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DevinCauley-Towns t1_jebxqkk wrote

Reply to comment by cbarrettg in [OC] The United States Prison Crisis by cbarrettg

Hmm, I’m not sure that fully explains the difference between the state level data and the national view. The nation was 629 “a few years earlier”, yet somehow the state average is around half of that. Did the country really reduce their total inmate population by ~50% in a few years?

Assuming the other country data remained the same over that same time span then the US would now be ranked ~20th globally rather than 1st. That seems like way too big of a difference to just be caused by a few years difference in the data.

As others have mentioned, is the state data ignoring federal prisons? Could they be defining populations in different ways? It’s tough connecting the two datasets without fully understanding why they are so different.

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anonkitty2 t1_jecxwzd wrote

State prisons and federal prisons are two different types of prison. The state-level data only has state-level prisons. Federal prisons are in national data alone.

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DevinCauley-Towns t1_jecz4o6 wrote

Right, but no where on this infographic does it mention the federal inmates are ignored from the state statistics. The state graphic simply says “inmates”, it doesn’t specify that it is only a subset of inmates physically housed within each state. You can easily look up the number of federal inmates located within each state or even facility, so it isn’t impossible to find the information. OP didn’t even seem to realize the datasets were that different, so that’s likely why it wasn’t called out in the graphic (and also why it should’ve been, since it’s not clear at all).

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shinilh t1_jee0nhf wrote

Yes, don’t you remember all those sensationalist news stories about prisoners being released en masse due to COVID?

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