America’s Incarceration Crossroads: Reversing Progress Amid Record-Low Crime Rates
The U.S. criminal legal system stands at a crossroads. The United States remains a world leader in incarceration, locking up its citizens at a far higher rate than any other industrialized nation.
Between 1972 and 2009, the number of people imprisoned grew nearly 700%, while crime rates declined dramatically after peaking in 1991. Imprisonment levels slowly scaled back, achieving a 25% decline between 2009 and 2021. Then, the prison population has resumed its growth, according to the most recently available data. The prison population grew in 2022 and in 2023, 39 states increased their prison populations
