Between 1980 and 2015, the number of people incarcerated in America overall increased from roughly 500,000 to over 2.2 million.
Today, the United States makes up about 5% of the world’s population and has 21% of the world’s prisoners.
North Carolina’s prison population more than doubled between 1980 and 2016 and is expected to exceed capacity by 2025.
In North Carolina, the most frequent crime of those entering prison in 2019 was non-trafficking drug offenses (nearly 20%).