I believe the folks at the Prison Policy Initiative typically wait until “pi day” (3/14) to release their annual amazing “pie” graphic and associated report on US incarceration realities. But this year, we all get to consume this data pie a little early, as the latest version of the PPI report, now “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2025,” is today available at this link. Yet again, the Whole Pie provides a spectacular accounting of the particulars of who and where of incarceration in the United States (as I have said before, the extraordinary “pies” produced by PPI impart more information in a few images than just about any other single resource I know). This PPI press release has the main visual and other highlights; here is part of this latest pie report’s introductory text and overview:
Can it really be true that most people in jail are legally innocent? How much of mass incarceration is a result of the war on drugs, or the profit motives of private prisons? Have popular reforms really triggered a crime wave? These essential questions are harder to answer than you might expect. The various government agencies involved in the criminal legal system collect a lot of data, but very little is designed to help policymakers or the public understand what’s going on. The uncertainty that results muddies the waters around our society’s use of incarceration, giving lawmakers and lobbyists the opportunity to advance harmful policies that do not make us safe. As criminal legal system reforms become increasingly central to political debate — and are even scapegoated to resurrect old, ineffective “tough on crime” policies — it’s more important than ever that we get the facts straight and understand the big picture.
Further complicating matters is the fact that the U.S. doesn’t have one criminal legal system; instead, we have thousands of federal, state, local, and tribal systems. Together, these systems hold nearly 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 98 federal prisons, 3,116 local jails, 1,277 juvenile correctional facilities, 133 immigration detention facilities, and 80 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories — at a system-wide cost of at least $182 billion each year.
This report offers some much-needed clarity by piecing together the data about this country’s disparate systems of confinement. It provides a detailed look at where and why people are locked up in the U.S., and dispels some common myths about mass incarceration to focus attention on overlooked issues that urgently require reform. For the first time, we also include a high-level look at changes to confined populations over the past few years.
As always, there is way to much “pie” to consume in one post. Kudos to Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner for authoring this report and to everyone at Prison Policy Initiative who help us understand just what incarceration means (and looks like) by the numbers in the US.