Incarceration Trends in

California

This fact sheet provides at-a-glance information about how many people are locked up in both state prisons and county jails and shows where the state stands on a variety of metrics, so that policymakers and the public can better determine where to target reforms.

Get fact sheet

Key Facts

Total Number of People in County Jails and State Prisons, 2015
Explore your state's use of local jails and state prisons.

Related

Impact Over Orthodoxy

Research, policy solutions, and what counts as sufficient evidence in transforming the criminal legal system.

At the Vera Institute of Justice, we drive policy change to advance safety and justice and to measurably improve communities and people’s lives. We work to transform the United States’ excessively punitive criminal legal system and to challenge the country’s long-standing complacency with the harms of mass incarceration. This involves piloting sol ...

News
  • Nicholas Turner
    Nicholas Turner
December 06, 2023
News

How “Collateral Consequences” Keep People Trapped in the Legal System

The harms of mass incarceration extend far beyond courtrooms, jail cells, and prison beds.

During a search of Penelope Harris’s Bronx apartment in 2010, police found 10 grams of cannabis. Even in the days before cannabis legalization in New York, that tiny amount fell below the legal threshold for a misdemeanor, according to The New York Times. But that brief interaction with the police, which resulted in no criminal charges against Har ...

News
  • Sam McCann
    Sam McCann
November 29, 2023
News