US states by prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction

Texas had the highest prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction of 50 states in 2013, at 168,280. North Dakota had the lowest, at 1,576. The median was 19,178 and the figure for the United States was 1.58 million. Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Highest168,280Texas

Lowest1,576North Dakota

Median19,17850 states

United States1,576,950History

Map of states, 2013

Under 5,000
5,000 to 9,000
9,000 to 19K
19K to 28K
28K to 43K
43K and over
No data

count, 2013. Hatched areas have no value for this period. Source: BJS, National Prisoner Statistics: prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities, total (CSAT quick table and Prisoners in YYYY statistical tables). Boundaries: U.S. Census Bureau cartographic boundary files.

All states, 2013

count. Source: BJS, National Prisoner Statistics: prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities, total (CSAT quick table and Prisoners in YYYY statistical tables). Retrieved 2026-10-12.

Full ranking

Rank	States	2013 count	Change on 2012
1	Texas	168,280	+1.1%
2	California	135,981	+1.1%
3	Florida	103,028	+1.1%
4	Georgia	54,004	-2.6%
5	New York	53,550	-1.2%
6	Ohio	51,729	+1.7%
7	Pennsylvania	51,422	+0.6%
8	Illinois	48,653	-1.4%
9	Michigan	43,759	+0.3%
10	Arizona	41,177	+2.7%
11	Louisiana	39,299	-2.2%
12	Virginia	36,982	-0.2%
13	North Carolina	36,922	-0.6%
14	Alabama	32,381	-0.2%
15	Missouri	31,537	+0.9%
16	Indiana	29,913	+3.8%
17	Tennessee	28,521	+0.4%
18	Oklahoma	27,547	+9.2%
19	Wisconsin	22,471	-0.6%
20	New Jersey	22,452	-3.3%
21	South Carolina	22,060	-1.5%
22	Mississippi	21,969	-1.6%
23	Maryland	21,335	-0.9%
24	Kentucky	21,030	-4.9%
25	Colorado	20,371	-0.4%
26	Washington	17,984	+4.1%
27	Connecticut	17,563	+0.2%
28	Arkansas	17,235	+17.6%
29	Oregon	15,517	+4.6%
30	Nevada	13,056	+1.3%
31	Massachusetts	10,950	-3.2%
32	Minnesota	10,289	+3.5%
33	Kansas	9,763	+0.8%
34	Iowa	8,697	-0.4%
35	Idaho	8,242	+3.2%
36	Utah	7,077	+1.7%
37	Delaware	7,004	+1.3%
38	New Mexico	6,931	+3%
39	West Virginia	6,824	-3.5%
40	Hawaii	5,632	-3.4%
41	Alaska	5,081	-9.8%
42	Nebraska	5,026	+6.8%
43	South Dakota	3,682	+0.9%
44	Montana	3,642	+0.9%
45	Rhode Island	3,361	+1.3%
46	New Hampshire	3,018	+8.2%
47	Wyoming	2,310	+4.8%
48	Maine	2,173	+3.1%
49	Vermont	2,078	+2.2%
50	North Dakota	1,576	+4.2%

Other periods

About this ranking

Prisoners of any sentence status under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities on December 31. Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Prisoner Statistics.

Prisoners are counted by the jurisdiction with legal authority over them, wherever they are held, on December 31. The national figure adds the federal system to the states. Local jails are not included, except in Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island and Vermont, which run one combined prison and jail system. Felons sentenced in the District of Columbia have been the responsibility of the Federal Bureau of Prisons since 2001, so the District has values only up to 2000.

Every value in the ranking comes from the same publisher and the same period, so the states are compared on one definition. 1 states with data in other periods have no value for 2013 and are left out rather than filled from another source. Equal values share a rank.

How to cite

Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Prisoner Statistics. National Prisoner Statistics: prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities, total (CSAT quick table and Prisoners in YYYY statistical tables). https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2023-statistical-tables. Retrieved 2026-10-12.

Citation styles

The publisher is the author. Invokely is named only as the place the figures were read, where a style asks for it.

