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Since you asked: How many women and men are released from each state’s prisons and jails every year?

We’ve drilled down into 2019 data to show prison and jail releases by sex in each state and made our best estimates of how many women and men were released from prisons and jails nationwide in 2022.

by Leah Wang, February 28, 2024

We often think about incarceration as something only experienced behind bars, but millions of people leave correctional facilities every year in serious need of services and reentry resources. Journalists, advocates, and other users of our website reach out frequently to ask if we know the total number of people released from prisons and jails in their state each year. Many are trying to fight for more resources for people returning home and want to know how these numbers break down by sex. While these are numbers you might expect would be easy to find, they aren’t published regularly in annual reports on prison and jail populations by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).

In fact, the annual data collected by the federal government about local jails (the Annual Survey of Jails) cannot generally be broken down by state at all; only the more infrequently-collected Census of Jails data can be used to make state-level findings. As for prisons, 2019 is also the latest year for which state-level release data by sex 1 have been published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. (The total number of people released by each prison system is published annually by the BJS, most recently reporting 2022 data.)

To make this information more accessible, we’ve drilled down into the most recent data available to show how many men and women are released from prisons and jails each year.2

Releases from prisons and jails in 2019, by sex, by state or other jurisdiction

Sources: Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Prisoner Statistics (for prisons), extracted through the Corrections Statistical Analysis Tool (CSAT), and the 2019 Census of Jails (for jails). Local jail data were weighted and aggregated to the state level by the Prison Policy Initiative. Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont operate combined or “unified” prison and jail systems, so all releases from correctional facilities in those states are reported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics as prison releases. Alaska is a partial exception among these states, because there are still 14 locally operated jails that report data separately from the unified system.
Deaths in prison, which are generally included in prison release data, were excluded from prison release totals to better reflect the “reentry” population; however, deaths in prisons are not published by sex. As a result, total prison releases will be slightly less than the sum of men’s and women’s prison releases. The number of deaths in federal (BOP) prisons in 2019, subtracted from total releases, comes from Mortality in State and Federal Prisons, 2001-2019 – Statistical Tables. The number of deaths in local jails is not published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Note about District of Columbia: D.C.’s prison population is part of the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) system. The BOP releases people to all states and territories, and publishes this data each month on its website.
Men Women Totals
Prisons Jails Total Prisons Jails Total Prisons Jails Total Releases,
2019
Alabama 10,878 209,401 220,279 2,187 76,060 78,247 12,920 285,461 298,526
Alaska 1,577 4,171 5,748 140 1,113 1,253 1,714 5,284 7,001
Arizona 11,344 142,106 153,450 1,700 47,264 48,964 12,933 189,370 202,414
Arkansas 8,949 124,039 132,988 1,392 46,021 47,413 10,259 170,060 180,401
California 34,976 751,994 786,970 2,888 197,978 200,866 37,462 949,971 987,835
Colorado 8,289 165,718 174,007 1,602 51,879 53,481 9,840 217,597 227,488
Connecticut 4,161 n/a 4,161 319 n/a 319 4,473 n/a 4,480
