Debt To Society: The Real Price of Prisons, Part 8 of 8

INCARCERATION ATLAS

INMATES IN STATE AND FEDERAL PRISONS, 2000: 1,324,425

INMATES IN LOCAL JAILS, 2000: 621,149

At the website, you can click a state for details about where the state ranks.

Growth in prison spending per capita, 1980 - 2000

Spending per resident from this state's general tax revenues on prisons and
on higher education.

1. Ohio: Prisons up 491%, Education up 80%

2. Pennsylvania: Prisons up 452%, Education up 86%

3. Texas: Prisons up 401%, Education up 37%

4. Michigan: Prisons up 299%, Education up 33%

5. New Jersey: Prisons up 295%, Education up 91%

(About the Data: All figures are adjusted for inflation and expressed in
1999 dollars. Sources: Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Center for
Education Statistics, National Association of State Budget Officers, US
Census Bureau)

Growth in higher education spending per capita, 1980 - 2000

1. Minnesota: Prisons up 128%, Education up 131%

2. New Jersey: Prisons up 295%, Education up 91%

3. Pennsylvania: Prisons up 295%, Education up 91%

4. Ohio: Prisons up 491%, Education up 80%

5. Georgia: Prisons up 104%, Education up 69%

(About the Data: All figures are adjusted for inflation and expressed in
1999 dollars. Sources: Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Center for
Education Statistics, National Association of State Budget Officers, US
Census Bureau)

Highest proportion of drug offenders, 1999*

1. New Jersey: 1980 = 7%, 1999 = 32%

2. New York: 1980 = 9%, 1999 = 30%

3. California: 1980 = 8%, 1999 = 28%

4. Utah: 1980 = NA, 1988 = 15%, 2000 = 34%

5. Illinois: 19080 = NA, 1983 = 3%, 2000 = 26%

(About the Data: The data is incomplete for many states because authorities
often do not collect statistics on drug offenders. Source: This state's
Department of Corrections)

Greatest disparity between white and nonwhite incarceration rates, 2000

1. Pennsylvania: 1980 White General Pop/Non-White General Pop = 89%/11%;
1980 White Prison Population/Non-White Prison Population = 45%/55%; 2000
White General Pop/Non-White General Pop = 85%/15%; 2000 White Prison
Population/Non-White Prison Population = 34%/66%

2. District of Columbia: 1980 White General Pop/Non-White General Pop =
26%/74%; 1980 White Prison Population/Non-White Prison Population = 2%/97%;
2000 White General Pop/Non-White General Pop = 28%/72%; 2000 White Prison
Population/Non-White Prison Population = 3%/97%

3. Wisconsin: 1980 White General Pop/Non-White General Pop = 94%/6%; 1980
White Prison Population/Non-White Prison Population = 56%/44%; 2000 White
General Pop/Non-White General Pop = 88%/13%; 2000 White Prison
Population/Non-White Prison Population = 42%/59%

4. Connecticut: 1980 White General Pop/Non-White General Pop = 88%/12%;
1980 White Prison Population/Non-White Prison Population = 42%/58%; 2000
White General Pop/Non-White General Pop = 79%/21%; 2000 White Prison
Population/Non-White Prison Population = 27%/73%

5. Minnesota: 1980 White General Pop/Non-White General Pop = 96%/4%; 1980
White Prison Population/Non-White Prison Population = 73%/27%; 2000 White
General Pop/Non-White General Pop = 90%/10%; 2000 White Prison
Population/Non-White Prison Population = 47%/52%

(About the Data: Incarceration rates represent prisoners per 100,000
residents of each racial/ethnic group. Several states do not count Hispanic
prisoners separately. For details on adjustments made in such cases, see
our methodology page. Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Criminal
Justice Institute, US Census Bureau)

Around the world Nations with highest incarceration rates per 100,000
residents (includes all individuals held in prisons and local jails)

1. USA 702

2. Russia 635

3. Cayman Islands 600

4. Belarus 577

5. Kazakhstan 494

6. Bahamas 478

7. US Virgin Islands 476

8. Kyrgyzstan 462

9. Belize 459

10. Bermuda 447

Source: International Center for Prison Studies

METHODOLOGY

Statistics on incarceration are notoriously slippery. Prisoner counts from
any given source may or may not include inmates housed in private
correctional facilities, inmates under the jurisdiction of one state that
are housed in another state, state prison inmates being held in local
jails, and so on. For this project, we have used the same definition of
"prisoner" used by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics: an inmate
under the jurisdiction of state or federal authorities sentenced to more
than one year. (In almost all states, inmates sentenced to less than one
year are held in city and county jails.)

Much of the statistical research for this project was performed by the
Justice Policy Institute, a nonprofit criminal-justice research
organization based in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.

INCREASING IMPRISONMENT

Incarceration rates: The number of prisoners sentenced to more than one
year per 100,000 residents, as recorded by the federal Bureau of Justice
Statistics (BJS). All figures are as of December 31, except 1999 and 2000,
which are as of June 30.

Sources: Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 1999; Prison and Jail
Inmates at Midyear 2000.

Prisoners: The total number of inmates sentenced to more than one year, as
recorded by BJS. All figures are as of December 31, except 1999 and 2000,
which are as of June 30.

