Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie

2016
By Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy
March 14, 2016
Press release

Wait, does the United States have 1.4 million or more than 2 million people in
prison? Are most people in state and federal prisons locked up for drug
offenses? Frustrating questions like these abound because our systems of
confinement are so fragmented and controlled by various entities. There is a
lot of interesting and valuable research out there, but varying
definitions make it hard for both people new to criminal justice and for
experienced policy wonks to get the big picture.
This report offers some much needed clarity by piecing together this
countrys disparate systems of confinement. The American criminal
justice system holds more than 2.3 million people in 1,719 state prisons, 102
federal prisons, 942 juvenile correctional facilities, 3,283 local jails, and 79
Indian Country jails as well as in military prisons, immigration detention
facilities, civil commitment centers, and prisons in the U.S. territories. And we
go deeper to provide further detail on why convicted and not convicted people
are locked up in local jails.

Embed the slides in this report

While this pie chart provides a comprehensive snapshot of our correctional
system, the graphic does not capture the enormous churn in and out of our

correctional facilities and the far larger universe of people whose lives are
affected by the criminal justice system. Every year, 636,000 people walk out
ofprison gates, but people go to jail over 11 million times each year. Jail churn
is particularly high because most people in jails have not been convicted. Some
have just been arrested and will make bail in the next few hours or days, and
others are too poor to make bail and must remain behind bars until their trial.
Only a small number (195,000) have been convicted, generally serving
misdemeanors sentences under a year.

With a sense of the big picture, a common follow-up question might be: how
many people are locked up for a drug offense? We know that almost half a
million people are locked up because of a drug offense. The data confirms
that nonviolent drug convictions are a defining characteristic of
the federalprison system, but play only a supporting role at the state and local
levels. While most people in state and local facilities are not locked up for drug
offenses, most states continued practice of arresting people for drug

possessiondestabilizes individual lives and communities. Drug arrests give

residents of over-policed communities criminal records, which then reduce
employment prospects and increase the likelihood of longer sentences for any
future offenses.
All of the offense data presented comes with an important set of caveats. A
person in prison for multiple offenses is reported only for the most serious
offense so, for example, there are people in prison for violent
offenseswho might have also been convicted of a drug offense. Further,
almost all convictions are the result of plea bargains, where people plead
guilty to a lesser offense, perhaps of a different category or one that they may
not have actually committed.
And many of these categories group together people convicted of a wide range
of offenses. For example, murder is generally considered to be an extremely
serious offense, but murder groups together the rare group of serial killers,
with people who committed acts that are unlikely for reasons of circumstance
oradvanced age to ever happen again, with offenses that the average American
may not consider to be murder at all. For example, the felony murder rule says
that if someone dies during the commission of a felony, everyone involved is
as guilty of murder as the person who pulled the trigger. Driving a getaway car
during a bank robbery where someone was accidentally killed is indeed a
serious offense, but few people would really consider that to be murder.

This whole pie methodology also exposes some disturbing facts about the
youth entrapped in our juvenile justice system: Too many are there for a
most serious offense that is not even a crime. For example, there are
almost 7,000 youth behind bars for technical violations of the requirements
of their probation, rather than for a new offense. Further, 600 youth are
behind bars forstatus offenses, which are behaviors that are not law
violations for adults, such as running away, truancy, and incorrigibility.

Turning finally to the people who are locked up criminally and civilly
forimmigration-related issues, we find that 19,000 people are in federal
prison for criminal convictions of violating federal immigration laws. A
separate 33,000 are civilly detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) separate from any criminal proceedings and are physically
confined in special immigration detention facilities or in local jails under
contract with ICE. (Notably, these categories do not include immigrants
represented in other pie slices because of non-immigration related criminal
convictions.)
Now, armed with the big picture of how many people are locked up in the
United States, where, and why, we have a better foundation for the long
overdue conversation about criminal justice reform. For example, the
data makes it clear that ending the War on Drugs will not alone end mass
incarceration, but that the federal government and some states have
effectively reduced their incarcerated populations by turning to drug policy
reform. Looking at the whole pie also opens up other conversations about
where we should focus our energies:
What is the role of the federal government in ending mass
incarceration? The federal prison system is just a small slice of the total
pie, but the federal government can certainly use its financial and
ideological power to incentivize and illuminate better paths forward. At
the same time, how can elected sheriffs, district attorneys, and judges
slow the flow of people into the criminal justice system?
Are state officials and prosecutors willing to rethink both the War on
Drugs and the reflexive policies that have served to increase both the
odds of incarceration and length of stay for violent offenses?
Do policymakers and the public have the focus to confront the second
largest slice of the pie: the thousands of locally administered jails? And
does it even make sense to arrest millions of poor people each year for

