Ahead…

Prison Statistics
Prison Statistics by State
Alabama
Arkansas
Connecticut
Georgia
Illinois
Kansas
Maine
New Hampshire

This is a Resist Hate series focusing on mass incarceration and the harrowing prison statistics for the United States of America. To shine a spotlight on the overincarceration in this country, we’ll compare rates of the U.S. to ally countries.

We’ll also look at the number of people who are incarcerated in each state. This page is a work in progress with states being added over time. Browse through the data for all U.S. states, or use the table of contents to quickly jump to a state you’re interested in.

Arkansas by itself beats the entire U.S. and every NATO country.

Graph showing incarceration rates in arkansas compared to other countries — 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.

This project uses the amazing work and graphics of the Prison Policy Initiative.

Prison Statistics

We will begin by looking at prison statistics for the United States as a whole. From there, we will list the statistics for each state.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate globally, with nearly two million people in prisons and jails. In 2023, the U.S. prison population was 1,254,200, with a 2% increase from 2022. A significant portion, 96%, of this population is comprised of individuals sentenced to more than one year in state or federal prison.

The U.S. spends approximately $182 billion annually on incarceration, not including the social costs.