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Sources and Methodology

About this page

This page describes the sources and methodology for Incarceration in Real Numbers, it is not intended as a stand-alone essay. The writing here assumes the reader has arrived by clicking a footnote on the main page.

Incarceration Rates

Statistics about American incarceration are generally taken from the Prison Policy Whole Pie report, which is the most complete and rigorous report on incarceration in any country. Countries other than the United States are gathered from Wikipedia. In cases where Wikipedia and Prison Policy Initiative differ, the latter is considered authoritative here. The reason for this is that PPI includes incarcerated persons wrongly excluded by other reports, such as juvenile inmates and those held in immigration detention. Regardless of the precise number, both sources agree that the United States is first in both absolute numbers and per capita incarceration.

There are a few countries where state secrecy slightly complicates the situation, but none fundamentally alter the picture of the United States as the unrivaled global leader in incarceration. For instance, the precise number held in North Korean prison camps is not publically known, though some sources put the number from 150,000 to 200,000. This would be an incarceration rate between 600 (slightly lower than the United States) and 800 (slightly higher).

In 2017 China began incarcerating members of the Muslim Uyghur ethnic minority in secret camps. Very little is known about the number held, the conditions of the camps, or the length of the detention. Most sources report the number at around 1 million, though this is at best an educated guess. If the 1 million figure is accurate, China would have the largest incarcerated population in absolute numbers, beating out the United States by 17%, but still 359% fewer per capita.

We should not regard human rights abuses abroad as somehow vindicating those committed at home. There is little difference from a policy perspective between an America with the world's highest incarceration rate, and an America just slightly edged out by North Korea. Both are worthy of condemnation.

Incarceration Compared To Professions

American War Dead

There have been 1.3 million Americans killed in war and 1.5 million wounded. Of these, 666,441 were combat deaths.

Total Correctional Population

  • About 4.9 million will be incarcerated this year.
  • As of 2001, there were 5.6 million adults who had ever been to prison. We will assume that about the same number of adults today have ever been to prison, though in reality it is probably higher. A baby born in 2001 was projected to have a 6.6% lifetime chance of going to prison. There are around 80 million Americans born in 2001 or later, meaning there are another 5.3 million juveniles now alive who can expect to be imprisoned at some point. These two figures (adults previously incarcerated, plus juveniles who will eventually be incarcerated) gives us the minimum number of living Americans who have ever been or will ever go to prison: 10.9 million. Missing from this figure are adults who have not yet been to prison, but will eventually. This is likely a sizable number, but smaller than the other two because risk of imprisonment peaks in early adulthood. This is all to say, 10.9 million is certainly an undercount of the total number.
  • 77 million have a criminal record. "Criminal record" here means that an individual appears in the Federal Department of Justice Survey of State Criminal History Information Systems.
  • 113 million adults have ever had an immediate family member incarcerated (parent, sibling, or child). Children are excluded from this statistic, meaning the actual number is certainly much higher, but no one has gathered this data. Also excluded from this statistic are people who have had household members outside their immediate family incarcerated (grand parents, for instance).

Plea Bargains

Around 97% of criminal cases resolve in a guilty plea, though the exact number is difficult to know, because there is no unified reporting system for this data across every jurisdiction. Not all incarcerated people have been convicted—around 555,000 incarcerated Americans have not been convicted or entered a guilty plea, mostly held in pre-trial detention. So while around 3% or convicts had a trial (about 50,000 people) only around 2% of incarcerated people had trials, because not all incarcerated people are convicts.

For data comparing the United States to plea bargaining in other countries, see The Disappearing Trial.

Pre Trial Detainees

Around 555,000 people in the United States are held without conviction, almost entirely people awaiting trial.

Comparison to Europe

The number of people incarcerated for each race may be calculated by multiplying the incarceration rate per race by the total national population of each race.

Numbers incarcerated in Europe may be found here.

Comparison to USSR

Soviet incarceration under Stalin peaked in 1951 at 2.5 million. This includes individuals held in gulags, labor colonies, and conventional prisons. The population of the Soviet Union was 182 million in 1951, making the incarceration rate 1,373 per hundred thousand.

The average for all countries can be determined by adding up wikipedia data and then dividing it by the total number of countries in the list.

The incarceration rate for black men in America can be found here. The incarceration rate for black people generally can be found by averaging the male and female rates. Obviously this assumes an equal number of male and female black Americans, so this number may be off by a percent or two.

Lifetime Imprisonment Risk

The lifetime risk of imprisonment for various racial groups can be found here.

Police Shooting

Police are estimated to kill between 930 and 1,240 Americans each year.

Legal Penalties For George Floyd

The criminal penalties for counterfeiting in Minnesota can be found here. Life expectancy data can be found here. Also note, life expectancy is significantly lower for people who have been incarcerated.

Estimated Prison Populations

Incarceration and Crime Rates Overtime

Shown in this chart are years 1920 through 2016.