minor offenses, make them post cash bail, and then lock them up when
they cant afford to pay it? Will our leaders be brave enough to redirect
corrections spending to smarter investments like community-based
drug treatment and job training?
Can we implement reforms that both reduce the number of people
incarcerated in the U.S. and the well-known racial and ethnic
disparities in the criminal justice system?

And once we have wrapped our minds around the whole pie of mass
incarceration, we should zoom out and note that being locked up is just one
piece of the larger pie of correctional control. There are another 820,000
people on parole (a type of conditional release from prison) and a staggering
3.8 million people on probation (what is typically an alternative sentence).
Particularly given the often onerous conditions of probation, policymakers
should be cautious of alternatives to incarceration that sometimes widen the
net of criminalization to people who are not a threat to public safety.
Now that we can see the big picture of how many people are locked up in the
United States in the various types of facilities, we can see that something
needs to change. Looking at the big picture requires us to ask if it really
makes sense to lock up 2.3 million people on any given day, giving this nation

the dubious distinction of having the highest incarceration rate in the

world. Both policymakers and the public have the responsibility to carefully
consider each individual slice in turn to ask whether legitimate social goals are
served by putting each category behind bars, and whether any benefit really
outweighs the social and fiscal costs.
Were optimistic that this whole pie approach can give Americans, who are
ready for a fresh look at the criminal justice system, some of the tools they
need to demand meaningful changes to how we do justice.

Read about the data

Acknowledgments
This 2016 report was made possible by a generous grant from the Public
Welfare Foundation and the contributions of individuals across the country
who support justice reform. The infographic slideshows and the graph of
correctional control were made possible by Gabe Isman of our Young
Professionals Network. Bob Machuga and J. Andrew World helped with
design issues, and Alison Walsh helped us gather research. Melissa Sickmund
at the National Center for Juvenile Justice and Todd Minton at the Bureau of
Justice Statistics expanded our knowledge of agencies datasets; and Alex
Friedmann, Neelum Arya and Drew Kukorowski provided invaluable feedback
on earlier drafts of this report. Any errors or omissions, and final
responsibility for all of the many value judgements required to produce a data
visualization like this, however, are the sole responsibility of the authors.

See the footnotes

1. The number of state and federal facilities is from Census of State and
Federal Correctional Facilities, 2005, the number of youth facilities is
from Juvenile Residential Facility Census, 2012: Selected Findings (we
included only detention centers, reception/diagnostic centers, and
training schools/long-term secure facilities but not shelters, group
homes, ranch/wilderness camps, and residential treatment centers), the
number of jails from Census of Jail Facilities, 2006 and the number of
Indian Country jails from Jails in Indian Country, 2014. We arent
currently aware of a good source of data on the number of the facilities
of the other types.
2. Eleven million jail admissions probably amounts to less than 11 million
unique individuals cycling through jails in a year. According to a
presentation, The Importance of Successful Reentry to Jail Population
Growth [Powerpoint] given at The Jail Reentry Roundtable, Bureau of
Justice Statistics statistician Allen Beck estimates that of the 12-12.6
million jail admissions in 2004-2005, 9 million were unique
individuals.
3. The local jail population in the pie chart excludes the people being held
in jails for other agencies so the population physically in jails (744,592)
is larger than the population under jail jurisdiction reflected in the pie
chart (646,000). See Table 1 of Jail Inmates at Midyear 2014. The not
convicted population is driving jail growth.
4. The data doesnt show how many people are convicted of drug law
violations and are held in territorial prisons or Indian Country jails. The
military prison system holds less than 100 people for drug law
violations.
5. In 2012, there were 1,552,432 drug arrests in the U.S., the far majority of
which were for drug possession or use rather than for sale or
manufacturing. See Arrest Data Analysis Tool.

