I believe these are the federal numbers.. something around 215,000 if I understand these Federal Bureau of Prisons data. I have not found the very latest numbers for state and local yet.
Federal Bureau of Prisons Tables, August 2014
| Age | # of Inmates | % of Inmates |
|---|---|---|
| Under 18 | 35 | 0.0% |
| 18-21 | 2,870 | 1.3% |
| 22-25 | 12,956 | 6.0% |
| 26-30 | 28,976 | 13.5% |
| 31-35 | 40,449 | 18.8% |
| 36-40 | 38,633 | 18.0% |
| 41-45 | 31,882 | 14.8% |
| 46-50 | 22,839 | 10.6% |
| 51-55 | 16,220 | 7.6% |
| 56-60 | 9,750 | 4.5% |
| 61-65 | 5,548 | 2.6% |
| 65 | 4,541 | 2.1% |
| Native Country | ||
|---|---|---|
| # of Inmates | % of Inmates | |
| Colombia | 2,023 | 0.9% |
| Cuba | 1,452 | 0.7% |
| Dominican Republic | 2,077 | 1.0% |
| Mexico | 36,236 | 16.9% |
| Other/Unknown | 10,672 | 5.0% |
| United States | 162,239 | 75.6% |
| Ethnicity | # of Inmates | % of Inmates |
|---|---|---|
| Hispanic | 74,338 | 34.6% |
| Non-Hispanic | 140,361 | 65.4% |
| Gender | # of Inmates | % of Inmates |
|---|---|---|
| Female | 14,314 | 6.7% |
| Male | 200,385 | 93.3% |
| Race | # of Inmates | % of Inmates |
|---|---|---|
| Asian | 3,316 | 1.5% |
| Black | 80,091 | 37.3% |
| Native American | 4,041 | 1.9% |
| White | 127,251 | 59.3% |
| Sentence | # of Inmates | % of Inmates |
|---|---|---|
| Less than 1 year | 6,668 | 2.3 % |
| 1-3 years | 23,891 | 11.8% |
| 3-5 years | 27,130 | 13.4% |
| 5-10 years | 51,460 | 25.4% |
| 10-15 years | 40,988 | 20.3% |
| 15-20 years | 22,265 | 11.0% |
| More than 20 years | 24,450 | 12.1% |
| Life | 5,493 | 2.7% |
| Death | 58 | 0.0% |
| Offense | # of Inmates | % of Inmates |
|---|---|---|
| Banking and Insurance, Counterfeit, Embezzlement | 724 | 0.4% |
| Burglary, Larceny, Property Offenses | 7,913 | 3.9% |
| Continuing Criminal Enterprise | 454 | 0.2% |
| Courts or Corrections | 827 | 0.4% |
| Drug Offenses | 98,964 | 48.8% |
| Extortion, Fraud, Bribery | 12,428 | 6.1% |
| Homicide, Aggravated Assault, and Kidnapping Offenses | 5,775 | 2.9% |
| Immigration | 20,853 | 10.3% |
| Miscellaneous | 1,545 | 0.8% |
| National Security | 81 | 0.0% |
| Robbery | 7,514 | 3.7% |
| Sex Offenses | 13,329 | 6.6% |
| Weapons, Explosives, Arson | 32,203 | 15.9% |
| Security Level | # of Inmates | % of Inmates |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum | 36,787 | 17.1% |
| Low | 83,753 | 39.0% |
| Medium | 62,586 | 29.2% |
| High | 24,036 | 11.2% |
| Unclassified | 7,537 | 3.5% |
What % of those 127,000 whites are Hispanic?
Of note, by far the largest category of offenses, “Drug offenses”, is one that the Federal government has zero Constitutional authority to be regulating, much less criminalizing. Also, the second largest category “Weapons, Explosives, Arson” surely includes a large number of inmates jailed for simply exercising their 2nd Amendment guaranteed rights.
IN 2013 THE STATE PRISON POPULATION ROSE FOR THE FIRST TIME SINCE 2009 [while the] Federal prison population declined for first time since 1980.
No tables that I could find but this document states
WASHINGTON – U.S. state and federal prisons held an estimated 1,574,700 inmates on December 31, 2013, an increase of 4,300 prisoners over yearend 2012 , the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. This was the first increase in the state prison population reported since 2009. While the state prison population increased by about 6,300 during 2013 , the federal prison population decreased by approximately 1,900 inmates. This was the first decline in the federal prison population since 1980.
So as I read the above (my replies) and this information, in 2013 city and county jails held 731,208; this document says that U.S. state and federal prisons held an estimated 1,574,700.
That's pretty close to the 2.2 million as stated in the posted article:
.... the country's sky-high prison rates . . . There are currently some 2.2m people in jail in the US – or more than 750 per 100,000 population – which makes the US by far the heaviest user of prison sentences in the world. By contrast, Britain imprisons just 154 per 100,000 population.