BJS: Bureau of Justice Statistics

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Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
Home | Corrections | State and federal prisoners and prison facilities | Prison population counts
Prison population counts
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The main source for annual prisoner counts is the National Prisoner Statistics (NPS), data collection, which began in 1926 under a mandate from Congress to collect statistics on prisoners. The NPS distinguishes between four prison population counts: prisoners under jurisdiction, inmates held in custody, total inmates in custody, and the total incarcerated population (See Terms and Definitions for more information). NPS also gathers data on the number of prisoners admitted to and released from prison each year; imprisonment rates for prisoners sentenced to more than 1 year; age, race, and sex distributions; offense distributions; and the number of non-U.S. citizens and inmates under age 18 held in custody.

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Terms & Definitions

Custody count To have custody of a prisoner, a state or the Federal Bureau of Prisons must hold that person in one of its facilities. A state may have custody of a prisoner over whom another state maintains jurisdiction.
 
Federal prisons Prison facilities run by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Prisoners housed in these facilities are under the legal authority of the federal government. This definition excludes the private facilities that are under exclusive contract with BOP.
 
Incarcerated population Incarcerated population is the population of inmates confined in a prison or a jail. This may also include halfway-houses, bootcamps, weekend programs, and other entities in which individuals are locked up overnight.
 
Jurisdiction count Includes prisoners under legal authority of state or federal correctional authorities who are housed in prison facilities (e.g., prisons, penitentiaries and correctional institutions; boot camps; prison farms; reception, diagnostic, and classification centers; release centers, halfway houses, and road camps; forestry and conservation camps; vocational training facilities; prison hospitals; and drug and alcohol treatment facilities for prisoners), regardless of which state they are physically held in. This number also includes prisoners who are temporarily absent (less than 30 days), out to court, or on work release; housed in local jails, private facilities, and other states' or federal facilities; serving a sentence for two jurisdictions at the same time. This count excludes prisoners held in a state or federal facility for another state or the Federal Bureau of Prisons. However, prisoners housed in another state and under the legal authority of the governing state are included.
 
Prisoners Prisoners are inmates confined in long-term facilities run by the state or federal government or private agencies. They are typically felons who have received a sentence of incarceration of 1 year or more. (Sentence length may vary by state because a few states have one integrated prison system in which both prison and jail inmates are confined in the same types of facilities.)
 
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