People in Jail and Prison in Spring 2021 - Vera Institute of Justice

People in Jail and Prison in Spring 2021

Jacob Kang-Brown, Chase Montagnet, and Jasmine Heiss

June 2021

Summary

When the COVID-19 pandemic was first detected

in the United States, it was clear that the virus would cause widespread suffering and death among incarcerated people. Advocates were quick to call for prison and jail releases. However, a little more

Figure 1 The number of people incarcerated in jails and prisons from 1980 to spring 2021

2,500,0 00

than a year later, decarceration appears to have stalled. After an unprecedented 14 percent drop in incarceration in the first half of 2020--from 2.1 million people to 1.8 million--incarceration declined only slightly from fall 2020 to spring 2021. Generally, states that started 2020 with higher

2,000,0 00 1,500,0 00 1,000,0 00

Total incarceration State & federal prisons

incarceration rates made fewer efforts to reduce incarceration through spring 2021. This pattern

500 ,000

Local jails

speaks to the political, economic, and social

0

entrenchment of mass incarceration.

198 0

1990

2000

2010

2020

At the federal level, the number of people in civil custody for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is less than one-third of the 2019 population, while the number of people detained for the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) facing federal criminal charges reached an all-time high.

Jail populations in rural counties dropped by 27 percent from 2019 through March 2021, the most of any region. The historic drop in the number of people incarcerated was neither substantial nor sustained enough to be an adequate response to the pandemic, and incarceration in the United States

Recent evidence from the Bureau of Justice Statistics also shows that racial inequity worsened as jail populations declined through June 2020.1

Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) researchers collected data on the number of people incarcerated throughout 2020 and into early 2021 to provide timely information about how incarceration is changing in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic.2 Vera researchers estimated the incarcerated population using a sample of approximately 1,600 jail jurisdictions, 50 states, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, the USMS, and ICE.

remains a global aberration.

Figure 2

Summary of incarcerated populations and changes by region

Midyear Spring 2019 to spring 2021

2019

2020

2021 Change % Change

Midyear 2020 to spring 2021 %

Change Change

Total

2,115,000 1,816,300 1,774,900 -340,100

-16

-41,400

-2

U.S. Prisons

1,435,500 1,309,500 1,193,900 -241,600

-17

-115,600

-9

U.S. Jails

758,400 573,400 647,200 -111,200

-15

73,800

13

Urban

166,979

127,100 147,200 -19,779

-12

20,100

16

Suburban

146,976

116,800 132,600 -14,376

-10

15,800

14

Small/Midsize metro

260,169 208,400 232,800 -27,369

-11

24,400

12

Rural

184,295

121,200 134,500 -49,795

-27

13,300

11

Figure 2 note: Total incarceration numbers are adjusted downward slightly to avoid double counting people held in local jails under contract for state prisons. See "Methodology and Source Notes" at publications/people-in-jail-and-prison-in-spring-2021. Figure 1 source note: The 2019, 2020, and 2021 jail and prison population estimates are based on data collected by Vera, while 1983 through 2018 estimates are from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) Census of Jails, Annual Survey of Jails, and National Prisoner Statistics. See generally BJS, "Data Collection: Census of Jails," ; BJS, "Data Collection: Annual Survey of Jails (ASJ)," ; and BJS, "Data Collection: National Prisoner Statistics (NPS) Program," . The 1980 jail estimates are from the U.S. Census, see Margaret Werner Cahalan, Historical Corrections Statistics in the United States, 1850-1984 (Washington, DC: BJS, 1986), .

Introduction

It has been more than a year since the first calls to release people from jails, prisons, and detention centers during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the end of March 2021, there were nearly 1.8 million people still incarcerated in the United States, down only 2 percent since June 2020--there was a 9 percent decrease in the prison population, but that was offset by a 13 percent increase in the jail population. In the face of continued demands for change, most politicians and policymakers failed or refused to do more. Instead they have tolerated widespread COVID-19 outbreaks in jails and prisons across the United States.

New data collected by Vera and detailed in this report reveals that, after the unprecedented drop in the total incarcerated population in the United States that occurred in the first half of 2020, the second half of 2020 looked different. Some places sustained their reduced incarcerated populations, and some even pushed for further reductions. Other states, however, began incarcerating more people as states reopened and returned to previous practices.

In early 2021, incarceration in the United States looks like a patchwork of big changes in the use of jail and prison, varying from state to state and city to city. Some states are reducing prison populations at the expense of refilling jails, as people sit behind bars waiting for court dates or transfers. Some states made less substantial changes in early 2020 but continued to reduce incarceration throughout the fall and winter-- even as other states returned to "normal" in ways that have increased incarceration. Generally, however, states that started 2020 with higher incarceration rates made fewer efforts to reduce

incarceration--or maintain their reductions-- through spring 2021.