6. The federal government defines the hierarchy of offenses with felonies

higher than misdemeanors. And [w]ithin these levels, ... the hierarchy
from most to least serious is as follows: homicide, rape/other sexual
assault, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny/ motor vehicle
theft, fraud, drug trafficking, drug possession, weapons offense, driving
under the influence, other public-order, and other. See page
13 Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1994.
7. The felony murder rule has also been applied when the person who died
was a participant in the crime. For example, if one of the bank robbers is
killed by the police during a chase, the surviving bank robbers can be
convicted of felony murder of their colleague. For example see People v.
Hudson, 222 Ill. 2d 392 (Ill. 2006) and People v. Klebanowski, 221 Ill.
2d 538 (Ill. 2006)
8. In 2013, more than half of juvenile status offense cases were for truancy.
See page 66 of Juvenile Court Statistics 2013.
9. Our report on the pre-incarceration incomes of those imprisoned in
state prisons, Prisons of Poverty: Uncovering the pre-incarceration
incomes of the imprisoned, found that, in 2014 dollars, incarcerated
people had a median annual income that is 41% less than nonincarcerated people of similar ages. Our preliminary analysis of jail data
shows that people in jails may have even lower incomes. For preincarceration incomes of those in jails in 2002, see page 9 of Profile of
Jail Inmates, 2002.
10.Recall from above that people go to jail over 11 million times each
year.
11. This is the most recent data available until the Bureau of Justice
Statistics begins administering the next Survey of Inmates in Local
Jails in 2018.
12.Notably, the number of people admitted to immigration detention in a
year is much higher than the population detained on a particular day.
The immigration detention system took in 440,600 people during the
course of 2013. See page 1 of Immigration Detention: Additional Actions

Needed to Strengthen Management and Oversight of Facility Costs and

Standards.
13.Responses to whether someone reported being held for an authority
besides a local jail can be found in V113, or V115-V118 in the Survey of
Inmates in Local Jails, 2002 Codebook.

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Prisons of Poverty:

Uncovering the pre-incarceration incomes of the

imprisoned
By Bernadette Rabuy and Daniel Kopf
July 9, 2015
Press release

Correctional experts of all political persuasions have long understood that

releasing incarcerated people to the streets without job training, an education,
or money is the perfect formula for recidivism and re-incarceration. While the
fact that people released from prison have difficulties finding employment is

well-documented, there is much less information on the role that poverty and
opportunity play in who ends up behind bars in the first place.
Using an underutilized data set from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, this
report provides hard numbers on the low incomes of incarcerated men and
women from before they were locked up.

Findings
The findings are as predictable as they are disturbing. The American prison
system is bursting at the seams with people who have been shut out of the
economy and who had neither a quality education nor access to good jobs. We
found that, in 2014 dollars, incarcerated people had a median annual income
of $19,185 prior to their incarceration, which is 41% less than nonincarcerated people of similar ages.
The gap in income is not solely the product of the well-documented
disproportionate incarceration of Blacks and Hispanics, who generally earn
less than Whites. We found that incarcerated people in all gender, race, and
ethnicity groups earned substantially less prior to their incarceration than
their non-incarcerated counterparts of similar ages:
Figure 1. Median annual incomes for incarcerated people prior to incarceration and
non-incarcerated people ages 27-42, in 2014 dollars, by race/ethnicity and gender.

Incarcerated people
(prior to incarceration)

Non-incarcerated people

Men

Women

Men

Women

All

$19,650

$13,890

$41,250

$23,745

Black

$17,625

$12,735

$31,245

$24,255

Hispanic

$19,740

$11,820

$30,000

$15,000

White

$21,975

$15,480

$47,505

$26,130

Figure 2. Percentage difference between the median annual incomes for incarcerated
people prior to incarceration and non-incarcerated people ages 27-42, in 2014 dollars,

by race/ethnicity and gender.

