Data Source: Compiled from multiple Bureau of Justice Statistics data sets. See our blog post about the data. (Graph: Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner, 2024)

This graph originally appeared in Updated charts show the magnitude of prison and jail racial disparities, pretrial populations, correctional control, and more.

The original version of the charts showing how state policy drives mass incarceration was published in Tracking State Prison Growth in 50 States.