Changes in North Carolina Jail Populations During COVID-19

We have issued a series of reports on North Carolina state and county-level jail occupancy rates, including one in October 2020 focusing on changes in total county and statewide jail occupants during the COVID-19 pandemic (our earlier reports are here, here and here). This report provides updated jail population numbers through November 2020. Please refer to our prior reports for information on data sources and calculations. State Level Data In February 2020, before COVID-19 began impacting North Carolina, the statewide jail population was 20,964, a figure above the 2019 rate for that month. Starting in March 2020—the onset of the pandemic—the statewide population started dropping, hitting a low of 14,752 in July 2020. While all 2020 monthly populations from April onward were below 2019 numbers, since July 2020 the statewide rate has been increasing. The statewide jail population grew in August, September, and October of 2020, hitting 17,126 in October before declining slightly in November to 16,952. (Figure 1) Figure 1. Number of individuals detained in jail statewide—January through November, 2019 & 2020 Note: Figure 1 shows a significant decline in the statewide jail population in March 2019. However, in March 2019 a large number of facilities—40 of 114—did not report jail data. As a result, the March 2019 figure is artificially low. County Level Data Because statewide data can hide variation at the local level, we also looked at county level jail population changes. At the local level, the vast majority of jails reporting data had lower populations in November [...]