Percent of unsentenced detainees held in state and federal prisons and local jails

Sub-categories

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Headline data

Percent of unsentenced detainees held in state and federal prisons and local jails
Year Value
2000 19.3
2001 20.2
2002 20.9
2003 21.4
2004 21.5
2005 22.4
2006 22.4
2007 22.3
2008 22.5
2009 21.9
2010 21.2
2011 20.9
2012 21.4
2013 21.5
2014 22.0
2015 21.9
2016 23.3
2017 23.5
2018 24.2
2019 24.3
2020 23.9
2021 26.2
2022 26.9

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics

Geographical Area:

Unit of Measurement:

Footnote:

This table provides metadata for the actual indicator available from United States statistics closest to the corresponding global SDG indicator. Please note that even when the global SDG indicator is fully available from American statistics, this table should be consulted for information on national methodology and other American-specific metadata information.

Indicator

Unsentenced detainees as a proportion of overall prison population
Organisation

Bureau of Justice Statistics
Definition and concepts

The incarcerated population is the estimated number of persons under the jurisdiction of state or federal prisons and in the custody of local jails. This excludes youth held in juvenile facilities, persons held in military facilities, persons detained in Immigration and Customs operated facilities, and persons held in US territories and commonwealths.

Unsentenced detainees is derived from the sum of the number of unsentenced persons held in state and federal prisons and the number of unconvicted persons held in local jails. Unsentenced is defined as having not yet received a sentence. Unconvicted is defined as awaiting court action on a current charge or held in jail for other reasons. Unconvicted does not include persons in jail that have been convicted but are waiting for sentencing.
Unit of measure

Percent of total prison and jail population
Data sources

National Prisoner Statistics, Annual Survey of Jails, Census of Jails
Data providers

Bureau of Justice Statistics
Comment and limitations

National Prisoners Statistics (NPS) - Started in 1926 under a mandate from Congress, NPS collects annual data on persons held in state and federal prisons at yearend. The NPS distinguishes between persons in custody and persons under jurisdiction. To have custody of a person in prison, a state or the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) must hold that person in one of its facilities. To have jurisdiction over a person in prison, the state or FBOP must have legal authority over that person, regardless of where the person is incarcerated or supervised. The NPS jurisdiction counts include persons held in prisons, penitentiaries, correctional facilities, halfway houses, boot camps, farms, training or treatment centers, and hospitals. Counts also include prisoners who were temporarily absent (less than 30 days), in court, or on work release; housed in privately operated facilities, local jails, or other state or federal facilities; and serving concurrent sentences for more than one correctional authority. The NPS custody counts include all persons held within a respondent’s facilities, including inmates housed for other correctional facilities. The custody counts for prisons exclude inmates held in local jails and in other jurisdictions. With a few exceptions, the NPS custody counts exclude inmates held in privately operated facilities. The persons held in state and federal prison counts included for this indicator are based on the custody counts.

Census of Jails (COJ) and Annual Survey of Jails (ASJ) - The COJ is conducted approximately every 5 years and obtains data from all jails in the United States and FBOP detention facilities that function as jails. In between COJ years, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) conducts the ASJ. The ASJ uses a stratified probability sample of jail jurisdictions to estimate the number and characteristics of local inmates nationwide. In the sampling design, the jail jurisdictions nationwide are grouped into 10 strata. In 2022, the 10 strata were defined by two variables: the jail jurisdiction average daily population (ADP), and whether the jurisdiction held at least one juvenile. For 8 of the 10 strata, a random sample of jail jurisdictions was selected. For the remaining two strata, all jurisdictions were included in the sample. One stratum consisted of all jails that were operated jointly by two or more jurisdictions (referred to as multi-jurisdictional jails). The other certainty stratum consisted of large jail jurisdictions that on June 28, 2019 held either— at least one juvenile inmate and a total of 500 or more inmates, or 750 or more adult inmates. BJS uses nonresponse weight adjustment procedures to account for unit nonresponse and a weighted sequential hot-deck/cold-deck imputation procedure for critical items. See BJS website for additional information: https://bjs.ojp.gov/data-collection/annual-survey-jails-asj

Notes: (1) Annual jail inmate estimates are subject to sampling error. The standard error for the percentage of unconvicted persons held in jail was 0.44% in 2022. (2) Estimates for 2000-2014, 2017-2022 were based on mid-year jail populations (last weekday in June). Estimates for 2015-2016 were based on year-end prison populations (December 31). (3) Unsentenced state and federal prisoner counts exclude an unknown number held in privately operated facilities.
Method of computation