Men

Women

All

52%

42%

Black

44%

47%

Hispani
c

34%

21%

White

54%

41%

While the gap in income is most dramatic for White men, White men have the
highest incomes. By contrast, the income gap is smallest for Hispanic women,
but Hispanic women have the lowest incomes.
Not only are the median incomes of incarcerated people prior to incarceration
lower than non-incarcerated people, but incarcerated people are dramatically
concentrated at the lowest ends of the national income distribution:

Figure 3. Incarcerated men are concentrated at the lowest ends of the national income distribution. The
median incarcerated man had a pre-incarceration income that is 48% that of the median non-incarcerated
man.

Figure 4. Incarcerated women are concentrated at the lowest ends of the national income distribution.
The median incarcerated woman had a pre-incarceration income that is 58% that of the median nonincarcerated woman.

Conclusion
Our society has, in the name of being tough on crime, made a series of policy
choices that have fueled a cycle of poverty and incarceration. We send large
numbers of people with low levels of education and low skills to prison, and
then when they leave just as penniless as they were when they went in, we
expect them to bear the burden of legally-acceptable employment
discrimination.

Acknowledging, as this report makes possible, that the people in prison were,
before they went to prison, some of the poorest people in this country makes it
even more important that we make policy choices that can break the cycle of
poverty and incarceration.

Reversing the decades-old policies that make it more difficult

for people with criminal records to succeed may require
political courage, but the options are plentiful.
Reversing the decades-old policies that make it more difficult for people with
criminal records to succeed may require political courage, but the options are
plentiful and often straightforward. Federal, state, and local governments can
repeal laws restricting incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people's access
to welfare, public housing, Pell Grants, and student loans, and the private
sector can voluntarily end its discrimination against people with criminal
convictions. These reforms can help individuals succeed, but we will also need
to explore how our single-minded focus on imprisonment blinded us to the
needs of entire communities.
Permanently ending the era of mass incarceration will require reversing the
decades of neglect that denied our most vulnerable communities access to
good jobs, reliable transportation, safe housing, and good schools. Making
these long-delayed investments in the basic building blocks of strong and
stable communities will ensure that, once we turn the corner on mass
incarceration, we never turn back.

Methodology
Background

This is not the first report to address the incomes of incarcerated people. The
Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) collects this data periodically (most recently
in 2004 with another survey scheduled for 20152016) but does not routinely

publish the results in a format that can be accessed without statistical

software. The BJS last published a complete analysis of the survey results in
1993 and used the 2004 data in a narrower study of incarcerated parents of
minor children. Sociologists Bruce Western and Becky Pettit used a portion of
this same data set in their groundbreaking books and articles on the impact of
incarceration on men. Our intent in this report has been to make this data for
both men and women available and accessible to the public.
This report was not intended to make the point that incarceration causes
poverty, although there is extensive research on that topic (see below for
recommended reading). Because the Prison Policy Initiative is regularly asked
about the role that poverty plays in who ends up behind bars, this report is
aimed at answering a different question: are incarcerated people poorer than
non-incarcerated people? In particular, we wanted to address questions like
the morality of allowing private telephone companies to charge the families of
incarcerated people $1/minute for phone calls home from prisons and jails.
To be clear, this report relies on the Bureau of Justice Statistics survey from
2004, which is both quite old and the newest available. While we look forward
to the Bureau of Justice Statistics releasing the raw data from their 20152016
survey in two to four years, we know of no reason or trend that would make
relying on the 2004 survey less reliable than the alternatives of using data
from 1993 or no data at all.
Further research should look at the effects of educational attainment and prior
sentences on pre-incarceration incomes and identify policies that could
address those disparities.
Data sources and process

This report is the result of a collaboration between Bernadette Rabuy, Policy

and Communications Associate at the Prison Policy Initiative, and data
scientist Daniel Kopf, who joined our Young Professionals Network in
February 2015.

