Source: Niskanen Center
by Jenny Williams & Donald Weatherburn
“After a long period of steady decline, the U.S. imprisonment rate rose by 2 percent between 2021 and 2022. In Maine, Connecticut, Kentucky, Rhode Island, North Dakota, Minnesota, Tennessee, Colorado, and Montana, the increase in prisoner numbers exceeded 6 percent. Mississippi’s prison population over this period grew by almost 15 percent. This is enormously expensive. The cost of imprisonment in the U.S. amounts to more than $80 billion per annum — money that could otherwise be spent on imperatives like public infrastructure, education, and healthcare. … The appeal of electronic monitoring is that it provides a low-cost means of depriving offenders of their liberty and monitoring their movements.” (09/03/25)