The U.S. prison population was 1,254,200 at yearend 2023, a 2 percent increase from 2022 (1,230,100). At yearend 2023, persons sentenced to more than 1 year under the legal authority of state and federal correctional authorities accounted for 96% (1,210,300) of the total U.S. prison population.

Yet a surprising new consensus has emerged in recent years, spanning the country’s political divide and reversing the notion that prisons exist solely to cut crime. America is now an unlikely ...

U.S. prisons and jails incarcerate a disproportionate amount of people who have a current or past mental health problem, and facilities are not meeting the demand for treatment. Police are also often used to respond to mental health crises, despite their involvement frequently resulting in violence or incarceration.

In 1971, for example, then President Richard Nixon launched America’s war on drugs, a governmental effort that heavily penalized those who sell or use drugs. Subsequent federal legislation, including the Anti-Drug Abuse Act in 1986 and the Crime Bill in 1994, established harsher drug sentences that disproportionally affected Black Americans ...

An influx of immigration detainees could put yet more strain on federal prisons, which AP reporting revealed have been plagued by severe understaffing, violence and other problems.. The Bureau of Prisons is the Justice Department’s biggest agency with more than 30,000 employees, 122 facilities, 155,000 inmates and an annual budget of about $8 billion.