Comparison of United States incarceration rate with other countries

See also: List of countries by incarceration rate and United States incarceration rate
A map of incarceration rates by country[1]
US timeline graphs of number of people incarcerated in jails and prisons.[2]
US incarceration count, and rate per 100,000 population. Jails, state prisons, federal prisons.[3]
Year Count Rate
1940 264,834 201
1950 264,620 176
1960 346,015 193
1970 328,020 161
1980 503,586 220
1985 744,208 311
1990 1,148,702 457
1995 1,585,586 592
2000 1,937,482 683
2002 2,033,022 703
2004 2,135,335 725
2006 2,258,792 752
2008 2,307,504 755
2010 2,270,142 731
2012 2,228,424 707
2014 2,217,947 693
2016 2,157,800 666
2018 2,102,400 642
2020 1,675,400 505
2021 1,767,200 531
2022 1,808,100 541

In 2022, the United States had 1,808,100 inmates in adult facilities (prisons and jails), at a rate of 541 per 100,000 population. That was the 5th highest rate in the world.[3][1] In 2021, the United States had 1,767,200 inmates in adult facilities (prisons and jails).[3] This left America with the highest prison population if China's latest official number (2018) of 1,690,000 (sentenced prisoners only) were used. According to the World Prison Brief the total number in China would be much higher if pre-trial detainees and those held in administrative detention were added, and yet more depending on the number of Uyghurs being held.[4] The 2021 US incarceration rate of 531 per 100,000 population was the 6th highest rate.[1] According to the World Prison Population List (11th edition) there were around 10.35 million people in penal institutions worldwide in 2015.[5] The US had 2,173,800 prisoners in adult facilities in 2015.[6] That means the US held 21.0% of the world's prisoners in 2015, even though the US represented only around 4.4 percent of the world's population in 2015.[7][8] In 2015 the US had the 2nd highest incarceration rate (698), behind the Seychelles rate of 799 per 100,000.[5]

Comparing English-speaking developed countries; the incarceration rate of Canada was 85 per 100,000 (as of 2020),[9] England and Wales was 146 per 100,000 (as of 2023),[10] and Australia was 158 per 100,000 (as of 2022).[11]

Comparing other developed countries, the rate of Spain was 113 per 100,000 (as of 2023),[12] France was 109 per 100,000 (as of 2023),[13] Germany was 67 per 100,000 (as of 2022),[14] Norway was 53 per 100,000 (as of 2023),[15] Netherlands was 65 per 100,000 (as of 2022),[16] Japan was 36 per 100,000 (as of 2021),[17] Sweden was 82 per 100,000 (as of 2023),[18] and Italy was 99 per 100,000 (as of 2023),[19]

Comparing other countries with harsh sentencing for illegal drugs, Saudi Arabia was 207 per 100,000 (as of 2017),[20] Russia was 300 per 100,000 (as of 2023),[21] Kazakhstan was 184 per 100,000 (as of 2022),[22] and Singapore was 156 per 100,000 (as of 2022).[23]

The incarceration rate of the People's Republic of China varies depending on sources and measures. According to the World Prison Brief, the rate for only sentenced prisoners was 119 per 100,000 (as of 2017). It would be much higher if pre-trial detainees, those held in administrative detention, and Uyghurs being held were included.[4]

U.S. incarceration rate peaked in 2008

Total US incarceration (prisons and jails) peaked in 2008. On January 1, 2008, more than 1 in 100 adults in the United States were in prison or jail. 2.3 million people (see table to right).[24][25] Total correctional population (prison, jail, probation, parole) peaked in 2007.[26][27][28][29]

According to the eighth edition of the World Prison Population List the 2008 US rate of 765 per 100,000 was the highest in the world, followed by Russia (629), Rwanda (604), St Kitts & Nevis (588), Cuba (c.531), U.S. Virgin Is. (512), British Virgin Is. (488), Palau (478), Belarus (468), Belize (455), Bahamas (422), Georgia (415), American Samoa (410), Grenada (408) and Anguilla (401). Its number of 2.29 million US inmates out of 9.8 million worldwide means the US held 23.4% of the world's inmates.[29]

A 2008 article in The New York Times[30] said that "it is the length of sentences that truly distinguishes American prison policy. Indeed, the mere number of sentences imposed here would not place the United States at the top of the incarceration lists. If lists were compiled based on annual admissions to prison per capita, several European countries would outpace the United States. But American prison stays are much longer, so the total incarceration rate is higher."

