Data page

Sections

Documentation and guides

2020 vintage data and tools

2010 vintage data and tools

2000 vintage data and tools

Documentation

• Using the Census Bureau's Group Quarters Table
• Using the Census Bureau's TIGER footprints data
• Preventing prison-based gerrymandering in redistricting: What to watch for by Peter Wagner and Brenda Wright, Prison Policy Initiative and Demos, February 23, 2011 [En Español]
• Democracy Toolkit (training on using our research tools and analyzing the impact of prison-based gerrymandering on local governments.)

2020 data and tools

• Correctional Facility Locator (2020) Annotations and correctional facility counts by block, searchable by county. (Available now, annotations are being added on a rolling basis.)
• National point shapefile with correctional facility populations and a links to our database of facility name/type annotations and racial/ethnic/sex/age data. Contains group quarters populations for any block with institutionalized correctional population.(We also made a similar, much larger, shapefile with all of the group quarters data and a subset of the race and ethnicity data for those blocks.)
  • Single-state versions of this shapefile are available through the Redistricting Data Hub.
• Our database of annotations of each block that contains a correctional facility and the demographic breakdown of each will be accessible at the URL https://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/data/2020blocks/$geoid/ where $geoid is the 15 digit state-county-tract-block code of a block with a correctional facility. (Available now, more facility and demographic details are being added on a rolling basis.)
• The populations and addresses of all state, federal and local correctional facilities from other sources on the most recent available date to the 2020 Census.
• A county locator tool (enter a city or town and we'll tell you what states/counties contain that city or town).
• The Census Bureau is giving special access to states to use its geocoder for mapping large batches of addresses to Census geographies. (The Census Bureau's geocoder tool is available for anyone to use to find the corresponding Census geography for a specific address.)
• Block-level estimates of home addresses of incarcerated people in Arizona, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin. Prepared by Rory Kramer, PhD., and Brianna Remster, PhD., and Denise Wilson, hosted by Redistricting Data Hub.
• Home states of people in Bureau of Prisons facilities lists a tally of how many people incarcerated in Bureau of Prisons facilities come from each state (and territory) for recent years. (The list for 2020 is here.)

2010 data and tools

• Correctional Facility Locator (2010) Annotations and correctional facility counts by block, searchable by county. Includes TIGER facility footprints.
• Google Earth kml files allow you to view the information available through our Correctional Facility Locator through Google Earth.
• National point shapefile with the group quarters (including correctional facilities) populations and subsets of this file for two states:
  • For Minnesota: State, federal, private prisons and halfway houses ESRI shapefile Maptitude layer
  • For Massachusetts: State, federal prisons and county houses of correction: ESRI shapefile
• Our database of annotations of each block that contains a correctional facility and the demographic breakdown of each will be accessible at the URL https://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/data/2010blocks/$geoid/ where $geoid is the 15 digit state-county-tract-code of a block with a correctional facility, ie https://www.prisonersofthecensus.org/data/2010blocks/361219702001024/
• A .csv file with the block level race and ethnicity data for the correctional population in all but four blocks. A link to the methodology for each block is included in the file.
• Analysis of the racial disparities, by county and state, between people incarcerated in a county and the residential population of that county.
• Memo about New and Expanded Federal and State Prisons since 2000
• The populations and addresses of all state, federal and local correctional facilities from other sources on the most recent available date to the 2010 Census
• A list of all federal halfway houses in March 2010
• For jails in Indian Country, see Appendix 1-A in Bureau of Justice Statistics, Jails in Indian Country, 2010
• A county locator tool (enter a city or town and we'll tell you what states/counties contain that city or town

2000 data and tools

• Too big to ignore: How counting people in prisons distorted Census 2000, the first national analysis of how Census counts of incarcerated people distort Census data
  • Includes interactive custom tables
• Correctional Facility Locator (2000) Annotations and correctional facility counts by block
• Correctional facility census counts, in ESRI shapefile, Maptitude, Google Earth (kml) and text format prepared by Bill Cooper. (Scroll down the page to see the downloads link.)
• Count Question Resolution Program 2000 results in shapefile format. Download a zipfile of the data and layer file, or a layer package.