California’s prison population now stands at its lowest point in more than 30 years.

• After increasing nearly eightfold between 1977 and 2006 to peak at over 173,000, the state’s prison population has since declined, with the biggest reductions occurring just after realignment, a 2011 law aimed at lowering the prison population, and in the first year of the pandemic.
• In December 2025, California’s prison population had fallen to 90,600, a drop of 27% since December 2019.
• California’s imprisonment rate—the share of adults in state prisons—stood at 294 per 100,000 in 2025.

Imprisonment rates vary by gender, race, and age.

• Men make up 96% of California’s prisoners—up 0.5 percentage points from 2019. The female population fell more sharply (by 34%) amid the pandemic than the male population (27%). As a result, the male-female disparity in imprisonment rates has grown from 22:1 in 2019 to 25:1 in 2025.
• At 47%, Latinos are the most prevalent racial/ethnic group in California prisons. Black, white, and other racial/ethnic groups make up 27%, 19%, and 7% of the prison population, respectively.
• Black men and women are starkly overrepresented: Black people comprise 6% of adult state residents but make up 27% of imprisoned men and 24% of imprisoned women. Latino people are also overrepresented, but somewhat less so: 36% of Californian adults are Latino, whereas 47% of male and 38% of female California prisoners are Latino. In contrast, white people are underrepresented in prison, comprising 37% of the overall adult population and 19% of California’s prisoners.
• California’s youngest adults are imprisoned at the lowest rates. Though Californians of all ages are less likely to be in prison than they were before the pandemic, young adults have seen the sharpest declines. Between 2019 and 2025, the imprisonment rate for Californians age 18–24 dropped 64% (to 99 per 100,000) while the rate for those age 25–34 fell 30% (to 458 per 100,000). People age 35–44 are currently imprisoned at the highest rate (469 per 100,000), despite a 22% decrease since 2019. Generational changes in violent offending patterns may be contributing to these shifts.

Most people in prisons were convicted of violent crimes that can carry long sentences.

• In 2025, 52% of people in California prisons were convicted of homicide or assault—up from 46% in 2019. Another 18% were convicted of sex crimes. Sixteen percent were convicted of robbery or burglary—down 6 percentage points from 2019. Just 3% were imprisoned for drug crimes.
• More than one-third of people in California prisons are serving sentences of life or life without parole—an 8 percentage point increase since before the pandemic. The average sentence for people serving non-life terms is five years; and people who are released have served 60% of their sentence, on average.
• California prisons currently house 18 women and 552 men who have been sentenced to death. Due to resentencing efforts associated with the Racial Justice Act, the number of people serving death sentences decreased from 605 to 580 between 2024 and 2025. Though Californians continue to receive death sentences, the state has not executed anyone since 2006, and the governor suspended executions in 2019.

The recent population decline has reduced overcrowding and led to prison closures.

• Sixty-five percent of California prisons operate within the systemwide limit of 137.5% of design capacity, a federal mandate upheld by the US Supreme Court in 2011. At the end of 2025, the overall population stood at 118.8% of design capacity, and 20 of the 31 currently operating prisons were below the systemwide limit.
• A 2020 law (Assembly Bill 32) prevents the state from leasing prison space from private, for-profit companies except to comply with the mandate. Currently, all prisons are state-owned and operated.
• The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has closed three prisons since 2021 and plans to close another by fall 2026.

Spending on prisons peaked amid the pandemic and has since declined.

• The average cost of imprisoning a person for one year has risen 9% since the onset of the pandemic, from $117,600 in 2019 to $127,800 in 2026, adjusted to 2026 dollars.
• The prison system is funded by a substantial—but decreasing—portion of the state budget. From 2019 to 2025, the CDCR’s share of the state General Fund declined from 8.6% to 5.9%, In the past two years, spending on prisons dropped from $14.8 to $13.4 billion.
• More than half of the CDCR budget (54%) supports operations, and prisoner health care consumes 28%. Only 5% goes to rehabilitative programs.