JACKSON, Miss. (WJTV) – A recent report from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) revealed that prison is part of more people’s reality in Mississippi than in any other state.
The late 2023 report from the DOJ analyzed data among prisons in 2021 and 2022. The United States imprisons 311 out of every 100,000 residents. Mississippi imprisons more than twice that number at 661 people per 100,000. It is one of four states with more than 1% of its male residents serving sentences of more than one year in state prison.
Between the end of 2021 and 2022, the United States’ overall prison population increased by 2.1%. In Mississippi, it increased by 14.3%. Below is the breakdown.
United States
2021
- Overall: 1,205,087
- Male: 1,121,436
- Female: 83,651
2022
- Overall: 1,230,143
- Male: 1,142,359
- Female: 87,784
Change
- Overall: 25,056 (2.1%)
- Male: 20,923 (1.9%)
- Female: 4,133 (4.9%)
Mississippi
2021
- Overall: 17,332
- Male: 16,116
- Female: 1,216
2022
- Overall: 19,802
- Male: 18,208
- Female: 1,594
Change
- Overall: 2,470 (14.3%)
- Male: 2,092 (13.0%)
- Female: 378 (31.1%)
About 0.86% and 0.9% of the country’s overall male and female population live in Mississippi, respectively. However, the state accounted for 1.44% and 1.45% of the country’s incarcerated male and female population in 2021. In 2022, it increased to 1.59% and 1.82%. Between 2021 and 2022, Mississippi maintained its designation of having the highest imprisonment rate per capita nationwide and also had the largest increase in its prison population overall.
By 2022’s end, the share of Mississippians in the country’s overall prison population was over 83% higher than its share of the country’s overall population. Mississippi’s share of incarcerated women in the U.S. was more than twice the state’s share of women in the country’s overall population.
Despite high incarceration rates, the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) has created programs intended to rehabilitate prisoners. MDOC unveiled a centralized group of vocational programs in May 2023 designed to help instruct inmates to become welders, electricians, construction workers and more after prison. In October, MDOC opened a licensed cosmetology school for prisoners in its Greenwood facility.
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