The World’s Highest Incarceration Rates (Including U.S. States)
See visuals like this from many other data creators on our Voronoi app. Download it for free on iOS or Android and discover incredible data-driven charts from a variety of trusted sources.
Key Takeaways
- El Salvador has the highest incarcertion rate globally, fueled by anti-crime crackdowns with little due process.
- Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas follow next in line with significantly higher rates than the U.S. average.
If U.S. states each represented a country, they would make up nine of the top 10 highest incarceration rates worldwide.
Not only that, each of these states—spanning from Louisiana to Washington, D.C.—have a higher incarceration rate than Cuba. For decades, Cuba has been known for its political repression and arbitrary detentions for citizens criticizing the political regime.
This graphic shows the countries with the highest incarceration rates compared with U.S. states, based on data from the Prison Policy Initiative.
Ranked: The Top 30 Highest Incarceration Rates
Below, we show the number of prisoners per 100,000 people. Country data is as of 2024, while state data uses 2021 ratios applied to the 2024 U.S. prison population.
| Country/ State | Incarceration Rate (per 100,000) |
|---|---|
 El Salvador |
1,086 |
 Louisiana |
1,067 |
| Mississippi |
1,020 |
| Arkansas |
912 |
| Oklahoma |
905 |
| Alabama |
898 |
| Kentucky |
889 |
| Georgia |
881 |
| Tennessee |
817 |
| D.C. |
816 |
| South Dakota |
812 |
 Cuba |
794 |
| Wyoming |
785 |
| Montana |
758 |
| Texas |
751 |
| Alaska |
744 |
| Indiana |
721 |
| Idaho |
720 |
| Missouri |
713 |
| Arizona |
710 |
| Florida |
705 |
| Virginia |
679 |
| West Virginia |
674 |
| Kansas |
648 |
| New Mexico |
647 |
 Rwanda |
637 |
| Ohio |
621 |
| Wisconsin |
615 |
| U.S. |
614 |
| Nevada |
610 |
| South Carolina |
606 |
Under President Bukele’s mass incarceration, tens of thousands of El Salvadorans have been imprisoned.
Many faced sentences with minimal evidence or fair trial, as the country’s authoritarian leader aims to crack down on crime. Since 2022, 8% of the young male population in El Salvador have faced jail time.
Louisiana follows closely after El Salvador, with incarceration rates of 1,067 per 100,000 people. Several other states in the South also feature among the highest rates globally. Texas, ranked #15, has the nation’s largest prison population, with approximately 219,000 inmates.
Overall, America’s incarceration rate has grown more than sixfold since 1972—reaching 614 prisoners per 100,000 people. It stands only after El Salvador, Cuba, and Rwanda, all low-income, developing countries. By contrast, Finland has incarceration rates of 51 per 100,000 people while the rate in its northern neighbor, Canada, is 88.
Learn More on the Voronoi App 
To learn more about this topic, check out this graphic on costs per prisoner by U.S. state.
- Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-worlds-highest-incarceration-rates-including-u-s-states/
