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Figure 6
Falling Crime and Jail Admissions Did Not Translate Into Taxpayer Savings
Percentage change in crime and jail admissions, population, and expenditures, 2007 to 2017

Jail spending increased 13%
between 2007 and 2017, even
though 2 million fewer crimes were
reported to law enforcement in
2017 than 10 years earlier. During
22
that same span, jail admissions
dropped 19%, from 13.1 million to
10.6 million, and the average daily
jail population declined by 4%, or
27,500 people. 23
However, jail populations were
relatively stagnant between 2007
Notes: Expenditures have been adjusted to 2017 dollars. The spending and and 2017 because the average
crime figures exclude the seven states that have unified or quasi-unified systems; number of days spent in jail
the admissions and population figures include two of those states—Alaska and increased from 22 to 26 during that
Massachusetts—and Washington, D.C. “Crime” includes serious offenses as period, which largely offset the
defined by the FBI: homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny, decrease in admissions. 24
and motor vehicle theft.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, “Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances”
(2007 and 2017), https://www. census.gov/programs-surveys/gov-finances/data/datasets.
html; Z. Zeng, “Jail Inmates in 2018” (2020), https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/ji18.pdf;
Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Crime in the United States” (2007 and 2017),
https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/ucr. © 2021 The Pew Charitable Trusts

Figure 7 Across states, the percentage of local
State Crime Rates Were Not Correlated with Jail Spending expenditures going to jails varied and
Jail expenditures as a percentage of local spending, was not significantly related to crime
25
compared with crime rate by state, 2017 rates in 2017. Jail spending accounted
for between 0.6% and 3% of total local
spending in each state.
Residents of some states with lower
crime rates spent more of their local
budgets on jails than those in states
with higher crime rates. For example,
Nevada and Missouri were at opposite
ends of the spectrum in jail spending
despite having similar crime rates,
while in California and New Jersey,
communities spent roughly the
same share of their budgets, despite
divergent state crime rates.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics has
not produced state-level jail admission
or population data since 2013. Such
26
Note: Expenditures include all localities, regardless of whether they report jail data could potentially show differences
costs, and exclude the seven states that have unified or quasi-unified systems. in admissions, populations, or lengths
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, “Annual Survey of State and Local Government Finances” of stay in jail that might explain cost
(2017), https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/gov-finances/data/datasets.html; Federal
Bureau of Investigation, “Crime in the United States, 2017” (2017), https://ucr.fbi.gov/ variations across states.
crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-2017/topic-pages/tables/table-5
© 2021 The Pew Charitable Trusts
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