Together, we studied the BJS Survey of Inmates in State Correctional

Facilities, 2004 relying in particular on the questions listed below and then
developing a way to make the data comparable to non-incarcerated people.
Notably, our data only includes the incomes of people incarcerated in state
prisons, not federal prisons or county jails.
S7Q11c. Which category on this card represents your personal monthly
income from ALL sources for the month before your arrest?
S1Q1a. Sex
S1Q2a. What is your date of birth?
S1Q3a. Are you of Spanish, Latino, or Hispanic origin?
S1Q3c. Which of these categories describes your race?
The non-incarcerated data comes from the Census Bureau's American
Community Survey (ACS), specifically from the Integrated Public Use
Microdata Series (IPUMS). We used data from 2004 both because this was the
same year as the incarcerated survey data, and because the ACS in 2004
included only people in households and did not include prisons and other
group quarters.(Given that in 2004, 12% of Black men in their 20s were
incarcerated, a data source that included incarcerated people in the "all
population" would have resulted in a misleading comparison.)
Because income is correlated with age and because the incarcerated
population trends younger than the general U.S. population, we thought it
would be most accurate to compare people of similar ages. We limited our
study to the 25th and 75th percentiles of ages for incarcerated people (ages
2742), and we used the same age range for the non-incarcerated population.
To make all of this data more accessible and useful, we converted all data in
two ways: We converted monthly incomes to annual incomes by multiplying
by 12, and we multiplied each income by 1.25 to adjust for inflation from 2004
to 2014, as provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Inflation Calculator.
(Because 2015 is not yet over, the 2015 index value is based only on the latest
monthly values and therefore will change from month to month.)

In addition, to provide an estimated median income for each incarcerated

race/ethnicity/gender group from the BJS "grouped frequency" data, we
followed these steps:
1. Take the distance between the smallest and largest number in the group
containing the median
2. Multiply this number by the following: ( ( (total data points/2) - total
data points in groups with lower numbers) / data points in group
containing median )
3. Add lowest number in group containing the median
On definitions

Note that throughout this report, the incomes for incarcerated people are the
incomes incarcerated people reported earning before their arrest, not the
incomes they earned through prison labor. For incarcerated people and nonincarcerated people, incomes include welfare and other public assistance. For
incarcerated people, incomes also include illegal sources of income.
We use "Non-incarcerated" to refer to people in households, and thereby
exclude people in group quarters, including people in correctional facilities,
psychiatric hospitals, college/university housing, or residential treatment
facilities.
Our data on "Blacks" and "Whites," relies on data for Non-Hispanic Blacks
and Non-Hispanic Whites. The federal government defines Black and White as
races while Hispanic is defined as an ethnicity (and, therefore, it is possible to
identify as both Hispanic and White or Hispanic and Black). Our data for both
incarcerated people and non-incarcerated people allowed us to avoid overlap
by separately talking about Non-Hispanic Whites, Non-Hispanic Blacks, and
Hispanics.
Recommended reading and other data sources

Visionary research by sociologists Bruce Western and Becky Pettit has also
relied on this same 2004 BJS state prison data set in order to provide a more

realistic picture of the plight of young black men in the U.S. Western and
Pettit have also utilized data from the other BJS surveys of inmates (Survey of
Inmates of Local Jails or Survey of Inmates of Federal Correctional Facilities)
and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to fill the gap in data left by
government sources such as the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey
(CPS). The Current Population Survey is the large monthly labor force survey
conducted by the Census Bureau, but, because it only considers households,
the CPS excludes incarcerated people.
Over the years, Western and Pettit have produced groundbreaking books and
articles that were useful starting points for this report, including:
Bruce Western, Punishment and Inequality in America (New York:
Russell Sage Foundation, 2006)
Becky Pettit, Invisible Men: Mass Incarceration and the Myth of Black
Progress (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2012)
Bruce Western and Becky Pettit, "Incarceration & social
inequality"Ddalus (Summer 2010)
The Economic Mobility Project and the Public Safety Performance
Project,Collateral Costs: Incarceration's Effect on Economic
Mobility(Washington, D.C.: The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2010).