The sum of persons held in prisons who were unsentenced and persons held in local jails who were not convicted divided by the total number of persons held in prisons and jails, multiplied by 100
Actual indicator available - description

Unsentenced persons held in prisons and unconvicted persons held in jails as a proportion of the overall prison and jail population
Date of national source publication

May 2024
Periodicity

Annual; Counts for persons held in state and federal prisons are based on yearend. Counts for persons held in jails are based on midyear or yearend depending on the year (2000-2015, 2017-2022: last weekday in June; 2015-2016: December 31).
Scheduled update by national source

January 2025
Date metadata updated

July 2024
Disaggregation geography

None
Disaggregation categories

None
International and national references

National Prisoner Statistics: https://bjs.ojp.gov/data-collection/national-prisoner-statistics-nps ; Annual Survey of Jails: https://bjs.ojp.gov/data-collection/annual-survey-jails-asj ; Census of Jails: https://bjs.ojp.gov/data-collection/census-jails-coj
Time period

2000-2022

This table provides information on metadata for SDG indicators as defined by the UN Statistical Commission. Complete global metadata is provided by the UN Statistics Division.

Indicator

Indicator 16.3.2: Unsentenced detainees as a proportion of overall prison population
Target

Target 16.3: Promote the rule of law at the national and international levels and ensure equal access to justice for all
Organisation

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
Definition and concepts

Definition:

The total number of persons held in detention who have not yet been sentenced, as a percentage of the total number of persons held in detention, on a specified date.

Concepts:

‘Persons held in detention‘ refers to persons held in Prisons, Penal Institutions or Correctional Institutions on a specified day and should exclude non-criminal prisoners held for administrative purposes, for example, persons held pending investigation into their immigration status or foreign citizens without a legal right to stay. Also, people under house arrest, persons under other forms of sanctions or supervision, such as electronic surveillance or community-based surveillance should be excluded from the prison population (persons held in prison).

‘Sentenced’ refers persons held in prisons, penal institutions or correctional institutions after a first instance decision or a final decision on their case has been made by a competent authority. This includes sentenced prisoners with a final decision and persons held who are awaiting the outcome of an appeal in respect of verdict or sentence or who are within the statutory limits for appealing . Persons held who have received a custodial sentence for one crime but are still under trial and unsentenced for another crime should be counted as sentenced persons held. Furthermore, for the purpose of international comparability, persons held who have been convicted of a crime (in a first instance decision) but who have not yet received a sentence should also be treated as ‘sentenced’, even if national definitions of sentenced detainees are narrower. ’.

‘Unsentenced’ refers to persons held in prisons, penal institutions or correctional institutions who are untried, pre-trial or awaiting a first instance decision on their case from a competent authority regarding their conviction or acquittal. Persons held before and during the trial should be included. Sentenced persons held awaiting the outcome of an appeal in respect of verdict or sentence or who are within the statutory limits for appealing their sentence should be excluded.
Unit of measure

Percent (%)
Data sources

UNODC collects data on prisons directly from national prison authorities through its annual data collection on crime and criminal justice (UN Survey of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems, UN-CTS). In addition, UNODC collects data on prisons from National Statistical Offices through the annual SDG pre-publication validation exercise. Furthermore, prison data are augmented periodically by consulting national data compiled by independent research initiatives (such as the World Prison Brief) or non-governmental sources.

The population data are sourced from the World Population Prospect, Population Division, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
Data providers

National prison authority, through the UNCTS Focal Points
Comment and limitations

The target relates to the multidimensional concepts of rule of law and access to justice and at least two indicators are required to cover the main elements of access to justice and efficiency of the justice system. The proposed indicator 16.3.2 covers the efficiency of the justice system.

Furthermore, it is not straightforward to define a concrete target for Indicator 16.3.2. This is because pre-sentence detention is a constitutive part of the criminal justice process and a very low share of of unsentenced detainees (e.g. close to zero) is not necessarily reflective of an accessible and fair criminal justice process.
Method of computation

The indicator is calculated as the total number of unsentenced persons held in detention divided by the total number of persons held in detention on a specified date, multiplied by 100

P e r c e n t a g e   = 100 * P e r s o n s   h e l d   u n s e n t e n c e d   P e r s o n s   h e l d  

For the percentage by sex, the number of persons held unsentenced of that sex should be divided by the number of persons held of the same sex.
Metadata update

2024-01-31
International organisations(s) responsible for global monitoring

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
Related indicators

Several other SDG indicators are related to access to justice and the efficiency of the criminal justice system: Indicator 16.3.1 on reporting experiences of violence to the authorities; Indicator 16.3.3. on access to dispute resolution mechanism
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