Delaware 1,981 n/a 1,981 296 n/a 296 2,269 n/a 2,277
District of Columbia n/a 9,043 9,043 n/a 1,430 1,430 n/a 10,473 10,473
Federal (BOP) 46,320 n/a 46,320 4,738 n/a 4,738 50,677 n/a 50,677
Florida 26,498 500,267 526,765 3,642 156,695 160,337 29,737 656,962 687,102
Georgia 15,311 450,320 465,631 2,044 126,536 128,580 17,200 576,856 594,211
Hawaii 1,408 n/a 1,408 259 n/a 259 1,654 n/a 1,667
Idaho 3,502 51,179 54,681 941 18,889 19,830 4,416 70,068 74,511
Illinois 21,963 197,855 219,818 1,930 56,108 58,038 23,791 253,962 277,855
Indiana 9,499 185,643 195,142 1,586 57,839 59,425 10,988 243,482 254,567
Iowa 6,166 100,482 106,648 969 33,221 34,190 7,114 133,703 140,838
Kansas 5,037 118,963 124,000 1,005 40,370 41,375 6,007 159,332 165,374
Kentucky 15,289 209,733 225,022 4,358 81,721 86,079 19,580 291,455 311,102
Louisiana 15,017 197,568 212,585 1,930 51,763 53,693 16,835 249,332 266,279
Maine 623 23,540 24,163 132 7,492 7,624 755 31,032 31,787
Maryland 6,819 63,722 70,541 649 15,464 16,113 7,408 79,185 86,653
Massachusetts 2,088 52,182 54,270 304 7,295 7,599 2,362 59,477 61,869
Michigan 10,580 217,041 227,621 896 63,300 64,196 11,440 280,341 291,817
Minnesota 6,221 152,126 158,347 811 49,202 50,013 6,964 201,329 208,361
Mississippi 6,247 120,815 127,062 800 29,127 29,927 6,971 149,942 156,989
Missouri 15,350 205,784 221,134 3,271 58,586 61,857 18,533 264,369 282,990
Montana 2,051 31,497 33,548 436 10,927 11,363 2,475 42,423 44,910
Nebraska 2,020 50,662 52,682 333 16,192 16,525 2,336 66,855 69,208
Nevada 5,678 114,718 120,396 1,011 42,302 43,313 6,646 157,020 163,709
New Hampshire 1,166 16,993 18,159 183 5,424 5,607 1,339 22,417 23,766
New Jersey 7,706 101,882 109,588 522 16,867 17,389 8,182 118,749 126,977
New Mexico 2,951 83,350 86,301 595 29,366 29,961 3,528 112,716 116,262
New York 19,482 137,565 157,047 1,421 30,049 31,470 20,791 167,614 188,517
North Carolina 14,924 290,436 305,360 2,291 91,634 93,925 17,106 382,070 399,285
North Dakota 1,085 34,744 35,829 274 11,765 12,039 1,358 46,509 47,868
Ohio 17,727 296,495 314,222 2,683 99,564 102,247 20,275 396,059 416,469
Oklahoma 7,840 152,719 160,559 1,603 54,713 56,316 9,365 207,432 216,875
Oregon 5,099 138,541 143,640 801 44,380 45,181 5,870 182,921 188,821
Pennsylvania 16,256 159,945 176,201 1,800 41,487 43,287 17,897 201,432 219,488
Rhode Island 683 n/a 683 37 n/a 37 720 n/a 720
South Carolina 5,505 142,470 147,975 774 39,364 40,138 6,208 181,834 188,113
South Dakota 3,725 48,612 52,337 868 18,062 18,930 4,576 66,673 71,266
Tennessee 11,728 287,094 298,822 2,576 110,837 113,413 14,205 397,931 412,235
Texas 67,863 776,801 844,664 10,669 217,109 227,778 78,119 993,910 1,072,442
Utah 3,428 72,275 75,703 610 24,688 25,298 4,017 96,963 101,001
Vermont 2,216 n/a 2,216 321 n/a 321 2,528 n/a 2,537
Virginia 10,925 218,493 229,418 1,772 65,724 67,496 12,602 284,217 296,914
Washington 21,807 202,327 224,134 2,684 64,430 67,114 24,455 266,757 291,248
West Virginia 3,465 33,632 37,097 687 12,310 12,997 4,124 45,942 50,094
Wisconsin 5,393 163,160 168,553 471 44,661 45,132 5,820 207,820 213,684
Wyoming 842 21,643 22,485 182 6,779 6,961 1,010 28,422 29,446
Total, 50 states 491,338 7,820,699 8,321,080 71,655 2,373,986 2,445,641 559,177 10,193,255 10,766,721
Total, all jurisdictions 537,658 7,829,742 8,367,400 76,393 2,373,986 2,450,379 609,854 10,203,728 10,817,398

 

Why we need data disaggregated by sex or gender identity

For years, the mass incarceration of women has been overlooked, even though women’s incarceration has grown at twice the pace of men’s incarceration in recent decades. Women are disproportionately locked up in local jails, where they’re less likely to be able to afford money bail if they’re not convicted, or are more likely to be serving a shorter sentence for a property or drug offense. While there, women in jail experience bleak conditions like expensive phone calls, a lack of programming and education opportunities, and poor quality healthcare.

