Study: Smaller counties driving US jail population growth

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s not the big-city jails, but the small and medium-sized counties that are driving the overall explosion in jail growth rates.

A new report by the Vera Institute of Justice says there are nearly 700,000 people locked up in local jails on any given day.

That’s up from 157,000 in 1970. Forty-five years of jail statistics show smaller counties now account for about 44 percent of all jailed people in the US.

That’s up from just 28 percent in 1978. Experts say the closing of state mental hospitals and the increased use of summonses could be partly to blame.

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