People in Prison in 2018

The Vera Institute of Justice collects data on state and federal prison populations directly from state departments of corrections and the federal Bureau of Prisons. This practice informs policy-making and effective advocacy in the United States. This report provides estimates of jurisdictional population (the number of people whom correctional authority has the legal responsibility to confine, no matter where they are held), but not custodial population (the number of people confined in a facility directly operated by the correctional authority), as of December 31, 2018. There were 1,471,200 people in state and federal prisons—approximately 1,291,000 under state jurisdiction and 179,900 under federal jurisdiction. This represents an 8.9 percent decrease in total prison population since it reached its peak in 2009. The prison incarceration rate was 450 people per 100,000 residents. This represents a 15.2 percent decrease in rate of prison incarceration since its peak in 2007. These declines are driven by significant decreases in the number of people in federal prisons and the incarceration rates of thirty-five states.

“The nearly 20,000-person drop in the number of people in state and federal prisons continues a nine-year decline in the total U.S. prison population.” p. 2