Jails Report Series: Preliminary Data Release

• NCJ Number: 307412
• Author(s): Zhen Zeng
• Date Published: September 2023
• Corporate Author: Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
• Publication Format: Web Page/Site; Document (Online)
• Publication Type: Publication
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Part of the BJS Preliminary Data Release publication series.

Abstract

This web-only report provides preliminary statistics on key items from the annual jail data collection. Statistics include the number of inmates held in local jails, by inmate demographics and conviction status; the number of admissions to jail; and jail incarceration rates, between 2012 and 2022. Final statistics will be published in the report, Jail Inmates in 2022 – Statistical Tables.

Highlights:

• At midyear 2022, local jails held 663,100 persons in custody, 4% more than the year before.
• Jails reported 7.3 million admissions from July 2021 to June 2022. While this represents a 6.6% increase over the 6.9 million admissions the year before, annual admissions were 37% lower than 10 years ago (11.6 million).
• Local jails held 92,900 females at midyear 2022, accounting for 14% of the inmate population. From 2021 to 2022, the number of females in jail increased 9%, while the number of males increased 3%.
• At midyear 2022, 30% of the jail population (197,000) were convicted, either serving a sentence or awaiting sentencing on a conviction, while 70% of the population (466,100) were unconvicted, awaiting court action on a current charge or held in jail for other reasons.