Private Prisons in the United States
Twenty-seven states and the federal government incarcerated 90,873 people in private prisons in 2022, representing 8% of the total state and federal prison population. Since 2000, the number of people housed in private facilities has increased 5%, according to data collected by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and analyzed in The Sentencing Project’s
new fact sheet.
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States show significant variation in their use of private prisons. Montana held almost half of its prison population in private facilities, while 23 states did not employ any for-profit prisons.
Among the immigrant detention population, a daily average of 28,289 people, 79% of the detained population were estimated to be confined in privately run facilities.
Public discourse about the causes and consequences of mass incarceration often evokes the ramifications of the private prison movement. While the conditions in these facilities and accusations that the industry perpetuates more incarceration are well documented, the number of people in these prisons is dwarfed by the overall prison population and the harm caused by imprisonment generally.
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