Incarceration in the United States

Incarceration in the United States is one of the basic ways of punishment for crimes committed in the United States of America. In 2023, more than five million people were being supervised by the criminal justice system.^[2][3] Almost two million people were in state or federal prisons and in local jails. The United States has the largest known population of prisoners in the world.^[4][5] The number of prisoners grew rapidly after the 1970s, but began decreased from 2009 on, having been reduced by 25% by the end of 2021.^[6]

1. ↑ Jacob Kang-Brown, Chase Montagnet, and Jasmine Heiss. People in Jail and Prison in Spring 2021. New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2021.
2. ↑ "Correctional Populations in the United States, 2021 – Statistical Tables". Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved 2023-06-03.
3. ↑ Wang, Leah. "Punishment Beyond Prisons: Incarceration and Supervision by State". Prison Policy Initiative. Retrieved 2023-07-06.
4. ↑ Robertson, Campbell (2019-04-25). "Crime Is Down, Yet U.S. Incarceration Rates Are Still Among the Highest in the World". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-10-21.
5. ↑ Highest to Lowest. World Prison Brief (WPB). Use the dropdown menu to choose lists of countries by region or the whole world. Use the menu to select highest-to-lowest lists of prison population totals, prison population rates, percentage of pre-trial detainees/remand imprisoned people, percentage of imprisoned females, percentage of imprisoned foreign people, 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.
6. ↑ Ghandnoosh, Nazgol (2023-02-08). "Ending 50 Years of Mass Incarceration: Urgent Reform Needed to Protect Future Generations". The Sentencing Project. Retrieved 2023-06-03.