Line chart of the number of persons in prison, in jail, on probation, and on parole from 1980 to 2007 (four lines, one for each status.) Throughout the period, the probation population has been the largest, followed by the prison population, the parole population and the jail population.
For probation, the number of persons began at 1,118,097 in 1980 and rose to 4,293,163 in 2007.
For jail, the number of persons began at 183,988 in 1980 and increased, reaching 780,581 in 2007.
For prison, the number of persons began at 319,598 in 1980 and rose to 1,512,576 in 2007.
For parole, the number of persons began at 220,438 in 1980 and increased to 824,365 in 2007.