Phu Vo ECON 120: Economics of Crime February 19, 2026 Paper 2: Incarceration Statistics, North Carolina, From 1983 - 2019
For Project 2, I looked at incarceration statistics for counties in North Carolina between 1970-2024. Incarceration was divided into jailed populations and imprisoned populations, and North Carolina held relevant data only between 1983-2019. The project covers county-level prison, county-level jail, and long-term trends of incarceration rates per 100,000 residents through three data visualizations.
The data used comes from the Vera Institute of Justice, which compiles data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. OPE estimates annual incarceration numbers by collecting administrative records from state department and through the National Prisoner Statistics program and the Annual Survey of Jails. As population size differs across jails and prisons, measures of data were converted into rates per 100,000 residents (of the particular state) to allow for comparisons across counties, the state level, and at the national level.
The first data-viz shows county-level trends in prison incarceration using a choropleth map that plots rates per 100,000 people in 2019. While 2019 is not the most recent year of recorded data from North Carolina’s incarceration statistics, it is the last year with complete numbers (no null values) for each county. To note, the U.S. incarceration rate in 2019 was at the lowest level it has been since 1995 (Gramlich, 2021). Nationally, the incarceration rate per 100,000 adult residents (ages 18 or older) is 810 prison or jail inmates (Gramlich, 2021). After parsing the Vera Institute of Justice data, 69 out of 100 counties in North Carolina had more incarcerated people per 100,000 than the national average. 42 of these counties were considered to be rural counties. In particular, Martin County had the highest prisoner population rate with 2,111 in prison for every 100,000 residents. This number is a result of a rural communities having very few residents– these communities disproportionately supply incarcerated populations relative to their size. While the total number of prisoners did not change much in Martin County between the years, the census data shows that the county’s overall population continues to drop– by over 2,000 people from 2010-2020, which contributes towards the increase in prison population rate (U.S. Census Bureau, 2020). The findings reflect how rural counties have higher incarceration rates due to having less people– even if urban counties incarcerate more people in total, their rates look far lower due to population density.
The second visualization exhibits county-level trends in jail using a choropleth map that plots rates per 100,000 people in 2019. After plotting the data, the county with the highest jail population per 100,000 is Pamlico County, considered small/mid-size. Other counties with high jail population rates are predominantly rural, with the exceptions of Jones and Edgecombe counties, considered small/mid-size. In Pamlico’s case, local pretrial detention practices and systemic factors such as case processing speed increased the average jail population of the county. Small counties have fewer judges, courts meet less frequently, and have smaller legal staff, leading to slower case resolution– Pamlico also shares multiple judicial districts as part of Carteret, Craven, and Pamlico (North Carolina Superior Court, 2022). In North Carolina’s case backlog reduction plan, it was noted that many defendants were held in the county jail for “ten months or more,” which leads to a high jail population year round, even with a normal arrest rate (Willey Jr., 2022). This pattern aligns with the the Vera Institute of Justice’s findings that “small cities and rural counties driv[e] jail incarceration,” suggesting that jail populations are shaped more by localized court processes, detention policies, and administrative capacity than by crime level alone (Vera Institute of Justice, 2017). Economic decline and institutional incentives can further reinforce a localized “culture of incarceration,” particularly in smaller counties where incarceration functions as a source of employment and government revenue (Vera Institute of Justice, 2017).
The final visualization displays long-term incarceration trends by using a stacked area chart. A reference band was used to track incarceration rates during the Great Recession, between Dec. 2007 and Jun. 2009. Nationally, all states experienced a sustained decline in incarceration rates as prison and jail populations fell (Enns, Shanks-Booth, 2015, pg. 3). Many counties in North Carolina showed similar trends, with prison incarceration in Martin county falling from 1,227 prisoners to 1,151 prisoners and 430 jailed people to 367 jailed people per 100,000 residents. It may seem that dire economic conditions may increase the incarceration rate as economic hardship would incentivize people to commit crime, but incarceration trends are more strongly shaped by institutional processes than short-term economic shocks. During a recession, arrests decline as there are reduced policing resources, and slower court processing can lower jail admissions, and sentencing pipelines and longer prison terms could cause prison populations to respond more slowly to economic change. As a result, decreases in incarceration during the Great Recession, and later during COVID, were a reflection of constrained government budgets. This institutional lag helps explain why both jail and prison populations declined nationally during the recession, with local jail populations often showing more immediate sensitivity to economic and administrative conditions than prison populations, which reflect longer-term sentencing patterns rather than contemporaneous economic incentives.
References
Enns, P. K., & Shanks-Booth, D. (2015). The Great Recession and State Criminal Justice Policy: Do Economic Hard Times Matter. Russell Sage Foundation. https://ecommons.cornell.edu/entities/publication/9284b5b0-a015-4c6c-a1ed-0bae642ac89b Gramlich, J. (2021, August 16). America’s Incarceration Rate Falls To Lowest Level Since 1995. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/08/16/americas-incarceration-rate-lowes t-since-1995/ North Carolina Superior Court. (2022). Administrative Order Case Backlog Reduction Plan. https://www.nccourts.gov/ Willey Jr., J. (2022). Pamlico County Plan. https://www.nccourts.gov/assets/documents/local-rules-forms/case%20backlog%20redu ction%20plan.pdf U.S. Census Bureau. (2025). County Population Totals and Components of Change: 2020-2024 [Dataset]. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-counties-total.html Vera Institute Of Justice. (2017, January 4). Why Are There So Many People In Jail In Scranton, PA? Vera Institute of Justice. https://www.vera.org/in-our-backyards-stories/why-are-there-so-many-people-in-jail-inscranton-pa
Author’s Statement
During the write-up of Project 2, and the creation of the dashboard, no generative AI tools were used to assist with the production of this assignment. All research, writing, and revision were completely and independently done by the author (Phu Vo) to develop foundational writing and research skills.