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People in Prison in 2018 (2019)

Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) researchers collected year-end 2017 and 2018 prison population data directly from state departments of corrections and the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) on the number of people in state and federal prisons on December 31, 2018, in order to provide timely information on how prison incarceration is changing in the United States. This report fills a gap until the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) releases its 2018 annual report—likely in early 2020—which will include additional data, such as population breakdowns by race and sex. Specifically, Vera studied both prison populations and incarceration rates at the state and federal levels and demonstrated both the overall U.S. incarceration trend as well as trends within individual regions and states.

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