Appendix
The 2004 BJS survey asked incarcerated people what their personal monthly
income was the month before their arrest. The data in this appendix is
presented in monthly incomes and has not been adjusted for inflation.
The following tables and graphs allow for comparisons between the incomes of
incarcerated people prior to incarceration and the incomes of nonincarcerated people for each of the income categories that BJS provides
respondents in its Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities. The

graphs also show that incarcerated people are dramatically concentrated at the
lower ends of the national income distribution.
Figure 5. Median monthly incomes for incarcerated people prior to incarceration and
non-incarcerated people ages 27-42, in 2004 dollars, by race/ethnicity and gender.

Incarcerated people
(prior to incarceration)

Non-incarcerated people

Men

Women

Men

Women

All

$1,310

$926

$2,750

$1,583

Black

$1,175

$849

$2,083

$1,617

Hispanic

$1,316

$788

$2,000

$1,000

White

$1,465

$1,032

$3,167

$1,742

Recommended reading and other data sources

Visionary research by sociologists Bruce Western and Becky Pettit has also
relied on this same 2004 BJS state prison data set in order to provide a more
realistic picture of the plight of young black men in the U.S. Western and
Pettit have also utilized data from the other BJS surveys of inmates (Survey of
Inmates of Local Jails or Survey of Inmates of Federal Correctional Facilities)
and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to fill the gap in data left by
government sources such as the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey
(CPS). The Current Population Survey is the large monthly labor force survey
conducted by the Census Bureau, but, because it only considers households,
the CPS excludes incarcerated people.
Over the years, Western and Pettit have produced groundbreaking books and
articles that were useful starting points for this report, including:
Bruce Western, Punishment and Inequality in America (New York:
Russell Sage Foundation, 2006)
Becky Pettit, Invisible Men: Mass Incarceration and the Myth of Black
Progress (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2012)

 Bruce Western and Becky Pettit, "Incarceration & social

inequality"Ddalus (Summer 2010)
The Economic Mobility Project and the Public Safety Performance
Project,Collateral Costs: Incarceration's Effect on Economic
Mobility(Washington, D.C.: The Pew Charitable Trusts, 2010).

Appendix
The 2004 BJS survey asked incarcerated people what their personal monthly
income was the month before their arrest. The data in this appendix is
presented in monthly incomes and has not been adjusted for inflation.
The following tables and graphs allow for comparisons between the incomes of
incarcerated people prior to incarceration and the incomes of nonincarcerated people for each of the income categories that BJS provides
respondents in its Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities. The
graphs also show that incarcerated people are dramatically concentrated at the
lower ends of the national income distribution.
Figure 5. Median monthly incomes for incarcerated people prior to incarceration and
non-incarcerated people ages 27-42, in 2004 dollars, by race/ethnicity and gender.

Incarcerated people
(prior to incarceration)

Non-incarcerated people

Men

Women

Men

Women

All

$1,310

$926

$2,750

$1,583

Black

$1,175

$849

$2,083

$1,617

Hispanic

$1,316

$788

$2,000

$1,000

White

$1,465

$1,032

$3,167

$1,742

Figure 6. Distribution of monthly incomes for incarcerated men prior to incarceration and nonincarcerated men in 2004 dollars, ages 27-42
Figure 7. Proportion of incarcerated men (prior to incarceration) and nonincarcerated men that fall within an income category.

Proportion of incarcerated
Income catego
men with that income
ry
(prior to incarceration)

Proportion of nonincarcerated men with

that income

$0

1.82%

3.10%

$1-199

3.25%

1.84%

$200-399

7.66%

1.68%

$400-599

8.03%

2.87%

$600-799

7.05%

2.30%

$800-999

8.44%

2.71%

$1,000-1,199

9.39%

3.61%

$1,200-1,499

11.90%

5.07%

$1,500-1,999

10.21%

9.56%

$2,000-2,499

10.63%

10.10%

$2,500-4,999

10.64%

37.11%

$5,000-7,499

4.15%

12.41%

$7,500+

6.84%

7.64%

Figure 8. Distribution of monthly incomes for incarcerated women prior to incarceration

and non-incarcerated women in 2004 dollars, ages 2742. While most incarcerated people make
less prior to incarceration than people on the outside, there is one interesting anomaly in the data for
women not present in the data for men. More non-incarcerated women report no income at all than
incarcerated women prior to incarceration. For both groups, the reported incomes include wages, welfare,
and other public assistance, but since these are individual surveys, they do not include spousal income. It is
likely that many of those non-incarcerated women with zero reported income are receiving support from
their spouses.
Figure 9. Proportion of incarcerated women (prior to incarceration) and nonincarcerated women that fall within an income category.

