California’s prison population has dropped

California, despite having the second-highest prison population in the nation, stands out for defying a national trend. While the U.S. prison population increased by more than 2 percent between 2021 and 2022, California’s incarcerated population declined.

The state’s prison population declined by 3,833 prisoners—a nearly 3.8 percent decrease, according to a report by Las Vegas injury firm H&P Law, based on data from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics that analyzed incarceration rates in 2021 and 2022.

The most recent estimate of California’s prison population is roughly 95,600, according to a January 2023 report by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). The inmates are housed in 32 prisons—two for women—while some are housed in other places, like community reentry facilities.

Governor Gavin Newsom has closed two prisons—the Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy in 2021 and the California Correctional Center in Susanville in 2023. Chuckawalla Valley State Prison is expected to close by March 2025.

While the population of prisoners nationwide has actually increased by nearly 25,000 people, or just over 2 percent per year, California had the third-largest decline in incarcerated population. Virginia had the largest drop in prisoners, with an annual decrease of 10.5 percent, and Oregon was second with a 5.2 percent decline.

California was second to Texas in prisoner admissions, with nearly 28,200 in 2022. Conversely, California led with the largest increase in prison releases that year with roughly 6,500 more than in 2021.

California’s inmate population peaked in 2006, with more than 173,000 people behind bars in the state, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Newsweek reached out to the CDCR’s press office for comment via email on Thursday, as well as mass incarceration legal scholars.

According to the California Legislature’s Nonpartisan Fiscal and Policy Advisor data from 2021 to 2022, “it costs an average of about $106,000 per year to incarcerate an inmate in prison in California.” The bulk of the costs are related to security and inmate care, with COVID-19 contributing to higher costs in 2021-2022.

Nonpartisan and nonprofit news organization CalMatters puts the cost of imprisoning someone in California at $132,860 annually, an over 90 percent increase in the past decade.

Several California prisons have come under fire for horrible conditions, such as San Quentin State Prison. In January, the CDCR released an independent report from the San Quentin Transformation Advisory Council calling on Newsom to “reimagine” one of the most notorious prisons, seeking to transform it from “a maximum-security prison into a rehabilitation center focused on improving public safety.”

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