Incarceration Trends in Pennsylvania

The United States has both the highest population of incarcerated people and the highest rate of incarceration across the globe, with 2.2 million serving time in 2016 and 860 incarcerated individuals per 100,000 people. Although these numbers reached an all-time low in 2016 since the 1990s due to reforms to criminal justice policy and other political-economic conditions, our nation is shockingly heavy-handed with imprisonment. For example, the US far exceeds imprisonment statistics for its European counterparts such as England, France, and Germany, which all have less than 150 people per 100,000 residents behind bars. Even Russia and Brazil have less than half the rates as the United States: 415 and 324 per 100,000, respectively (Gramlich, 2018).

Let’s take a closer look at incarceration in Pennsylvania. This report uses data from the ‘Incarceration Data Trends’ public dataset from the Vera Institute of Justice, which comprises data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), Census of Jails, and Annual Survey of Jails to track demographic trends in mass incarceration (Vera Institute of Justice, 2020). This report will primarily reference 2016 data, as this provides the most complete incarceration data. An important definitional distinction to note is the difference between prisons and jails, as well as incarcerated population and population rate. According to the BJS, jails are short-term pre-trial facilities operated by a local jurisdiction for people awaiting sentencing, serving less than one

year, or awaiting trial. Prisons , however, are state or federally run facilities used for longer term sentences (BJS, 2018). Further, prison population rates are calculated per 100,000 people and adjusted for population change each year, versus sheer prison population, which does not account for fluctuations in overall population. Therefore, incarcerated population rates per 100,000 residents are used (BJS, 2018).

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Overall, the PA prison population rate is among the highest in the northeastern region of the US (Vera Institute of Justice, 2019; Prison Policy Initiative, 2019). Incarceration rates have dramatically risen across all of PA counties since the 1970s, but there is great variation in trends due to numerous factors such as urbanicity, economic conditions, population demographics, and political climate. Between 1983 and 2016, PA prison populations increased by 336.3% , with 51,433 people in prison in total in 2016. Between 1970 and 2016, jail populations increased by 447% , with 37,671 people in jails in 2016. There were a total of 89,104 incarcerated people in 2016, which translates to 697 incarcerated people per 100,000 statewide when adjusted for the 2016 population (Vera Institute of Justice, 2020). However, jail population rates and prison population rates vary significantly across counties depending on the county policing relations and processing capacity, as well as economic indicators. The Vera Institute notes that it is important to look to rural counties, because although the largest counties such as Philadelphia County may have the largest raw number of incarcerated people, small metro areas and rural counties tend to have the highest incarceration rates (Vera Institute of Justice, 2019). Jailing may also be more common in economically depressed cities and towns. For example, strikingly high rates of jailing have been highlighted in Lackawanna County, home to Scranton, PA, where decades of de-industrialization, a dearth of private sector employment, child poverty, racial profiling, and strict local jailing policies contributed to a jail population rate of 695.8 and prison population of 823 per 100,000 residents (Norton, 2020).

With regard to urbanicity in Pennsylvania, there are no clear trends in prison and jail populations that mirror rural counties or urban/suburban counties. As noted on the dashboard, Jefferson County (rural) had the highest prison population rate, whereas Delaware County (suburban) had the highest jail population rate (Vera Institute of Justice, 2020). One reason for Jefferson County’s high incarceration rate is its battle with the opioid crisis, which has led to increased crime and punitive drug sentences. Delaware County struggles with similarly high rates of drug abuse, and also has drastically longer jail sentences compared to the state average or that of surrounding counties in an attempt to reduce drug use and drug related crimes, although most of them are non violent (Melamed, 2018). The counties with the highest prison and jail population rates and their urbanicity are below, demonstrating a variety of urbanicity types have high incarceration.