Incarceration in the United States


Incarceration in the United States is one of the primary means of punishment for crime in the United States. In 2021, over five million people were under supervision by the criminal justice system, with nearly two million people incarcerated in state or federal prisons and local jails. The United States has the largest known prison population in the world. It has 5% of the world's population while having 20% of the world's incarcerated persons. China, with more than four times more inhabitants, has fewer persons in prison. Prison populations grew dramatically beginning in the 1970s, but began a decline around 2009, dropping 25% by year-end 2021.
Drug offenses account for the incarceration of about 1 in 5 people in U.S. prisons. Violent offenses account for over 3 in 5 people in state prisons. Property offenses account for the incarceration of about 1 in 7 people in state prisons.
The United States maintains a higher incarceration rate than most developed countries. According to the World Prison Brief on May 7, 2023, the United States has the sixth highest incarceration rate in the world, at 531 people per 100,000. Expenses related to prison, parole, and probation operations have an annual estimated cost of around $81 billion. Court costs, bail bond fees, and prison phone fees amounted to another $38 billion in costs annually.
Since reaching its peak level of imprisonment in 2009, the U.S. has averaged a rate of decarceration of 2.3% per year. This figure includes the anomalous 14.1% drop in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. There is significant variation among state prison population declines. Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York have reduced their prison populations by over 50% since reaching their peak levels. Twenty-five states have reduced their prison populations by 25% since reaching their peaks. The federal prison population downsized 27% relative to its peak in 2011. There was a 2% decrease in the number of persons sentenced to more than 1 year under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Prisons from 2022 to 2023.
Although debtor's prisons no longer exist in the United States, residents of some U.S. states can still be incarcerated for unpaid court fines and assessments as of 2016. The Vera Institute of Justice reported in 2015 that the majority of those incarcerated in local and county jails are there for minor violations and have been jailed for longer periods of time over the past 30 years because they are unable to pay court-imposed costs.

History

In the 18th century, English philanthropists began to focus on the reform of convicted criminals in prison, whom they believed needed a chance to become morally pure to stop or slow crime. Since at least 1740, some of these philosophers have thought of solitary confinement as a way to create and maintain spiritually clean people in prisons. As English people immigrated to North America, so did these theories of penology.
Spanish colonizers in Florida also brought their own ideas of confinement, and Spanish soldiers in St. Augustine, Florida, built the first substantial prison in North America in 1570.
Some of the first structures built in English-settled America were jails, and by the 18th century, every English-speaking North American county had a jail. These jails served a variety of functions, such as a holding place for debtors, prisoners-of-war, and political prisoners, those bound in the penal transportation and slavery systems; and those accused but not tried for crimes. Sentences for those convicted of crimes were rarely longer than three months and often lasted only a day. Poor citizens were often imprisoned for longer than their richer neighbors, as bail was rarely refused.
One of the first prisons in America was founded in 1790 by the Pennsylvanian Quakers, to make a system they viewed as less cruel than dungeon prisons. They created a space where imprisoned people could read scriptures and repent as a means of self-improvement. This was known among prison reformers as the Pennsylvania System, which focused on reform, rehabilitation of the prisoner, and saving prisoners' souls through religious instruction.
In 1841, Dorothea Dix claimed that prison conditions in the U.S. were, in her opinion, inhumane. Imprisoned people were chained naked and whipped with rods. Others, who were criminally insane, were caged, or placed in cellars or closets. She insisted on changes throughout the rest of her life. While focusing on the insane, her comments also resulted in changes for other inmates. Late in the 1800s, Superintendent Zebulon Brockway also changed the landscape of prison life by introducing institutionalized learning programs to inmates for rehabilitation purposes at the Elmira Reformatory in New York. As Monroe County Penitentiary Superintendent, Brockway implemented a points-based behavior system that identified low risk offenders and allowed them to participate in education programs which was later included industrial/trade schools, moral education, and academia.
Following the Civil War and during the Progressive Era of America, new concepts of the prison system, such as parole, indeterminate sentencing, and probation, were introduced. These concepts were encoded into legislative statutes in efforts to maintain the systems of racial capitalism that were formerly supported by unpaid slave labor. These legal frameworks became mainstream practices resulting in mass incarceration and legal discrimination of African Americans and other marginalized groups in America. At this time, there was an increase in crime, causing officials to handle crime in a more retributive way. Many Sicilian Americans were harshly affected by this. However, as the crime rate declined, the prison system started to focus more on rehabilitation.

