Rural residents are far more likely to be incarcerated than their suburban and urban peers, according to a new report from prison-reform organization Vera Institute for Justice, with incarceration statistics updated through spring 2021. The report is the latest update of the Incarceration Trends Project, launched in 2015 as an interactive tool with more than four decades of jail and prison incarceration data. (You can search for state-level trends here and county-level trends here). A webinar at 11 a.m. ET Friday, Jan. 7, will discuss the findings — learn more or register here — but here are some highlights:
- Jail admissions in major cities have declined over the past few decades, but have risen "dramatically" in rural communities and smaller cities; as of spring 2021, about half of all Americans in local jails were in rural areas or smaller cities. Local, state and federal policies have all contributed to this trend.
- More specifically: as of spring 2021, out of every 100,000 residents ages 15 to 64 in rural counties, 297 were in jail. That number was 231 for small and midsize metro residents, 156 for urban counties, 150 for suburban counties, and 196 for the U.S. population overall.
- More than 10 times the level of women incarcerated in the 1970s are incarcerated today, and they're disproportionately rural.
- People of color and poor people of all ethnicities are disproportionately incarcerated in the U.S., especially in rural areas.
- About two-thirds of people in county jails have not been convicted of a crime.
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