Many systems of confinement are locking up more people, reversing years of downward trends, according to the Prison Policy Initiative’s 2025 edition of its annual report, Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie. The analysis looks at the United States incarcerated population of nearly 2 million people, showing what type of facilities they are in and why.
This year’s report charts the increases seen at different levels, using 2023 data, the most recent year for which data are available. But it also tells the story of two groups of states with contrary trends, some shedding prison population while others lock more people up. “This data tells the story of states taking two divergent paths,” said Wendy Sawyer, the initiative’s research director.
Nine states each imprisoned 20% fewer people in 2023 than they did in 2019. Most dramatically, New Jersey holds 37% fewer people in state prisons than it did in 2019. And even as state prison populations grew nationwide, ten states reduced their prison populations between 2021 and 2023; collectively these states reduced their prison populations by about 10,700 people since 2021. California cut its numbers the most, by almost 5,500 people (-5%), followed by Virginia, which cut almost 3,000 (-10%). Oregon and New Jersey both reduced their prison populations by almost 7% over the same time.
“In contrast, other states appear to be eagerly refilling their prisons after experiencing pandemic-related population drops,” Prison Policy analysts found. Nine states each added over 2,000 people to their prison populations over 2022 and 2023, accounting for 77% of all state prison growth nationwide over that time.
Texas alone accounts for almost 31% of all that growth, Florida accounts for 13%, and Georgia 7%. Beyond “rebounding” to near-2019 levels, seven states actually imprisoned more people in 2023 than they did before the pandemic, and another 15 states are quickly closing the gap, all within 10% of their 2019 prison population size:
In total, state prisons confined about 27,000 (or 2.5%) more people at the end of 2023 than they did at the end of 2022. In both 2022 and 2023, state prisons saw year-to-year increases of over 23,000 people per year — more than in any single year since 2006.
That reverses a decade-long trend. Since 2009, state prisons populations have dropped every year but one until 2022, typically by one or two percent, and of course by an unprecedented 15% in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Compared to pre-pandemic numbers, state prisons nationwide hold about 13% fewer people than they did at the end of 2019, after shedding almost 17% of their combined populations between 2020 and 2021. But over 2022 and 2023, however, state prisons have added more than 50,000 people, undoing about a quarter (24%) of the decarceration that was sparked by the pandemic.
At the local level, there was an increase, but a slower one. Local city, county, and regional jail authorities locked up about 12,000 (2%) more people in 2023 than 2022, which is at least slower than the 5.5% growth we saw in 2022.
For juvenile courts, 2022 is the most recent data available. But again, longtime downward trends moved upward. In 2022, juvenile courts detained and committed over 2,700 (11%) more youth in “residential placement” facilities than in 2021. This was the first increase in youth confinement after two decades of steady declines; Prison Policy analysts don’t yet have answers about what’s behind this reversal.
Overall, the total confined population across all of the slices in the “pie” grew by 38,000 (2%).
Comments