The Jail System
California has 62 jails in 58 counties. The jail population in 2022 was 62,581.
The Prison System
As of December 31, 2022, the number of prisoners under the jurisdiction of the State of California correctional authorities was 97,608 located in 34 state prisons and held in custody of private prisons or local jails. California operated facilities had a staff of 64,793 employees and a budget of $14.2 billion.
The Community Corrections System
As of December 31, 2022, California community corrections population was 150,470 under probation and 44,980 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 Prisoners in 2022 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 Federal Bureau of Investigations.
The number of counties per state comes from the United States Census Bureau.
- California Dept. of Corrections Budget
- Census of Jails, 2005–2019 – Statistical Tables
- County Population Totals and Components of Change: 2020-2023
- Federal Bureau of Investigation Crime Data Explorer
- How much do states spend on prisoners?
- Prisoners in 2022 – Statistical Tables
- Probation and Parole in the United States, 2022
- VERA Incarceration Trends: California