See data for your state

Prison Policy Initiative updates for September 18, 2019 Showing how mass incarceration harms communities and our national welfare

How many people in your state go to local jails every year? [[link removed]] New data shows that local jails impact more people in your state than you may think. [[link removed]]

by Wanda Bertram and Alexi Jones [[link removed]]

County and city jails have been called "mass incarceration's front door," [[link removed]] but campaigns to reform or close jails often don't receive the attention they deserve. Why? Because the traditional way we measure the impact of jails - the average daily population - significantly understates the number of people directly affected by these local facilities.

Because people typically stay in jail for only a few days, weeks or months, the daily population represents a small fraction of the people who are admitted over the course of a year. But the statistic that better reflects a jail's impact on a community - the number of people who go to jail - is rarely accessible to the public.

Thankfully, we can now get close to closing this gap in the data and making the impact of jails clearer. Building on our new national report Arrest, Release, Repeat, [[link removed]] we're able to estimate the number of people in every state who go to local jails each year.

To produce these estimates, we analyzed results of the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an annual survey that primarily concerns health trends but also contains useful data about individuals who have been arrested. The table below shows the results of our state-by-state analysis.

For a rich demographic breakdown of people who go to jail (including how many go to jail multiple times a year), see our national report. [[link removed]]

For the full version of this table, including data for all states as well as jail admission rates, see the web version of this article. [[link removed]]

Understanding the true number of people directly affected by local jails allows policymakers to better assess the impact of jail policies. But more importantly, these statistics ought to prompt state and local policymakers to question whether it is necessary to jail so many people in the first place.

As we found [[link removed]] in Arrest, Release, Repeat, people who go to county and city jails are disproportionately likely to have a substance use disorder, suffer from a serious mental illness, and lack health insurance. They're also significantly more likely to be unemployed, have incomes under $10,000, and lack a high school diploma. States and counties should not be using incarceration to address these serious problems of public health and economic inequality.

Moreover, most jail bookings do not improve public safety. Research from the Vera Institute shows that only 5% of arrests every year [[link removed]] are for violent offenses, and our analysis in Arrest, Release, Repeat indicates that even the vast majority (88%) of people arrested multiple times per year don't pose a serious public safety risk. [[link removed]]

Needlessly jailing vulnerable people isn't only a waste of public money: Even short stints in jail can throw someone's life into disarray by forcing them to miss work, isolating them from loved ones, and cutting off any medications they are taking. Considering the enormous human costs of excessive incarceration, policymakers should use this new data to assess whether their jails are being used to protect the public or as a temporary - and ineffective - remedy for social problems.

Please support our work [[link removed]]

Our work is made possible by private donations. Can you help us keep going? We can accept tax-deductible gifts online [[link removed]] or via paper checks sent to PO Box 127 Northampton MA 01061. Thank you!

Other news: The downstream affect of jail growth? A state prison boom. [[link removed]]

Why should state lawmakers pay attention to local jails? Because, as we explained in 2017, jail policies affect state prison populations. Spending time in jail for low-level infractions makes it more likely that someone will end up in prison in the future - leading to "entire justice systems bursting at the seams."

Read our explainer. [[link removed]]

The average incomes of people in jail pretrial, by race and gender [[link removed]]

In our report Detaining the Poor, [[link removed]] we explain why so many people languish in jail before trial because they can’t afford bail: The typical bail amount represents eight months' pay for the average defendant, and even more for women and people of color.

Read our 2016 report. [[link removed]]

Please support our work [[link removed]]

Our work is made possible by private donations. Can you help us keep going? We can accept tax-deductible gifts online [[link removed]] or via paper checks sent to PO Box 127 Northampton MA 01061. Thank you!

Our other newsletters Ending prison gerrymandering ( archives [[link removed]]) Criminal justice research library ( archives) [[link removed]]

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Prison Policy Initiative

PO Box 127 Northampton, Mass. 01061

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