Timeline of total number of inmates in U.S. prisons and jails. From 1920 to 2008. War on Drugs (1971). Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (mandatory minimum sentencing). See also: Incarceration in the United States.

Data sources:

• The Punishing Decade: Prison and Jail Estimates at the Millennium. [1] May 2000. Justice Policy Institute. See PDF file. [2] Includes several timelines. Uses BJS and other data. Graph 1 for "Number of Prison and Jail Inmates, 1910-2000" has the numbers through 2001. It does not separate federal, state, and jail inmates. Sources listed in the endnotes do. See
  • Historical Corrections Statistics in the United States, 1850-1984. NCJ 102529. Published in 1986. See PDF file.
• Correctional Population Trends Chart. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. 1980-2009 data table is no longer on the BJS site at that URL. The last version of it archived at the Internet Archive is the one archived on January 20, 2013.
• Prison Inmates at Midyear 2007. NCJ 221944. By William J. Sabol, Ph.D. and Heather Couture, BJS Statisticians. June 2008. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS).
• Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2006. NCJ 217675. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
• Prisoners in 2006. NCJ 219416. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
• Prisoners in 2007. NCJ 224280. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
• Prisoners in 2008. NCJ 228417. U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. See table 9 on page 8 of the PDF file. 2,424,279 inmates in 2008 (USA and territories). Table 9 has the number of inmates in state or federal public prison facilities, local jails, U.S. territories, military facilities, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) owned and contracted facilities, jails in Indian country, and juvenile facilities. See Table 9 here too: File:Total US inmates 2007-8.gif.
• Juvenile Residential Facility Census, 2004: Selected Findings. NCJ 222721. January 2009. By Sarah Livsey, Melissa Sickmund, and Anthony Sladky. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). 94,875 held in juvenile facilities as of October 27, 2004. See more juvenile detention data farther down.
• Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics (uses BJS data):

• Number and rate (per 100,000 U.S. residents) of persons in State and Federal prisons, local jails. United States, 1985, 1990-2008. Includes both sentenced and unsentenced inmates. There are separate totals for federal and state prisoners. PDF file. CSV file.
• Number and rate (per 100,000 resident population in each group) of sentenced prisoners under jurisdiction of State and Federal correctional authorities on December 31. By sex, United States, 1925-2008. Does not include jail inmates. PDF file. CSV file.

Resources:

• The High Budgetary Cost of Incarceration. See PDF file. June 2010. By John Schmitt, Kris Warner, and Sarika Gupta. Center for Economic and Policy Research. See Figure 3 which is a graph timeline of the U.S. incarceration rate from 1880-2008.
• Drug war causes high U.S. incarceration rate. USA has highest incarceration rate. Majority of U.S. inmates are in due to drug war. Drug crimes, drug-related crimes (such as robbing to get money for drugs that are expensive because of the drug war), drug trade crimes, drug-related parole violations, etc..