What does this measure?

The average daily county jail population, divided by the total population in the county, presented per 1,000 residents. This includes county inmates who are detained while awaiting trial, civilly committed or criminally sentenced but does not include inmates in state or federal prisons.

Why is this important?

Incarceration serves to remove offenders from a community, but also creates hardships on families, including the loss of an income or a caregiver, in addition to long-term effects on mental health for all involved. After incarceration, people often encounter challenges in obtaining meaningful employment, leading to reductions in long-term productivity, recidivism and widespread effects on a community's social, health and educational systems.

How is our county performing?

In 2015, the average Berks County jail population was 1,171, down 13% from 2006. That amounts to 2.8 county jail inmates per 1,000 residents in Berks County, a similar incarceration rate to Pennsylvania as a whole. From 2006 to 2015, the incarceration rate in Berks declined from a peak of 3.3 in 2006 to 2.5 in 2011, before rising again in 2012 through 2014. By comparison, the state's incarceration rate has largely been flat since 2006.

Among neighboring counties in 2015, incarceration rates were higher than in Berks in Lebanon, at 4 per 1,000 residents, and the same as Lehigh, 2.8. Rates were lower in Chester (1.7), Lancaster (1.8), Montgomery (2.4) and Schuylkill (2.1). Like Berks, Chester, Lancaster, Lebanon, and Lehigh had rates that fluctuated from 2006 to 2015 but in 2015 the rates were lower than 2006. Lancaster had a steady decline of 23% during this period, while Chester's rate was largely flat and Montgomery increased about 14%.

Notes about the data

Data are from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. Data includes all classifications of incarceration and reflects the counties where offenders are housed, which are not necessarily the home counties of offenders or the sentencing counties.

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