APA 7

Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2026). National Prisoner Statistics: prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities, total (CSAT quick table and Prisoners in YYYY statistical tables) (US states by prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction, 2013) [Data set]. Retrieved October 12, 2026, from https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2023-statistical-tables

MLA 9

National Prisoner Statistics: prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities, total (CSAT quick table and Prisoners in YYYY statistical tables), US states by prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction, 2013. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 20 Feb. 2026, https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2023-statistical-tables. Invokely, https://invokely.ai/rankings/prisoners-under-jurisdiction/us-states?period=2013. Accessed 12 Oct. 2026.

Chicago (author-date)

Bureau of Justice Statistics. 2026. National Prisoner Statistics: prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities, total (CSAT quick table and Prisoners in YYYY statistical tables). US states by prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction, 2013. Dataset. Accessed October 12, 2026. https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2023-statistical-tables. Also distributed by Invokely, https://invokely.ai/rankings/prisoners-under-jurisdiction/us-states?period=2013.

Harvard

Bureau of Justice Statistics (2026) National Prisoner Statistics: prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities, total (CSAT quick table and Prisoners in YYYY statistical tables), US states by prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction, 2013 [Dataset]. Available at: https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2023-statistical-tables, via Invokely: https://invokely.ai/rankings/prisoners-under-jurisdiction/us-states?period=2013 (Accessed: 12 October 2026).

BibTeX

@misc{bureau_us_states_by_prisoners_2013,
  author = {{Bureau of Justice Statistics}},
  title = {{National Prisoner Statistics: prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities, total (CSAT quick table and Prisoners in YYYY statistical tables): US states by prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction, 2013}},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Data set},
  url = {https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2023-statistical-tables},
  urldate = {2026-10-12},
  note = {Accessed via Invokely, https://invokely.ai/rankings/prisoners-under-jurisdiction/us-states?period=2013. Publisher attribution: Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Prisoner Statistics. National Prisoner Statistics: prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities, total (CSAT quick table and Prisoners in YYYY statistical tables). https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2023-statistical-tables. Retrieved 2026-10-12.},
}

RIS

TY  - DATA
AU  - Bureau of Justice Statistics
TI  - National Prisoner Statistics: prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities, total (CSAT quick table and Prisoners in YYYY statistical tables): US states by prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction, 2013
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/02/20
PB  - Bureau of Justice Statistics
DB  - Invokely
UR  - https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2023-statistical-tables
L2  - https://invokely.ai/rankings/prisoners-under-jurisdiction/us-states?period=2013
Y2  - 2026/10/12
N1  - Accessed via Invokely, https://invokely.ai/rankings/prisoners-under-jurisdiction/us-states?period=2013.
N1  - Publisher attribution: Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Prisoner Statistics. National Prisoner Statistics: prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities, total (CSAT quick table and Prisoners in YYYY statistical tables). https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2023-statistical-tables. Retrieved 2026-10-12.
ER  -

Embed this chart

Paste this code into a web page or a blog post. The chart shows the latest figures as they are published, with the source and a link back to this page.

Embed code

<iframe src="https://invokely.ai/embed/rankings/prisoners-under-jurisdiction/us-states?period=2013" width="760" height="500" title="US states by prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction, 2013, chart from Invokely" loading="lazy" style="border:0;width:100%;max-width:760px" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin"></iframe>

Sites that read oEmbed links, such as WordPress, can show the chart when you paste the link to this page.

Use this data in your AI agent

Invokely serves this figure to AI assistants through MCP and to code through a REST API, with the source and citation attached. Ask your assistant:

Rank US states by prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction using official data, and cite the source.

rank_places {"indicator":"prisoners_under_jurisdiction","level":"region","within":"United States","limit":10}
GET https://invokely.ai/api/v1/rank?indicator=prisoners_under_jurisdiction&level=region&within=United%20States&limit=10

Connect Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor in one step. The trial answers 25 calls a day without an account.

Questions

Which state has the highest prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction?

Texas, with 168,280 in 2013, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Which state has the lowest prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction?

North Dakota, with 1,576 in 2013.

Where does this ranking come from?

Every value comes from one source and one period, so the places are comparable: Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Prisoner Statistics: prisoners under the jurisdiction of state or federal correctional authorities, total (CSAT quick table and Prisoners in YYYY statistical tables). Retrieved 2026-10-12. 1 states have no value for 2013 and are not ranked.