Being locked up in a state prison also presents a unique set of challenges for women, including the higher chance of being hundreds of miles away from loved ones. No matter how or where a woman is incarcerated, women are generally worse off than men leading up to their incarceration. And entire families are harmed when a woman is put in prison or jail: More than half of incarcerated women are mothers, and women are more likely than men to be primary caregivers to children. Ultimately, keeping women out of correctional facilities and supporting them post-release should be a top priority for lawmakers.

Unfortunately, data regarding women in the criminal legal system are neither updated regularly nor always compatible across years, obscuring our collective view of what’s happening to women in the criminal legal system and how specific reforms impact them. When it comes to gender identity in prisons and jails, the data are even worse, as government surveys typically include trans men under “females” and trans women under “males,” and do not ask further about self-reported gender identity.3 Without better data collection and reporting, the unique needs of women, as well as transgender and nonbinary people, will go on being disregarded in policy and practice.

Any work that chips away at mass incarceration for people of all genders should include fighting back against carveouts of “non-violent” offenses, addressing family separation, drastically improving reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare, and ramping up gender-responsive reentry services for these individuals.

 

What’s changed since these data were collected in 2019?

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a dramatic drop in correctional populations in 2020 and 2021 – although this was due to fewer admissions, not more releases – so there have been fewer people eligible for release in the last couple of years. Even though prison and jail populations have unfortunately largely rebounded since then, there were still 29% fewer releases from prisons and jails in 2022 compared to 2019.4 Because of this dramatic difference from 2019, we also calculated rough estimates of releases by sex in 2022 on the national level for those interested in what more recent release numbers look like:

Estimated releases from prisons and jails, by sex, in 2022

With the exception of the total releases from prisons, all numbers are estimates based on 2019 data and should be used with caution. Details may not sum to totals due to rounding.
Men Women Total
Releases from state and federal prisons (excluding deaths) 388,355 55,179 443,534
Releases from local jails 5,537,103 1,678,855 7,215,958
Releases from all prisons and jails 5,925,457 1,734,034 7,659,492

 

To estimate what 2022 releases from prisons might look like by sex, we started with the number of state and federal prison releases, excluding deaths, reported in 2022 by the Bureau of Justice Statistics: 443,534.5 We then used the 2019 data to find the percentage of all prison releases that were from female prisons, which was about 12%; this percentage was based on all releases including deaths, because deaths in prison aren’t reported by sex. Applying this percentage to total prison releases in 2022, we estimate that about 55,179 people were released from female state and federal prisons in 2022, of which about 3,951 were from federal prisons.6

To estimate the number of releases from local jails in 2022 by sex, we first had to estimate the number of total releases, which the Bureau of Justice Statistics did not publish. We started with the number of jail admissions reported for that year: 7.3 million, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.7 Most people are jailed for a relatively short time, typically released from jail the same year they are admitted, so we would expect the number of admissions to be very close to the number of releases.8 In 2019, there were just 1.15% fewer people released from jails nationwide than were admitted that year. We applied this percentage to the 7.3 million jail admissions in 2022, arriving at an estimated 7,215,958 releases from local jails in 2022. To estimate how many of those releases were women, we calculated the percentage of all jail releases in 2019 that were women (23%) and applied that percentage to our estimate for total jail releases in 2022. Because there is no national source of data for jail deaths in 2022, we could not exclude deaths from these estimates of jail releases.

 

Opportunities for further data analysis

We also get lots of questions about the number of people released to local communities (counties, cities, et cetera). While we don’t have a solution that works for every state, we do suggest two different ways to generate estimates in our previous briefing about releases.

