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Prisons in Washington

Washington held 14,441 people under its correctional authority, an imprisonment rate of 181 per 100,000 residents, at the end of 2023, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

That is rank 41 of 50.

2023

14,441
Prisoners
181
Imprisonment rate
Per 100,000 residents of all ages, as the Bureau computed it.
229
Rate among adults
Per 100,000 residents aged 18 or older.
13,526
Men
915
Women
12,337
Admissions
Sentenced prisoners admitted during the year.

2012 to 2023

12 years, from the 11 editions the Bureau publishes as a machine-readable bundle. Each edition carries its own year and the one before, so every year but the first and last is published twice. Where the two disagree, the later edition is shown, because the Bureau revises rather than restates.

Admissions and releases are blank before 2019. The Bureau published them in one table with two blocks until then, each with a column called “Total”, and this pipeline cannot yet tell one from the other. A blank is the honest answer.

Washington's prison population is 26.5% below its 2017 peak; 14,441 in 2023

People under Washington's jurisdiction at year end, 2012 to 2023. Jurisdiction rather than custody: the state holds jurisdiction over a prisoner it houses elsewhere, which is the count the Bureau of Justice Statistics publishes by state.

Source: The Bureau of Justice Statistics

About this chart

The figures

Washington's prison population is 26.5% below its 2017 peak; 14,441 in 2023. People under Washington's jurisdiction at year end, 2012 to 2023. Jurisdiction rather than custody: the state holds jurisdiction over a prisoner it houses elsewhere, which is the count the Bureau of Justice Statistics publishes by state.
YearPrisoners
201217,271
201317,984
201418,120
201518,284
201619,104
201719,656
201819,523
201919,261
202015,724
202113,674
202213,772
202314,441

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2 more columns on a wider screen

Prisoners under Washington's jurisdiction, 2012 to 2023
YearPrisonersRate per 100,000
201217,271249
201317,984256
201418,120254
201518,284252
201619,104259
201719,656261
201819,523256
201919,261250
202015,724203
202113,674175
202213,772174
202314,441181

Race and Hispanic origin · 2023

The Bureau’s own categories, under its own labels. This is the composition of the prison population, not a rate: it is not divided by the population of each group, and it should not be read as one. Percentages are of the people whose race the state reported.

Prisoners under Washington's jurisdiction by race and Hispanic origin, 2023
CategoryPrisonersShare
white7,95255.1%
black2,54117.6%
hispanic2,32316.1%
american indian alaska native7935.5%
asian6604.6%
unknown1070.7%
other650.5%
did not report00.0%
native hawaiian other pacific islander00.0%
two or more races00.0%

Sources

Compiled automatically from Bureau of Justice Statistics — Prisoners by a checked SQL query · Editor: Kian O'Connor · How this site is built

Data retrieved

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The immigration link above is EOIR’s courts, which sit in this state. CBP’s encounters are not by state and will not be: its sectors and field offices are areas of responsibility rather than a geography, and assigning them to states would be a claim the data does not make. Immigration and the border.