County- and jurisdiction-level jail data (1970-2018) and prison data (1983-2016). State-level prison data (2019-2021).
In December 2015, Vera released the Incarceration Trends data tool (http://trends.vera.org) and the companion publication In Our Own Backyard: Confronting Growth and Disparities in American Jails. This work employed two Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) data collections: the Census of Jails (COJ), which covers all jails and is conducted every five to eight years since 1970, and the Annual Survey of Jails (ASJ), which covers about one-third of jails-and includes nearly all of the largest jails-that has been conducted in non-census years since 1982. This project was funded by the Robert W. Wilson Charitable Trust.
In 2016-2017, through a grant from the MacArthur Foundation Safety and Justice Challenge, Vera updated the data tool to include newly released data from the 2013 COJ and ASJ in 2014 and 2015. Vera also developed four publications:
- Overlooked: Women and Jails in an Era of Reform
- Out of Sight: The Growth of Jails in Rural America
- Divided Justice: Trends in Black and White Incarceration 1990-2013
- The New Dynamics of Mass Incarceration
In 2018, through the In Our Backyards grant from Google.org, Vera completed work on a companion county-level dataset, examined in The New Dynamics of Mass Incarceration, that drew on the BJS National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP) data collection. Vera then merged this data with the original jails dataset to produce a first-in-kind national dataset that can examine both jail and prison incarceration at the county level.
In 2019, through a grant from Arnold Ventures, Vera updated the dataset (Version 2) to include data from the 2016 and 2017 ASJ, and 2016 NCRP, and produced 50 State Fact Sheets using the Incarceration Trends dataset.
In September 2020, Vera produced an updated dataset (version 2.2) with 2018 ASJ data that was released in 2020. This version included improved estimates for some earlier data as well.
Research on incarceration has traditionally centered on state-level data: specifically state prison populations or the statewide combined prison and jail population. Using the state as the unit of analysis is sufficient for understanding the broad contours of incarceration in the United States, but it does not provide the level of detail necessary to unpack its causes and consequences. This is because it is largely county officials-judges, prosecutors, people who manage jails-that decide how communities use incarceration (i.e., who is sent to jail and prison, and for how long). Therefore, county-level variability makes for more robust, theoretically-grounded studies of the high rates of incarceration seen across the United States.
For more information on In Our Backyards, see http://www.vera.org/backyards.
Updated state level prison populations, published in the latest People in Prison report for year-end 2021 are availabe in CSV format.
The county-level data file is available in CSV or Excel format.
As is the jurisdiction-level data file: CSV or Excel format.
By downloading the data, you hereby agree to all of the terms specified in this license.
If you have questions, please contact Vera at trends@vera.org or Jacob Kang-Brown by mail at 34 35th Street, Suite 4-2A Brooklyn, NY 11232.
The Vera Institute of Justice works to build and create justice systems that ensure fairness, promote safety, and strengthen communities.
The development of the public-use county- and jurisdiction-level incarceration dataset is funded through the In Our Backyards project by Google.org as part of its Inclusion and Racial Justice work. In Our Backyards is a Vera's research and communications agenda to inform the public dialogue, advance research, and guide change to justice policy and practice on mass incarceration.
Photo credit: Jack Norton. Huerfano County Correctional Facility, built in 1997 and operated as a private prison by Corrections Corporation of America. Closed in 2010. A funding request to re-open the facility by Colorado Department of Corrections was denied by the state in 2018.