Study Finds 0.38% Of Tennessee Residents Are Incarcerated

Tennessee Prisons Now Hold 26,349 People And 60,622 Residents Are On Probation.

(The Center Square) – The number of incarcerated individuals in Tennessee stands at 384 per 100,000 residents, the 20th-highest rate among the 50 states, according to new data from the Sentencing Project.

A total of 26,349 people are now imprisoned in Tennessee, according to the study, which also reported that 60,622 residents were on probation. 

Other issues quantified in the Sentencing Project numbers include racial disparities, the number of juveniles in custody and spending on states’ corrections systems. The nonprofit group obtains its data from a variety of sources, including the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention and National Association of State Budget Officers.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any nation in the world, with 2.2 million people behind bars, according to the Sentencing Project. The number of Americans in prison or jail has increased fivefold over the last four decades, the researchers found.

Changes in public policies and laws have been driving this increase, the study says. The result has been serious overcrowding problems in prisons and added financial burdens for states, according to the data. 

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Incarceration Rates by State

Source: The Sentencing Project