Income catego Proportion of incarcerated

ry
women with that income

Proportion of nonincarcerated women with

(prior to incarceration)

that income

$0

4.45%

15.42%

$1-199

5.62%

5.04%

$200-399

9.77%

3.86%

$400-599

14.76%

4.94%

$600-799

9.77%

3.82%

$800-999

8.87%

4.22%

$1,000-1,199

9.85%

4.99%

$1,200-1,499

8.56%

5.60%

$1,500-1,999

7.86%

9.93%

$2,000-2,499

5.41%

9.26%

$2,500-4,999

7.13%

25.47%

$5,000-7,499

3.66%

5.21%

$7,500+

4.30%

2.24%

Footnotes
1. Learn more about the Survey of Inmates in State Correctional
Facilities.
2. While the typical non-incarcerated person has at least a high school
diploma, the typical incarcerated person does not. Using the same
Bureau of Justice Statistics and Census Bureau data sets, we found that
the median education of an incarcerated person ages 2742 is 11 years
completed, and the education gap is getting worse. In her
book, Invisible Men, Becky Pettit finds that while the overall educational
attainment of Americans has grown since 1980, the fraction of the
incarcerated with less than a high school diploma grew over this same
period. See Becky Pettit, Invisible Men: Mass Incarceration and the

Myth of Black Progress (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2012), p

16.
3. In the Baltimore community that sends the most people to state prison,
Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park, more than half of the residents
ages 1664 are not employed. In addition, 61% of SandtownWinchester/Harlem Park's residents age 25 and older have less than a
high school diploma. See Justice Policy Institute and Prison Policy
Initiative, "Sandtown-Winchester/Harlem Park," The Right
Investment? Corrections Spending in Baltimore City, February 2015.
4. This is for people imprisoned in state prisons ages 2742, which are the
25th and 75th percentiles of ages for incarcerated people based on the
2004 BJS survey data. The median annual income for incarcerated
people ages 2742 is $19,185 while the median annual income for nonincarcerated people ages 2742 is $32,505. The median annual income
for incarcerated men ages 2742 is $19,650 while the median annual
income for non-incarcerated men ages 2742 is $41,250. The median
annual income for incarcerated women ages 2742 is $13,890 while the
median annual income for non-incarcerated women ages 2742 is
$23,745.
5. Julia Love, "Apple rescinds policy against hiring felons for construction
work," San Jose Mercury News, April 9, 2015.
6. The report, The Right Investment? Corrections Spending in Baltimore
City, shows that the home communities of people imprisoned in
Maryland's state prisons are places that experience disproportionate
unemployment, greater reliance on public assistance, higher rates of
school absence, higher rates of vacant and abandoned housing, and
more addiction challenges. See Justice Policy Institute and Prison Policy
Initiative, The Right Investment? Corrections Spending in Baltimore

City (Easthampton, MA and Washington, D.C.: Justice Policy Institute

and Prison Policy Initiative, February 25, 2015).
7. Proposed Collection, 80 FR 9749 (Feb 24,2015).
8. Allen Beck et al., Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1991 (Washington,
D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics, May 1993), p 3.
9. Lauren E. Glaze and Laura M. Maruschak, Parents in Prison and Their
Minor Children, (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of Justice Statistics, March
2010).
10.Learn more about the Survey of Inmates in State Correctional
Facilities.
11. Learn more about the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community
SurveyIPUMS database.
12.See an explanation of who is included in group quarters.
13.See the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Inflation Calculator.