Map Shows US Prison Population Is Growing in These States

The number of incarcerated people in the U.S. appears to be growing in some parts of the country, new analysis shows.

Data from the National Prisoner Statistics, a set of figures compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, is used to assess incarceration rates across each state. Prison populations have been monitored annually since 1926, and last week, H&P Law, a personal injury firm in Las Vegas, compared each state’s prison population in 2021 and 2022 (the latest data available).

The analysis showed that the total number of prisoners in the U.S. justice system increased by 2.08 percent during that period—jumping from 1,205,087 to 1,230,143, an increase of about 25,000 inmates. Mississippi, Montana, and Colorado had the largest jumps in prisoner numbers, H&P Law’s analysis found.

Mississippi saw the biggest spike in its prison population, with numbers swelling by 14.3 percent. In 2022, the state incarcerated 2,470 more people than it did in 2021—19,802 compared to 17,332.

Newsweek has contacted the Mississippi Department of Corrections for comment via email outside normal office hours.

Mississippi’s jump in prisoner numbers dwarfed the second-largest increase in the country, which occurred in Montana—though the state’s prison population is smaller than many other states’. In 2022, Montana had 4,691 inmates, up from 4,313 in the previous year—an 8.8 percent increase.

Colorado saw the third-largest hike, with 8.2 percent more incarcerations in the state in 2022 than in 2021—17,168 compared to 15,865.

Those three states, among others, contributed to the rise in the national prisoner population. Data shows that 2022 was the first time since 2013 that the combined state and federal prisoner population increased.

“This rise erased the 1 percent decline reported in 2021 and marked the first increase in the combined state and federal prison population in almost a decade (since 2013),” Kevin M. Scott, the acting director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, said in a November news release.

The figures also show that despite the national increase, and the pronounced spike in some areas, other states saw their prison populations decline between 2021 and 2022.

Eight states saw their prison populations fall—with Virginia, Oregon and California seeing the biggest reductions in the country.

California’s inmate numbers fell by 3,833—a 3.8 percent decrease—between 2021 and 2022. Policy revisions—such as parole consideration for nonviolent felonies, the legalization of marijuana and changes to shoplifting penalties—are thought to be behind the decline. In 2021, California also closed a state prison in Tracy, the Deuel Vocational Institution.