‘Investments in people, not jails and prisons, leads to a decrease in crime’ — We’re breaking down the history and stats behind America’s prison system and the misconceptions that keep incarceration rates growing.
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On any given day, the United States incarcerates around 2 million people. But when you look at who comes under correctional control over a whole year, that number is actually closer to 10 million people—which is roughly the populations of New York City and Chicago combined.
Now let’s break that down.
Of that nearly 10 million, more than 5.5 million people end up behind bars. 600,000 of those are sent to prison, and about 4.9 million of those are put in jail. Then there’s the folks on probation or parole, which comes out to roughly 4 million people.
So how did we get here?
