You might be surprised by how many people end up in jail in New York State, especially compared to other states. You may also be surprised to find out which county jail (outside of New York City) has the highest jail population.

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247 Wall St. ranked each state according to their jail population.

Using data on unique jail admissions from the Prison Policy Initiative, a non-profit research organization, 24/7 Tempo determined how many people in each state go to local jails every year.

Before we get to where New York State ranks, let's take a look at the states with the most and least amount of people locked up.

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Shockingly, the state with the lowest jail population (Annual unique jail admissions per 100,000) is actually the state with the largest overall population:

50. California

> Annual unique jail admissions: 934 per 100,000 residents (368,000 total)
> Violent crime rate: 442 per 100,000 residents (16th highest)
> Property crime rate: 2,139 per 100,000 residents (18th highest)
> Poverty rate: 12.3% (21st highest)
> Total population: 39,237,836 (the largest)

You might be equally surprised to find out which state sends the most people to jail:

1. South Dakota

> Annual unique jail admissions: 2,888 per 100,000 residents (25,000 total)
> Violent crime rate: 501 per 100,000 residents (8th highest)
> Property crime rate: 1,957 per 100,000 residents (25th lowest)
> Poverty rate: 12.3% (22nd highest)
> Total population: 895,376 (5th smallest)

When it comes to New York State, we are actually pretty low on the list considering we have the fourth largest population.

34. New York

> Annual unique jail admissions: 1,346 per 100,000 residents (267,000 total)
> Violent crime rate: 364 per 100,000 residents (25th lowest)
> Property crime rate: 1,411 per 100,000 residents (10th lowest)
> Poverty rate: 13.9% (13th highest)
> Total population: 19,835,913 (4th largest)

You check out how the rest of the states ranked here

These 7 Jails In New York State Have The Most People Locked Up

Some jails in New York State have more people locked up than others. Of course, nobody wants to go to jail, but sometimes things happen. New York collects data on how many people are in the various jails across the state.

New York City jail population figures have been reported to the state since 2016, while data for the Non-New York City region and each county outside of the five boroughs are shown annually from 1997 onward.