According to the World Prison Brief (WPB) the United States had the world's highest incarceration rate from 2001 (when the US overtook Russia) through October 4, 2022 (US rate of 629 per 100,000 population at that time). That was except for periods when the Seychelles (population around 121,000) had the highest rate. NCJ number 207373. See full text.Highest to Lowest - Prison Population Total. From World Prison Brief (WPB). See rates list. See counts list. Data for many countries in the rates and counts lists can be one to several years old because that is the latest data available, or the latest that has been vetted. Use dropdown menu to choose lists of countries by region, or the whole world. Use menu to select highest-to-lowest lists of prison population totals, prison population rates, percentage of pre-trial detainees / remand prisoners, percentage of female prisoners, percentage of foreign prisoners, and occupancy rate. "We do not include juvenile imprisonment data in the highest to lowest lists." Column headings in WPB tables can be clicked to reorder columns lowest to highest, or alphabetically. For detailed information for each country click on any country name in lists. The individual country pages also give the date and year of the data. See also the WPB main data page and click on the map links and/or the sidebar links to get to the region and country desired. See these Wayback archives for lists from previous years: count lists and rate lists.World Prison Brief rates list: Archive of October 4, 2022.World Prison Brief rates list: Archive of October 12, 2022. That is the next available WPB archive after the Oct 4 one. That was when 2020 data for the US became publicly available, and so the US dropped from the highest rate to the sixth highest rate.United States of America. World Prison Brief. See tables and graphs for timelines of US rates and counts. Juvenile numbers are listed here, but are not included in the highest to lowest lists according to the lists main page.Russian Federation. World Prison Brief. See tables and graphs for timelines of rates and counts.World Prison Brief rates list: Archive of July 17, 2014. Example of when the Seychelles had the highest rate. According to the WPB as of September 3, 2025 the United States had the fifth highest incarceration rate in the world, at 541 per 100,000 population, using the latest available solid US numbers (2022) from the Bureau of Justice Statistics.World Prison Brief rates list: Archive of September 3, 2025. Between 2019 and 2020, the United States saw a significant drop in the total number of incarcerations. State and federal prison, and local jail, incarcerations dropped from 2.1 million in 2019 to 1.7 million in 2020. The US incarceration total has risen since 2020. See the Bureau of Justice Statistics timeline table to the right below the map.

As of their March 2023 publication, the Prison Policy Initiative, a non-profit organization for decarceration, estimated that in the United States, about 1.9 million people were or are currently incarcerated. Of those who were incarcerated, 1,047,000 people were in state prison, 514,000 in local jails, 209,000 in federal prisons, 36,000 in youth correctional facilities, 34,000 in immigration detention camps, 22,000 in involuntary commitment, 8,000 in territorial prisons, 2,000 in Indian Country jails, and 1,000 in United States military prisons. The data is from various years depending on what is the latest available data.Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2023. By Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner. March 14, 2023. Prison Policy Initiative.

Corrections (which includes prisons, jails, probation, and parole) cost around $74 billion in 2007 according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).Direct expenditures by justice function, 1982–2007 (billions of dollars). Inflation adjusted to 2007 dollars. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Retrieved January 1, 2012, by the Internet Archive. See BJS timeline graph based on the data.Justice Expenditures and Employment, FY 1982–2007 – Statistical Tables (NCJ 236218). Published December 2011. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). By Tracey Kyckelhahn, PhD, BJS statistician. See table 2 of the PDF. "Total justice expenditures, by justice function, FY 1982–2007 (real dollars)". A total of around $74 billion for corrections in 2007. According to the Justice Expenditures and Employment in the United States, 2017 report release by BJS, it is estimated that county and municipal governments spent roughly US$30 billion on corrections in 2017.

Prison and jail population

Total U.S. incarceration (prisons and jails) peaked in 2008 at 2.31 million. Total correctional population peaked in 2007 at 7.34 million: in prison, jail, on probation, or on parole (released from prison with restrictions). See Bureau of Justice Statistics table to the right after the graph.Correctional Populations in the United States, 2013 (NCJ 248479). Published December 2014 by U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). By Lauren E. Glaze and Danielle Kaeble, BJS statisticians. See appendix table 5 on page 13 in the PDF, for "Estimated number of persons supervised by adult correctional systems, by correctional status, 2000–2013."Correctional Populations. Table covering 1980 to 2007. Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Counting all inmates (not just those in prisons and jails) brings the number at the beginning of 2008 to 2.42 million inmates. This is by adding in inmates in U.S. territories, military facilities, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) owned and contracted facilities (immigration detention), jails in Indian country, and juvenile facilities. That means the United States had around 24.7% of the world's 9.8 million prisoners.Prisoners in 2008 . (NCJ 228417). December 2009 report from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. By William J. Sabol, PhD and Heather C. West, PhD, BJS Statisticians. Also, Matthew Cooper, BJS Intern. Table 9 on page 8 of the PDF file has the number of inmates in state or federal prison facilities, local jails, U.S. territories, military facilities, ICE owned and contracted facilities, jails in Indian country, and juvenile facilities (2006 Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement). Table 8 on page 8 has the incarceration rates for 2000, 2007, and 2008.Sickmund, M., Sladky, T.J., Kang, W., & Puzzanchera, C. Easy Access to the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement. Click "National Crosstabs" at the top, and then choose the census years. Click "Show table" to get the total number of juvenile inmates for those years. Or go here for all the years. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. See chart below:

