Tennessee

As COVID-19 began to spread, Tennessee’s full prisons and overcrowded jails put tens of thousands of people at heightened risk of contracting the deadly virus. Between February 29, 2020 and April 30, 2022, the statewide jail population has increased by Infinity percent, driven almost entirely by a Infinity percent reduction in the number of people held before trial, the majority of whom were too poor to pay bail. In contrast, the state prison population remains virtually unchanged, even though the rapid spread of COVID-19 in two Tennessee prisons has given rural Tennessee counties some of the highest rates of infection in the country. As the state reopens, track which counties are able to sustain jail population reductions and keep people safe and where decarceration is still urgently needed.

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+120%+50%0%-10%-20%-30%-50%-75%-90%Percent change in jail population
February 2020July 2020December 2020May 2021October 2021March 202202,0004,0006,0008,00010,00012,00014,00016,00018,00020,00022,00024,00026,00028,00030,0000200,000400,000600,000800,0001,000,0001,200,0001,400,0001,600,0001,800,0002,000,000Jail PopulationCOVID-19 Cases in County On April 30, 2022, there were 25,579 people in jail and 1,962,248 COVID-19 cases in Tennessee.

Jail Incarceration Rate by Urbanicity

Tennessee’s jails hold people who are being detained pretrial, people serving misdemeanor sentences, and a large proportion of people serving state prison sentences. In many communities, pretrial detention has declined much more dramatically than the overall jail population, as the number of people serving felony sentences in local jails is virtually unchanged.

Prison Population

Unequal Justice

The overcriminalization and incarceration of Black people is well-documented and has unjustifiably disadvantaged Black communities, including through disparate enforcement of seemingly race-neutral laws. Studies have found that Black people are more likely to be stopped by the police, detained pretrial, charged with more serious crimes, and sentenced more harshly than white people—even when controlling for things like offense severity.

Nationally, Latinx people are also overrepresented in prisons and jails, yet common data misclassification leads to distorted, lower estimates of Latinx incarceration rates and higher estimates of white incarceration.

In 2015, Black Tennesseans accounted for 18% of the population and 36% of the jail population. In 2017, Black Tennesseans accounted for 42% of the people sentenced to state prison.

Black18%of statepopulation36%of jailpopulation JAILS2015Black18%of statepopulation42%of prisonpopulation PRISONS2017

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