Indiana
Statistics
How Many People are Incarcerated in Indiana?
Indiana has an incarceration rate of 721 per 100,000 people (including prisons, jails, immigration detention, and juvenile justice facilities), meaning that it locks up a higher percentage of its people than any independent democratic country on earth. At any given time, there are nearly 50,000 men and women behind bars.
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Additionally, the number of people impacted by county and city jails in Indiana is much larger than the graph below would suggest, because people cycle through local jails relatively quickly. Each year, at least 122,000 different people are booked into local jails in Indiana. Finally, there are 96,000 men and women on probation and another 5,500 on parole. ​
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Racial Disparity in Incarceration Rates
Indiana has a long and sordid history of racism once being the epicenter of the KKK in the 1920's and 1930's. While much progress has been made, there remains a very large disparity between black, white, and Hispanic in local prisons.
In 2021, out of every 100,000 people 1,206 of them were Black compared with only 272 Whites. When combined with some of the social factors like homelessness, poverty, low education levels, and abandonment, it is clear there is much work to do.
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How Do These Statistics Rank in Comparison with the rest of the United States?
However, this is only a fraction of those who are under some sort of state or federal supervision. In addition to those who are incarcerated there are also another 3.5 million men and women on probation or parole. Put simply, the United States locks up more than any other independent democratic country on earth.