A Pew report released February 28, 2008 indicated that more than 1 in 100 adults in the United States were in prison or jail at the beginning of 2008: See full text.

In 2008, the United States had the highest documented incarceration rate in the world, at 760 per 100,000. However, following over a decade of decarceration, the prison and jail population declined from a 2008 peak of 2.3 million to 1.7 million (505 per 100,000) in 2020.

Growth and subsequent decline

US incarceration count, and rate per 100,000 population. Jails, state and federal prisons. No juvenile facilities. World Prison Brief.YearCountRate1940264,834 2011950264,620 1761960346,015 1931970328,020 1611980503,586 2201985744,208 31119901,148,702457 19951,585,586 592 20001,937,48268320022,033,02270320042,135,33572520062,258,79275220082,307,50475520102,270,14273120122,228,42470720142,217,94769320162,157,80066620182,102,40064220201,675,40050520211,767,20053120221,808,100541

In the last quarter of the twentieth century, the incarceration rate in the US increased by 325 percent. Between the years 2001 and 2012, crime rates (both property and violent crimes) have declined 22% after already falling 30% in years prior between 1991 and 2001. In 2012, 710 out of every 100,000 U.S. residents were imprisoned in either local jails, state prisons, federal prisons, or privately operated facilities, representing close to a quarter of the global prison population.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics has released a study which finds that, despite the total number of prisoners incarcerated for drug-related offenses increasing by 57,000 between 1997 and 2004, the proportion of drug offenders to total prisoners in State prison populations stayed steady at 21%. The percentage of Federal prisoners serving time for drug offenses declined from 63% in 1997 to 55% in that same period.Christopher J. Mumola: Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004, U.S. Department of Justice, October 2006, NCJ 213530 In the twenty-five years since the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, the United States penal population rose from around 300,000 to more than two million. Between 1986 and 1991, African-American women's incarceration in state prisons for drug offenses increased by 828 percent.

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that the growth rate of the state prison population had fallen to its lowest since 2006, but it still had a 0.2% growth-rate compared to the total U.S. prison population. The California state prison system population fell in 2009, the first year that populations had fallen in 38 years.

When looking at specific populations within the criminal justice system the growth rates are vastly different. In 1977, there were just slightly more than eleven thousand incarcerated women. By 2004, the number of women under state or federal prison had increased by 757 percent, to more than 111,000, and the percentage of women in prison has increased every year, at roughly double the rate of men, since 2000. The rate of incarcerated women has expanded at about 4.6% annually between 1995 and 2005 with women now accounting for 7% of the population in state and federal prisons.

Comparison with other countries

In comparison to countries with similar percentages of immigrants, Germany has an incarceration rate of 67 per 100,000 population (as of June 2022),Germany. International Centre for Prison Studies. Accessed January 8, 2023. Italy is 97 per 100,000 (as of November 2022),Italy. International Centre for Prison Studies. Accessed January 8, 2023. and Saudi Arabia is 207 per 100,000 (as of 2017).Saudi Arabia. International Centre for Prison Studies. Accessed January 8, 2023. When compared to other countries with a zero tolerance policy for illegal drugs, the rate of Russia is 304 per 100,000 (as of November 2022),Russia. International Centre for Prison Studies. Accessed January 8, 2023. Kazakhstan is 184 per 100,000 (as of July 2022),Kazakhstan. International Centre for Prison Studies. Accessed January 8, 2023. Singapore is 169 per 100,000 (as of December 2021),Singapore. International Centre for Prison Studies. Accessed January 8, 2023. and Sweden is 74 per 100,000 (as of January 2022).Sweden. International Centre for Prison Studies. Accessed January 8, 2023.

Causes

A 2014 report by the National Research Council identified two main causes of the increase in the United States' incarceration rate over the previous 40 years: longer prison sentences and increases in the likelihood of imprisonment. The same report found that longer prison sentences were the main driver of increasing incarceration rates since 1990.

Increased sentencing laws

Even though there are other countries that commit more inmates to prison annually, the fact that the United States keeps their prisoners longer causes the total rate to become higher. To give an example, the average burglary sentence in the United States is 16 months, compared to 5 months in Canada and 7 months in England.