Prison Populations Declined Only 1.1% In 2021, With 19 States And The Federal Government Increasing Prison Incarceration

New York, NY (March 10, 2021) – Despite continued calls to release people from prisons in response to COVID-19, the total number of people in prisons declined by a mere 1.1% between December 2020 and December 2021 according to People in Prison in Winter 2021-2022, a report released today by the Vera Institute of Justice. The winter iteration of this report highlights that, in contrast to the uniform declines of 2020, the number of people incarcerated in two out of five of the nation’s prison systems are trending upward. This reflects poor policy choices that put more people in prison with a looming possibility of further COVID-19 outbreaks, despite evidence that increased incarceration has no impact on violent crime and may actually increase crime and harm by destabilizing communities.

While prison incarceration remains 16 percent lower than pre-pandemic levels, data shows a troubling reversal in many states. By year-end 2021, 19 states and the federal government increased the number of people incarcerated in prisons. Two states with large declines in their prison populations in 2020 had the largest increases in 2021 – North Dakota’s prison population declined 21.9 percent in 2020 but increased 20.6 percent in 2021, and West Virginia saw a 43.6 percent decline in 2020, then 12.9 percent growth in 2021. The nation has not seen this kind of growth in decades: The single-year increase in North Dakota is higher than any state’s single-year increase since 1997, and the number of states with increases of more than 5 percent is the largest since 1999.

In contrast, other states continued to decrease their prison populations – Washington State’s total prison population declined 14 percent in 2021, after declining 18 percent the previous year. New York was down 10.7 percent after declining 20.8 percent in 2020, Arizona was down 10.2 percent in 2021 after a 11.1 percent decrease in 2020.

The overall number of people incarcerated by federal agencies also rose 5 percent between December 2020 and December 2021. The number of people in Bureau of Prisons (BOP) custody rose 3.6 percent, the number of people detained for the United States Marshals Service (USMS) rose 1 percent, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention jumped 33.7 percent.

“While some states made policy choices to reduce prison populations during the pandemic, the data show unmistakable backsliding by many U.S. states and the federal government,” wrote Jacob Kang-Brown, Senior Research Associate for Vera and author of the report. “The best evidence demonstrates that releasing more people from prison can help mitigate the public health harms of incarceration without jeopardizing public safety.”

The People in Prison in Winter 2021-2022 report and methodology can be found here.