The Jail System
California has 114 jails in 58 counties. The jail population in 2021 was 58,989.
The Prison System
As of December 31, 2021, the number of prisoners under the jurisdiction of the State of California correctional authorities was 101,389 located in 74 state prisons and held in custody of private prisons or local jails. California operated facilities had a staff of 57,402 employees and a budget of $16 billion.
The Community Corrections System
As of December 31, 2021, California community corrections population was 157,372 under probation and 109,082 under parole.
Methodology
The National Institute of Corrections depends on publicly available information to provide the information on this page.
The statistics for budgets, employee positions, county numbers, and state prison facilities data come from state departments of corrections, other state reports and state agencies. If data is missing for a state, then we were unable to find that information.
The data on prison population come from the Prisoner in 2021 report released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The report includes the count of prisoners in the unified systems of Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
Violent and property crime rates are provided by the Vera Institute.