Counting all inmates (not just those in adult prisons and jails) brings the number at the beginning of 2008 to 2.42 million inmates. This is by adding in inmates in U.S. territories, military facilities, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) owned and contracted facilities, jails in Indian country, and juvenile facilities. See chart below on the left:[27]

U.S. incarceration rate peaked in 2008. Prisoners per 100,000 population.[29][26]
Total United States incarceration by year
US correctional population (prison, jail, probation, parole).
US incarceration and correctional population rates over time. The incarceration rate peaked in 2008.[6]
Total US incarceration peaked in 2008. Total correctional population peaked in 2007.[26]

More comparisons

In addition, the United States has significant racial disparities in rates of incarceration.[31] According to Michelle Alexander in a 2010 book, the United States "imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid".[32] The black imprisonment rate of South Africa could not have come close to today's American rate simply due to limited room. Notably, there's something of an international theme in countries comparing themselves to apartheid South Africa. There were instances where Australian journalists were drawing the same contrast relative to rates of imprisonment in their country.[33] In the Huffington Post piece "Mass Incarceration's Failure", attorney Antonio Moore states "The incarceration rate for young black men ages 20 to 39, is nearly 10,000 per 100,000. To give context, during the racial discrimination of apartheid in South Africa, the prison rate for black male South Africans, rose to 851 per 100,000."[34]

A major contributor to the high incarceration rates is the length of the prison sentences in the United States. One of the criticisms of the United States system is that it has much longer sentences than any other part of the world. The typical mandatory sentence for a first-time drug offense in federal court is five or ten years, compared to other developed countries around the world where a first time offense would warrant at most 6 months in jail.[32] Mandatory sentencing prohibits judges from using their discretion and forces them to place longer sentences on nonviolent offenses than they normally would do.

Even though there are other countries that have a higher rate of committing inmates to prison annually, the fact that the United States keeps their prisoners longer causes the total incarceration rate to become higher. To give an example, the average burglary sentence in the United States is 16 months, compared to 5 months in Canada and 7 months in England.[30]

The US incarceration rate peaked in 2008 when about 1,000 in 100,000 U.S. adults were behind bars. That's 760 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents of all ages.[25][26] This incarceration rate was similar to the average incarceration levels in the Soviet Union during the existence of the infamous Gulag system, when the Soviet Union's population reached 168 million, and 1.2 to 1.5 million people were in the Gulag prison camps and colonies (i.e. about 714 to 892 imprisoned per 100,000 USSR residents, according to numbers from Anne Applebaum and Steven Rosefielde).[35][36] Some of the latter Soviet Union's yearly incarceration rates from 1934 to 1953, however, likely were the world's historically highest for a modern age country.[37] In The New Yorker article The Caging of America (2012), Adam Gopnik writes: "Over all, there are now more people under 'correctional supervision' in America—more than six million—than were in the Gulag under Stalin at its height."[38]

Comparison to OECD countries

OECD incarceration rate by country. Data is from World Prison Brief.[1]