Sources: National Prisoner Statistics data series; Prison and Jail Inmates
at Midyear 1999; Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2000.

Notes: 1. Massachusetts holds several thousand inmates serving more than
one year in local jails. BJS's incarceration rates include these inmates in
all years, but its prisoner totals leave them out for several years. To
adjust the counts for those years, (1997, 1998 and 2000), we multiplied
BJS's incarceration rate by Massachussetts' general population to derive a
total prisoner figure.

2. For some states, the BJS-reported incarceration rates and prisoner
totals in this section differ slightly from those in the Racial Inequality
section. Data for race and ethnicity were mostly collected on a different
day and by a different agency, the Criminal Justice Institute.

PRISONS VS. EDUCATION

All dollar amounts are adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price
Index and are expressed in constant 1999 dollars. Spending figures shown
are state general fund appropriations to higher education and to state
corrections, divided by the state's population.

Sources:

Populations: US Bureau of the Census, state population estimates,
1980-1989, 1990-1999, and 2000 Census.

Higher Education spending: Fiscal years 1980-1981, 1985-1986, 1990-1991,
and 1995-1996 are from the federal Department of Education's Digest of
Education Statistics. 1999-2000 figures are from the National Association
of State Budget Officers' State Expenditure Report, June 2000.

Prison spending: fiscal years 1980-1981, 1985-1986, 1990-1991, and
1995-1996 ,Bureau of Justice Statistics, Sourcebook of Criminal Justice
Statistics and Justice Expenditures and Employment Abstracts. Fiscal year
1999-2000, National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), State
Expenditure Report, June 2000.

Full 1999-2000 figures for Washington, D.C. and Colorado were not included
in the NASBO report. These were provided directly by the relevant state
agencies.

Notes: 1. Seven jurisdictions (Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Washington,
D.C., Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont) operate unified jail/prison
systems. Prison spending for these jurisdictions is adjusted downward for
each year by the ratio of (a) number of prisoners serving sentences of one
or more years to (b) the total number of inmates in the combined
jail/prison system reported in the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice
Statistics for that same year.

MORE DRUG OFFENDERS

All prisoners whose primary offense was a drug offense, as reported to
MotherJones.com and Justice Policy Institute researchers by each state's
Department of Corrections. Every state and Washington, D.C. were contacted.
Those with no information noted here either do not collect such statistics
or did not respond to repeated requests to provide it. Reported
drug-offender numbers were divided by BJS-reported total prisoner numbers
to derive the percentage of drug offenders.

RACIAL INEQUALITY

The Bureau of Justice Statistics last collected state-by-state racial and
ethnic information on prisoners in 1998. For 2000, raw numbers of prisoners
by race and ethnicity as reported by states were obtained from the Criminal
Justice Institute, a nonprofit correctional research organization based in
New Jersey. In the seven jurisdictions that operate combined jail/prison
systems, inmates serving less than one year were factored out by
multiplying CJI's totals by the percentage of inmates serving more than one
year in those states, as recorded by BJS.

For states that count Hispanic prisoners but do not separate them from
other racial categories (since Hispanics are not considered a racial
group), Justice Policy Institute (JPI) statisticians subtracted the total
number of Hispanic prisoners from the white and black prisoner totals
according to the proportion of Hispanics reported in the 2000 Census to
have identified themselves as "white" or "black" in that state.

For the few states that do not count Hispanics at all, JPI calculated the
average incarceration rate for each race in bordering states, then
multiplied that by the ratio of the original state's overall incarceration
rate to the average of those of the bordering states. The resulting
incarceration rates by race and ethnicity are then multiplied by the number
of each racial and ethnic group in the state's general population to derive
a total estimated number of Hispanic prisoners.

The small numbers of "other race" and "unknown race" prisoners in all
states were prorated among the five major racial/ethnic groups.

For states in which the resulting calculated numbers differed significantly
from those reported in BJS's 1998 survey, numbers on race and ethnicity
were obtained directly from state corrections departments, where possible.

General populations by race/ethnicity in each state are taken from the US
Census Bureau's 2000 Census. The very small numbers listed as "other race"
and "two or more races" were prorated among the five major race/ethnic
categories. The prisoner totals above are then divided by the state totals
to derive incarceration rates by race and ethnicity.

For 1980 numbers, the same methods were used, except that the original data
came from two sources. Raw numbers of prisoners by race/ethnicity reported
by states are taken from BJS's Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics,
1982. These were paired with CJI data on percentage of prisoners by
ethnicity for the same year to produce a number for Hispanic prisoners by
state. The Hispanic number is subtracted from BJS prison totals for "white"
and "black" according to the proportions of Hispanics reporting their races
as white or black in each state's population.

National Totals: These graphs show totals for prisons in all 50 states,
Washington, D.C., and the federal prison system. They do not include local
jails, which typically hold inmates awaiting trial or serving sentences of
less than one year. For more detailed information, you can click on the
graphs. (Editor Note: Graphs include Increasing Imprisonment, Imprisonment
vs Education, More Drug Offenders, and Racial Inequality. There is also a
link for methodology.)