Widening racial disparities

States and localities rarely publish data on incarceration by race, ethnicity, or gender. As a result, this report focuses on overall incarceration numbers. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) publishes annual reports that provide national estimates of the number of people in jail and prison using data collected through the Annual Survey of Jails, Census of Jails, and National Prisoner Statistics data series. These reports provide statistics on jail populations, including more detailed breakdowns by race and gender. The most recent BJS report for jails, which provides 2020 data, was released in March 2021. The report for 2019 prison data was released in October 2020, meaning it is too early to know whether racial disparities in prison changed during the pandemic.3

The BJS report on the 2020 jail population found that the national jail incarceration rate of Black people declined 22 percent between 2019 and 2020, while the jail incarceration rate of white people declined 28 percent.4 The same report also found that incarceration rate of Latinx people had declined 23 percent and the jail incarceration rate of Asian American people had declined 21 percent.5 These changes widened existing racial disparities in jail incarceration that see people of color targeted for incarceration at greater rates than white people.

The historic changes in prison and jail populations triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic came during a national wave of global

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demonstrations led by Black Lives Matter and accompanying demands to reckon with racism and police violence and fundamentally change the criminal legal system in the United States.6 As a result, there was far more pressure on officials in some states and counties to release people from prison and jail in 2020 and 2021 than in prior years.

This report

In order to provide the public with timely information on how jail and prison populations are changing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Vera collected midyear 2020, fall 2020 (on or around September 30), end of 2020 (on or around December 31), and spring 2021 (on or around March 31) jail and prison population data directly from a sample of local jails, state oversight agencies, state prison systems, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP). Vera also collected data on people detained by ICE who were held in local jails, private prisons, and dedicated immigration detention facilities.7 This report focuses on the changes from June 2020 to March 2021, but additional data for September 2020 and December 2020 is available in a data file online.8

Vera's national prison statistics are estimates based on data from 50 states and the BOP, which together held 95 percent of the people incarcerated in prison in 2019 (jurisdictional data from Virginia and Wyoming was not available for spring 2021 and was estimated). Jail statistics are derived from a sample of about 1,600 jails. These include all county jails in 13 states and a sample of jails in the remaining states. Vera researchers used these counts to estimate the national total. The jails in Vera's sample held almost three out of every four people incarcerated in jails in 2013, which was the last time the BJS reported information for all jails in the United States.

All jail population counts in this report are estimates of the number of people in the custody of the local jail, not the number of people in the local jail's jurisdiction. (See "Methodology and Source Notes" for a definition of these terms and a detailed description of Vera's methods.) Prison population counts in this report are estimates of

the number of people under the jurisdiction of state and federal prison systems and, thus, include people held in private prisons or local jails on a contract basis as well as people held in workrelease and medical facilities who are not free to leave and are still serving a prison sentence. Generally, Vera obtained data from the official websites of local jails and state corrections departments or from third parties that have been collecting data directly from jails. In instances in which this data was not available online, Vera requested the information from local jails or state corrections agencies by telephone or through public information requests.

Incarcerated population

The total number of people incarcerated in state and federal prisons and local jails in the United States dropped 14 percent from around 2.1 million in 2019 to 1.8 million by June 2020, declining a further 2 percent by March 2021. This represents a 23 percent decline from a peak of 2.3 million people in 2008. The incarceration rate in the United States, including state and federal prisons and local jails, was 537 people behind bars per 100,000 residents in early 2021. This is down from a peak of 760 per 100,000 in 2008. (See Appendix Figure 1 for full rate information.)

Looking only at state and federal prisons, there was a 17 percent total decline between yearend 2019 and spring 2021, from approximately 1.44 million people to 1.19 million people. The majority of the prison decline occurred during the first phase of the coronavirus pandemic, with the prison population dropping to 1.3 million people at midyear 2020--a 9 percent decrease from the end of 2019--and continuing at a slower pace through spring 2021.9

In contrast, during the first phase of the coronavirus pandemic, local jails saw steep population declines. The total jail population dropped 24 percent, from an estimated 758,400 people in local jails in midyear 2019 to 573,400 in midyear 2020. However, from June 2020 to March 2021, local jail populations increased by 73,800 to 647,200 people--an increase of 13

3

percent in nine months. Overall, the total number of people

incarcerated in prisons and jails was relatively constant between June 2020 and March 2021, as jail increases counterbalanced prison declines.

Jail populations in rural areas

decreased more than in cities, then

quickly rebounded

In the first part of 2020, the largest jail population declines were in rural areas. The rural jail population declined by 63,100 people between midyear 2019 and 2020--a 34 percent reduction. However, from midyear 2020 to early 2021, the number of people in rural jails grew by 13,300 people, a 11 percent increase. This brought the total rural jail population decline to 27 percent between midyear 2019 and early 2021. The large decline through the first part of 2020 shows that dramatic decarceration is possible in rural areas. Conversely, the quick growth demonstrates the broad capacity and political will to incarcerate people in rural counties. In March 2021, rural jail incarceration rates were more than twice as high as urban jail incarceration rates.