All but four US states (the exceptions are Rhode Island, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Minnesota) have a higher incarceration rate than Turkey, the nation with the second highest incarceration rate among OECD countries. See: List of U.S. states by incarceration and correctional supervision rate.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d Highest to Lowest. World Prison Brief (WPB). Use dropdown menu to choose lists of countries by region, or the whole world. Use menu to select highest-to-lowest lists of prison population totals, prison population rates, percentage of pre-trial detainees / remand prisoners, percentage of female prisoners, percentage of foreign prisoners, and occupancy rate. Column headings in WPB tables can be clicked to reorder columns lowest to highest, or alphabetically. For detailed information for each country click on any country name in lists. See also the WPB main data page and click on the map links and/or the sidebar links to get to the region and country desired.
  2. ^ Jacob Kang-Brown, Chase Montagnet, and Jasmine Heiss. People in Jail and Prison in Spring 2021. New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2021.
  3. ^ a b c United States of America. World Prison Brief.
  4. ^ a b China Archived 2019-09-24 at the Wayback Machine. World Prison Brief.
  5. ^ a b Walmsley, Roy (2 Feb 2016). World Prison Population List (11th edition) (PDF). From the Research & Publications page of the World Prison Brief website. From page 1 of the PDF: "The information is the latest available at the end of October 2015." And from page 2: "This report shows that more than 10.35 million people are held in penal institutions throughout the world, either as pre-trial detainees/remand prisoners or having been convicted and sentenced."
  6. ^ a b Correctional Populations in the United States, 2015. By Danielle Kaeble and Lauren Glaze, BJS Statisticians. Dec. 2016. Bureau of Justice Statistics. See PDF. Page 2 says: "At yearend 2015, an estimated 2,173,800 persons were either under the jurisdiction of state or federal prisons or in the custody of local jails in the United States". See also table 4 on page 4: "Rate of persons supervised by U.S. adult correctional systems, by correctional status, 2000 and 2005–2015".
  7. ^ US Population by Month. US resident population. Source: US Census Bureau.
  8. ^ The World Population Prospects: 2015 Revision. 29 July 2015 article. From United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs. 7.3 billion people in 2015.
  9. ^ Canada. World Prison Brief.
  10. ^ United Kingdom: England & Wales. World Prison Brief.
  11. ^ Australia. World Prison Brief.
  12. ^ Spain. World Prison Brief.
  13. ^ France. World Prison Brief.
  14. ^ Germany. World Prison Brief.
  15. ^ Norway. World Prison Brief.
  16. ^ Netherlands. World Prison Brief.
  17. ^ Japan. World Prison Brief.
  18. ^ Sweden. World Prison Brief.
  19. ^ Italy. World Prison Brief.
  20. ^ Saudi Arabia. World Prison Brief.
  21. ^ Russia. World Prison Brief.
  22. ^ Kazakhstan. World Prison Brief.
  23. ^ Singapore. World Prison Brief.
  24. ^ One in 100: Behind Bars in America 2008. February 28, 2008. The Pew Center on the States.
  25. ^ a b Liptak, Adam (28 Feb 2008). 1 in 100 U.S. Adults Behind Bars, New Study Says. The New York Times.
  26. ^ a b c d Correctional Populations in the United States, 2013 (NCJ 248479). Published December 2014 by U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). By Lauren E. Glaze and Danielle Kaeble, BJS statisticians. See PDF. See page 1 "highlights" section for the "1 in ..." numbers. See table 1 on page 2 for adult numbers. See table 2 on page 3 for a timeline of incarceration rates. See table 5 on page 6 for male and female numbers. See appendix table 5 on page 13, for "Estimated number of persons supervised by adult correctional systems, by correctional status, 2000–2013." See appendix table 2: "Inmates held in custody in state or federal prisons or in local jails, 2000 and 2012–2013".
  27. ^ a b Prisoners in 2008 Archived 2011-07-16 at the Wayback Machine. (NCJ 228417). December 2009 report from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). By William J. Sabol, Ph.D. and Heather C. West, Ph.D., BJS Statisticians. Also, Matthew Cooper, BJS Intern. See PDF Archived 2011-07-16 at the Wayback Machine. Table 9 on page 8 has the number of inmates in state or federal prison facilities, local jails, U.S. territories, military facilities, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) owned and contracted facilities, jails in Indian country, and juvenile facilities (2006 Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement). See 2007 juvenile total here. Table 8 on page 8 has the incarceration rates for 2000, 2007, and 2008.
  28. ^ Sickmund, M., Sladky, T.J., Kang, W., & Puzzanchera, C.. "Easy Access to the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement". Click "National Crosstabs" at the top, and then choose the census years. Click "Show table" to get the total number of juvenile inmates for those years. Or go here for all the years. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
  29. ^ a b c Walmsley, Roy (30 Jan 2009). World Prison Population List (8th Edition). From World Prison Population Lists. By World Prison Brief. "The information is the latest available in early December 2008. … Most figures relate to dates between the beginning of 2006 and the end of November 2008." According to the summary on page one there were 2.29 million U.S. inmates and 9.8 million inmates worldwide. So the U.S. held 23.4% of the world's inmates (see WP:CALC). The U.S. total in this report is for December 31, 2007 (see page 3), and does not include inmates in juvenile detention facilities.
  30. ^ a b Liptak, Adam (23 Apr 2008). Inmate Count in US Dwarfs Other Nations'. [1]. The New York Times.
  31. ^ Rehavi and Starr (2012) "Racial Disparity in Federal Criminal Charging and Its Sentencing Consequences" Working Paper Series, no. 12-002 (Univ. of Michigan Law & Economics, Empirical Legal Studies Center)
  32. ^ a b Alexander, Michelle (2010). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New Press, New York. See pages 7 and 86. ISBN 978-1-59558-643-8. Look or search inside.
  33. ^ Greenberg, Jon. Kristof: U.S. imprisons blacks at rates higher than South Africa during apartheid. Politifact.
  34. ^ Moore, Antonio (4 Aug 2015). Mass Incarceration's Failure: America's Bias in Arrest, Conviction and Sentencing. Huffington Post.
  35. ^ Rosefielde, Steven (2007). The Russian economy: from Lenin to Putin. By Steven Rosefielde. ISBN 978-1-4051-1337-3.
  36. ^ Applebaum, Anne (2003). Gulag: a history. By Anne Applebaum. ISBN 978-0-7679-0056-0.
  37. ^ Getty, J. Arch; Rittersporn, Gabor T.; Zemskov, Viktor N. "Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-war Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence". EText (archived). Archived from the original on 28 December 2008. Retrieved 28 December 2008.
  38. ^ Gopnik, Adam (30 January 2012). The Caging of America. The New Yorker.