Correlation Between Incarceration and Crime

Reducing Criminalization

Release all non-violent drug offenders

There are approximately 306,000 convicted non violent drug offenders incarcerated in the United States. Note, "nonviolent" means that drug crimes were the most serious offense, but many "violent" offenders are also serving time for drug crimes. For instance, suppose someone is arrested for selling drugs and, in the course of their arrest, strikes a police officer, adding another charge to their case. Even if the resulting sentence is 5 years for drugs, and 1 year for assualt, this person would be considered a "violent offender" for statistical purposes. When I say "release all non-violent drug offenders" I am assuming that offenders who are serving a combination sentence for violent and non-violent crimes simultaneously would not benefit. Of course, a reform could be constructed to include relief for such individuals if law makers wished to do so. There is no reliable source of data detailing how many individuals are currently serving combination sentences.

Eliminate cash bail for three-quarters of pre-trial defendants.

Around 500,000 people are currently held in pre-trial detention, mostly due to the cost of cash bail. Several states have begun offering alternatives to bail, such as supervised release, electronic monitoring, and algorithmic risk assessment. For a large number of defendants, merely the threat of additional penalties for missing court is more than enough to compel an appearance. The assumption that three-quarters of defendents could be released under a reformed bail system is of course made up—it could be much more or much less, depending on how the reform was implemented.

Replace immigration detention with electronic monitoring.

Around 42,000 people are currently held in immigration detention, awaiting a hearing and possible deportation from the United States. Americans are unusually willing to assume that every person held in immigration guilty of immigration law violations, and widely regard this form of detention as somehow more acceptable than other forms of incarceration without trial. While the public has widely accepted the premise that innocent-until-proven-guilty does not apply to immigration violations, this system consistently detains legal US citizens without trial, in some cases for years. Using alternative programs, including electronic monitoring and community supervision, immigration courts have achieved a 90% success rate and a 93% reduction in cost. The simple fact is that most immigrants—even those who entered illegally—want their day in court to argue asylum claims, and nothing is gained by detaining them. (As an aside, advocates for immigration detention surely realize this; the cruelty is the goal).

Reduce technical violations for probation and parole by sixty percent.

About 280,000 prisoners are currently serving time for technical violations of probation or parole, such as a failed drug test, a missed meeting with a parole officer, or staying out after curfew. Around 1 in 4 new prison admissions annually is due to such a technical violation. Sixty percent is an arbitrary percentage, law makers could free a much larger or smaller population depending on how the reform is constructed.

Reduce sentences for property and public order crimes by a third.

Around 540,000 people are currently incarcerated for public order or property crimes. Criminal sentences have grown consistently longer for forty years, with no evidence to suggest a corresponding reduction in crime. This matches our intuition about human behavior—surely someone undeterred the threat of a three year sentence will not be deterred by the threat of a four year sentence. Here we assume that a one-third reduction in sentencing would result in a roughly one-third reduction in daily prison population, though this figure is highly speculative.

Violence Against Women

The direct costs of treating victims of domestic violence and lost productivity are estimated at $8.3 billion (see also). About 160,000 people are incarcerated for domestic violence, or violence against an unmarried romantic partner. The average cost to incarcerate someone is $33,274 meaning the total cost to incarcerate all domestic abusers is around $5.3 billion. This does not include the cost of police, courts, or public defenders, only the cost of incarceration. This brings the total national cost of domestic violence to $13.6 billion. The total allocations made by the Violence Against Women act were $558 million in 2019. The Family Violence Prevention and Services Act provides an additional $180 million. This obviously excludes state, local, and private charity spending, which are likely significant, but no unified dataset tracks the total value.

Cost of Incarceration

Incarceration directly costs between $80 billion and $180 billion depending on how exactly you count. For instance, some figures include the initial cost of affecting an arrest into the cost of incarceration, others do not. This is dwarfed by the cost of preventable crime and lost productivity which is almost certainly counted in trillions.

Savings from Supportive Housing

The annual cost of supportive housing is around $20,000 per homeless person. As stated by the Federal Interagency Council on Homelessness, the cost of people sleeping on the street is much more:

Without connections to the right types of care, they cycle in and out of hospital emergency departments and inpatient beds, detox programs, jails, prisons, and psychiatric institutions—all at high public expense. Some studies have found that leaving a person to remain chronically homeless costs taxpayers as much as $30,000 to $50,000 per year.

This does not count the lost productivity, increased crime, or reduced property values, all of which are well known side effects of increased homelessness. Also note, the cost of supportive housing is likely temporary whereas the cost of managing homelessness is permanent.

A pilot program in Los Angeles found a net savings of 60% after one year of supportive housing.

Wrongful Conviction of George Alvarez

The story of George Alvarez

Detention of Lavette Mayes

Lavette Mayes documentary on YouTube

Fines resulting in incarceration

Brennan Center discussion of fines

List of All Sources