Urban areas and small and midsized metro areas did not initially reduce jail incarceration as much as other areas and had more growth from June 2020 to March 2021. The total decline from mid-2019 to early 2021 in urban counties was only 12 percent, while the suburbs saw a 10 percent decline.10 (See Figure 2.)

In contrast to rural counties, jail populations in many large cities have been decreasing for several years. Cities in which jail populations had already decreased significantly from 2010 to 2019 saw further declines through June 2020. However, most big city jail populations increased from June 2020 to March 2021, including

n Chicago (52 percent decrease from 2010 to 2020, followed by a 24 percent increase from June 2020 to March 2021);

n Philadelphia (56 percent decrease followed by a 20 percent increase);

n New York City (70 percent decrease followed by a 40 percent increase); and

n Oakland (58 percent decrease followed by a 21 percent increase).

(See Appendix Figure 2 for comparison of midyear 2010 and 2020 jail populations and for growth between June and March 2021 for a range of cities.)

Decreases in prison populations were

offset by increases in jail populations in

late 2020

A number of factors caused these simultaneous increases in jail populations and decreases in state prison populations. In some jurisdictions, state prisons refused to accept people who had been sentenced to serve state prison time, suspending transfers from local jails due to COVID-19. Courts also paused jury trials or suspended other operations, while refusing to release many people who were detained before trial.11 These policies are institutional sleight of hand, akin to a shell game, in that they do not reduce incarceration but merely change its geography and jurisdiction. For example, the Los Angeles County jail population decreased by 30 percent between midyear 2019 and 2020, but then grew by 27 percent to 15,223 by the end of March 2021. At that point 3,900 people--more than one in four people held in the jail--were awaiting transfer to California state prisons.12 In West Virginia, jail populations in the state declined only 3 percent through June 2020 and then rose 21 percent by the end of March 2021. West Virginia state prison populations declined by 29 percent by the end of June 2020, followed by a further 19 percent through the end of March 2021. Overall, incarceration increased 1 percent in West Virginia between June 2020 and March 2021. (See Figure 3.)

4

Figure 3

State-level comparison of prisons and local jail trends

Percent change

Year-end 2019/early

2020

Midyear 2020

Spring 2021

2019 to

Midyear

midyear

2020 to

2020 spring 2021

2019 to spring

2021

California

195,289 166,472 158,159

-15

-5

-19

County jails

69,782

51,506 61,660

-26

20

-12

State prisons

125,507

114,966 96,499

-8

-16

-23

Colorado

32,282

24,320 24,815

-25

2

-23

County jails

12,568

6,879

9,145

-45

33

-27

State prisons

19,714

17,441 15,670

-12

-10

-21

Florida

148,644 135,545 133,615

-9

-1

-10

County jails

52,635

46,163 52,447

-12

14

0

State prisons

96,009

89,382 81,168

-7

-9

-15

Georgia

92,375

79,596 79,759

-14

0

-14

County jails

36,819

28,705 33,444

-22

17

-9

State prisons

55,556

50,891 46,315

-8

-9

-17

Kentucky

36,368

28,628 29,393

-21

3

-19

County jails-local

12,932

8,329

10,711

-36

29

-17

County jails-state prisoners

10,774

8,751

8,850

-19

1

-18

State prisons

12,662

11,548

9,832

-9

-15

-22

Massachusetts

17,501

12,889 12,501

-26

-3

-29

County jails

9,296

5,577

5,837

-40

5

-37

State prisons

8,205

7,312

6,664

-11

-9

-19

New Mexico

13,037

10,678 10,465

-18

-2

-20

County jails

6,314

4,350

4,588

-31

5

-27

State prisons

6,723

6,328

5,877

-6

-7

-13

New York

61,156

49,648 46,971

-19

-5

-23

County jails

16,890

11,258 15,559

-33

38

-8

State prisons

44,284

38,390

31,412

-13

-18

-29

Ohio

70,323

60,046

-

-15

-

-

County jails

20,561

13,695

-

-33

-

-

State prisons

49,762

46,351 43,537

-7

-6

-13

Tennessee

51,127

42,123 41,284

-18

-2

-19

County jails local

24,588

17,557 18,290

-29

4

-26

County jails-state prisoners

4,801

4,670

3,307

-3

-29

-31

State prisons

21,738

19,896 19,687

-8

-1

-9

Texas

207,374 188,086 180,663

-9

-4

-13

County jails

65,825

61,496 63,172

-7

3

-4

State prisons on-hand

141,549 126,590 117,491

-11

-7

-17

West Virginia

11,894

9,751 9,897

-18

1

-17

Regional jails

5,094

4,933 5,992

-3

21

18

State prisons

6,800

4,818 3,905

-29

-19

-43

Note: The states included in this table were selected because they were the only states for which complete information on the

changes in county jail populations during 2020 was available at the time of writing.

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