With more than 2.2 million inhabiting the jails today, US has the second largest (after a tiny country called Seychelles) incarceration rate in the world — quadrupled in the last 30 years. Everywhere, increased government spending for new jails raised many questions, whereas housing 25% of the whole world’s prisoners made people point fingers at each other. Especially the Southeast region had a booming number of new prisons after 90s.

I decided to take a look at the current situation by visualizing it on a map.

This is Department of Justice data of 2013, in incarceration rate per 100,000 citizens. In Louisiana, where incarceration rate is highest, inmates account for almost 1% of the population. On the other hand; Maine, Minnesota and Massachusetts are in the lowest percentile.

Changes in the criminal justice is a popular subject among the 2016 candidates. For instance; Clinton, Cruz and Paul want to decrease mandatory minimum sentences, whereas Walker, Perry and Webb intend to focus on drug treatments instead of jails. Contrary to what Bush and Clinton imposed last time, such a positive approach might actually help reduce the incarceration rates to a reasonable level.