YearCountRate
1940264,834201
1950264,620176
1960346,015193
1970328,020161
1980503,586220
1985744,208311
19901,148,702457
19951,585,586592
20001,937,482683
20022,033,022703
20042,135,335725
20062,258,792752
20082,307,504755
20102,270,142731
20122,228,424707
20142,217,947693
20162,157,800666
20182,102,400642
20201,675,400505
20211,767,200531


On June 18, 1971, President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse "public enemy number one" in a message to Congress. His message also called for federal resources to be used for the "prevention of new addicts and the rehabilitation of those who are addicted." Following this, the media began using the term "war on drugs". According to author Emily Dufton, Nixon "transformed the public image of the drug user into one of a dangerous and anarchic threat to American civilization."
The presidency of Ronald Reagan saw the expansion of federal efforts to prevent drug abuse and prosecute offenders. Reagan signed the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, which established mandatory minimum sentences and expanded penalties for marijuana possession. He also signed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. Support for Reagan's crime legislation was bipartisan. The 1980s saw a dramatic rise in the prison population, especially among non-violent offenders and people convicted of drug offenses.
Researcher Valerie Jenness writes, "Since the 1970s, the final wave of expansion of the prison system, there has been a huge expansion of prisons that exist at the federal and state level. Now, prisons are starting to become a private industry as more and more prisons are starting to become privatized rather than being under government control."

Incarcerated population

As of 2023, 59% of incarcerated people are in state prisons; 12% are in federal prisons; and 29% are in local jails. Of the total state and federal prison population, 8% or 96,370 people are incarcerated in private prisons. An additional 2.9 million people are on probation, and over 800,000 people are on parole. At year-end 2021, 1,000,000 people were incarcerated in state prisons; 157,000 people were incarcerated in federal prisons; and 636,000 people were incarcerated in local jails.
Approximately 1.8 million people are incarcerated in state or federal prisons or local jails. There are over 1 million people who are incarcerated in state prisons. There are 656,000 people incarcerated for violent offenses, 142,000 for property offenses, 132,000 for drug offenses, and 110,000 for public order offenses. The percentage breakdown of people in state prisons by offense-type is as follows: 63% of people are incarcerated for violent offenses, 13% for property offenses, 13% for drug offenses, and 11% for public order offenses.
The federal prison population is approximately 209,000. 148,000 of these people are incarcerated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Of these people, there are 69,000 people incarcerated for drug offenses, 61,000 for public order offenses, 11,000 for violent offenses, and 6,000 for property offenses. The percentage breakdown of people incarcerated by offense-type is as follows: 47% of people are incarcerated for drug offenses, 42% for public order offenses, 7% for violent offenses, and 4% for property offenses. A further 60,000 people are incarcerated by the U.S. Marshals Service. Of these people, there are 21,000 incarcerated for drug offenses, 14,000 for immigration offenses, 9,000 for weapons offenses, and 7,000 for violent offenses.
Finally, 619,000 people are incarcerated in local jails. Jail incarceration accounts for a third of all incarceration. Over 80% of people incarcerated in local jails have not yet been convicted.
The First Step Act was adopted in 2018 in an effort to shrink the incarcerated population in the Federal Bureau of Prisons system. In 2025, BOP Director William Marshall announced a renewed emphasis on the execution of those promises, including shrinking the population of non-violent offenders in the federal system.