Data collection efforts regarding incarcerated women are slowly improving in some areas: For example, the Bureau of Justice Statistics is considering adding questions about pregnancy and maternal health in its national surveys of correctional facilities. In the meantime, we hope this dataset is useful in your advocacy work. The 2019 release data can be accessed from our Data Toolbox; for more information about mass incarceration in your state, see our State Profiles pages.

 

Footnotes

  1. Even the available data that are disaggregated by sex are frustratingly limited, in that they typically only differentiate between “male” and “female,” ignoring the reality that the gender identities of confined people (and all people, for that matter) are not limited to this binary. This field of research has a long way to go before the data are consistently collected and reported by gender identity rather than an administrative categorization of “male” versus “female.”  ↩

  2. Astute readers will notice that male and female releases sum up to more than the total number of releases in a state. This discrepancy occurs because the Bureau of Justice Statistics does not publish the number of deaths — which count as a form of “release” — by sex. We removed the number “released” due to death from the total prison releases to better reflect the number of people in the reentry population in each state, but could not do the same calculation by sex. If you are able to find the number of male or female deaths in your state’s prisons or jails in 2019, you can get slightly closer to the number of people released.  ↩

  3. One major exception to this is the 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, a rich government dataset we analyzed to reveal more about gender identity and transgender people in state prisons. A timely new report from the Vera Institute of Justice and Black and Pink National also details the experiences of transgender people in prisons.  ↩

  4. In state and federal prisons in 2022, there were 443,534 releases (excluding deaths), a 27% decrease from 609,869 in 2019. In jails, we estimate there were about 7,215,958 releases in 2022, and 10,203,728 releases in 2019, a 29% difference. (Because BJS published only the number of admissions to – and not releases from – jails for 2022, we calculated our own estimate for releases in 2022. To do so, we first calculated the ratio of annual releases to annual admissions in 2019 (98.85%), and then applied that ratio to the published estimate of admissions in 2022 (7,300,000), arriving at our 7,215,958 estimated releases.)  ↩

  5. See Table 9 in Prisoners in 2022.  ↩

  6. We did not attempt state-level estimates by sex for 2022 because the number of women released from some state prisons in 2019 was quite small. For example, just 37 sentenced women were released in Rhode Island that year, and several other states reported fewer than 200 female releases. Because of these small numbers, even small changes in the distribution of releases by sex from 2019 to 2022 would have a sizable impact on the accuracy of our state-level estimates. However, if any readers are looking for back-of-the-envelope estimates at the state level, they could follow the logic of our methodology for our national estimates using the state-level data from 2019.  ↩

  7. See Table 1 in Jail Inmates in 2022.  ↩

  8. In 2022, for example, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that the average length of stay in local jails was 32 days.  ↩

Leah Wang is a Senior Research Analyst at the Prison Policy Initiative. (Other articles | Full bio | Contact)

Related briefings:

  1. Military base closures: A model for getting past the parochial politics of closing prisons +
  2. Testifying before Congress about the mass incarceration of women +
  3. Since you asked: How many people aged 55 or older are in prison, by state? +

4 responses:

  1. Franklin says:
    February 29, 2024 at 1:21 pm

    Thank You so much for the update on info I asked for. It will go a long way in my Advocacy work to have such statistics from
    reliable, provable, irrefutable institutions.
    Keep up the great work. There is a Jewish mandate thas says,(Tzedek, tzedek tirdof).
    In English it means, Justice, justice you shall
    pursue. Your doing God’s work and the Watchers report Righteous Deeds. Shalom.

    1. Mike Wessler says:
      February 29, 2024 at 2:17 pm

      Thank you for your kind words. We’re thrilled to hear this data will be useful in your work.

  2. Ira Dember says:
    March 2, 2024 at 9:38 pm

    Extremely valuable information, thank you. I didn’t see a link to download this briefing as a pdf. That too would be quite helpful.

    1. Mike Wessler says:
      March 4, 2024 at 8:44 am

      We don’t create PDFs of our reports because so many of them have features specific for the web, however, we take extra steps to ensure they print well. If you’d like a PDF, I’d suggest selecting to print the briefing, but instead of actually printing, select “Print to PDF.” We’re glad our work is valuable to you.

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