to increased reliance on government assistance, diminished tax revenues, and elevated recidivism rates.
JOTF officials concluded by stressing the urgency of addressing mass incarceration, not only for the well-being of affected individuals and their families but also for the broader economic stability of the nation.
“Maryland must continue to dismantle barriers to employment by increasing access to expungement, limiting the use or consideration of prior criminal history when considering an application for an occupational license, and reducing or eliminating the fines and fees that contribute to keeping justice-involved individuals in poverty even if they are able to secure entry-level employment,” JOTF officials wrote.
The post Latest Stats Show America’s Continued Love Affair with Mass Incarceration appeared first on Atlanta Daily World.
Incarceration rates demographics in Minnesota
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Not only that, America also puts more people in prison per capita than in any other independent democracy. Even progressive states with low incarceration rates relative to the rest of the United States have more people in jail than most other places in the developed world. If individual states were counted as countries, many of them would have the highest incarceration rates in the world, ahead of actual entire other countries.
The reasons behind the mass incarceration epidemic in the United States are multifaceted and complex. They are not due to rates of violent crime, which are actually less prevalent in the United States than they are in many countries that rank higher on the incarceration scale, including Russia and Turkey, which both have authoritarian governments. Instead, the high rates of American incarceration boil down to a reliance on policing and jails to address a range of social problems that could be solved with other more rehabilitative social interventions.
In the 1980s, a number of politicians in the United States also pushed “tough on crime” policies to address public fears about violent crime, and these policies have lingered ever since, leading to an extremely large prison population nationally, and calls for criminal justice reform. Many people put in prison during that era remain in jail today.
But not every state’s incarceration rate is the same. For example, some states have decriminalized drugs like marijuana in an effort to combat sending non-violent offenders to jail. Possession of marijuana had been found to be enforced with a racial bias, as well, so states that have decriminalized have worked to address glaring racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
Stacker compiled statistics about incarceration demographics in Minnesota using data from the Sentencing Project. All data is from 2019 unless otherwise specified.
Minnesota by the numbers
– Total incarcerated, prison and jail: 16,382
— Prison population: 9,982
— Prison incarceration rate per 100,000: 176 (#47 highest among all states)
— Jail population (2013): 6,400
— Jail incarceration rate per 100,000 (2013): 150 (#44 highest among all states)
– Private prison population: 0
– Probation population: 98,390
– Parole population: 7,243
– Life sentences (2020): 613
— Life without parole (2020): 142
— Juvenile life without parole (2020): 0
– White imprisonment rate per 100,000: 105 (#47 highest among all states)
– Black imprisonment rate per 100,000: 1,023 (#38 highest among all states)
— Black to white ratio: 9.7
– Hispanic imprisonment rate per 100,000: 186 (#38 highest among all states)
— Hispanic to white ratio: 1.8
– Corrections expenditures: $687 million
Minnesota has an incarceration rate of 342 per 100,000 people (including prisons, jails, immigration detention, and juvenile justice facilities), meaning that it locks up a higher percentage of its people than almost any democracy on earth. Read on to learn more about who is incarcerated in Minnesota and why.
17,500 people from Minnesota are behind bars
Additionally, the number of people impacted by county and city jails in Minnesota is much larger than the graph above would suggest, because people cycle through local jails relatively quickly. Each year, at least 69,000 different people are booked into local jails in Minnesota.
Rates of imprisonment have grown dramatically in the last 40 years
Today, Minnesota’s incarceration rates stand out internationally
In the U.S., incarceration extends beyond prisons and local jails to include other systems of confinement. The U.S. and state incarceration rates in this graph include people held by these other parts of the justice system, so they may be slightly higher than the commonly reported incarceration rates that only include prisons and jails. Details on the data are available in States of Incarceration: The Global Context. We also have a version of this graph focusing on the incarceration of women.
People of color are overrepresented in prisons and jails
Minnesota’s criminal justice system is more than just its prisons and jails
The high cost of being incarcerated in Minnesota
Prisons and jails in Minnesota are increasingly shifting the cost of incarceration to people behind bars and their families, hiding the true economic costs of mass incarceration:
- Jails in Minnesota charge up to $3.15 for a 15-minute phone call, reaping profits for companies, while prisons charge 75¢ for a 15-minute call.
- Minnesota suspended medical copays in prisons at the beginning of the pandemic — why is it bringing copays back now?
- Minnesota prisons charge families up to a 20% fee to transfer money to an incarcerated loved one.
- People in Minnesota prisons must pay for hygiene items and other basics — and those without cash have to meet strict “indigence” criteria to get financial assistance.
- People in Minnesota prisons earn as little as 25¢ an hour for their work.
- Minnesota charges up to 40¢ for an e-message to or from prison, among the highest rates in the nation.
- Research on Minnesota in our Research Library
Data on COVID-19 in Minnesota jails and prisons
We gave Minnesota a failing grade in September 2021 for its response to the coronavirus in prisons, noting that:
- Minnesota suspended medical copays in prisons at the beginning of the pandemic — but later decided to bring them back.
- Minnesota failed to utilize one of the most obvious, and easiest, tools for reducing the prison population — stopping prison admissions for technical violations of probation and parole (which are not crimes).
For more detail, see our report States of Emergency. Or check out these other resources:
- How many COVID-19 cases in Minnesota communities can be linked to outbreaks in correctional facilities? (data from our report Mass Incarceration, COVID-19, and Community Spread)
