Local Confinement Facilities

Statistics

• Over 10,000 ex-prisoners are released from America’s state and federal prisons every week.  

• More than 650,000 ex-offenders are released from prison every year.

• As of the end of 2023, approximately 1,013,500 people were in state prisons.

•  3,100 to 3,116 local jails in the U.S.

• Late October 2025 = 55,246 total federal inmates and 141,888 in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP)

Two-thirds of inmates will likely be _______.

rearrested within three years of release

Over the course of the last 20 years _______.

the amount of money spent on prisons was increased by 570%, while elementary and secondary education was increased by only 33%

Local Confinement Facility

Operated by any local government for confinement of persons awaiting trial or sentences

• Includes any county or municipal confinement facility, local lockup, regional or district confinement facility.

• Any detention facility for children or adults

Important aspect of plan review

• Disease control

• Solid waste

• Food safety

• Pest/vector control

Plans for prisons/local confinement facilities are _______.

reviewed and approved by EH professionals

The transmission of diseases is higher in prisons due to:

• Overcrowding

• Delays in treatment

• Limited access to soap, water 

• Limited access to condoms, or sterile needles

Inmates are at a higher risk for ________.

blood-borne pathogens

Modes of transmission

• Direct Contact

• Indirect Contact (fomites)

• Hands

• Inhalation

• Ingestion

• Inoculation

The United States has the highest _______.

documented incarceration rate and total documented prison population in the world

Why are so many women imprison?

Mandatory sentencing minimums → five years for a first-time, non-violent drug offense

• An estimated two-thirds of women incarcerated in federal prisons are serving time for nonviolent, drug-related crimes.

There are more jails than ______.

colleges in the US

Prison, penitentiary, or correctional facility

• place in which individuals are physically confined or interned 

• usually deprived of a range of personal freedoms

Historical Background

• Imprisoning has not been a punishment in itself →rather a way to lock up criminals until corporal or capital punishment

• There were prisons used for detention in Jerusalem in Old Testament times. 

• Dungeons were used to hold prisoners.