Updated: June 3, 2026 7:27 PM UTC
Local incarceration rates reflect the decisions of local law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, probation and parole officers, and the implementation of local, state, and federal laws. Locally elected officials have the power to reduce the footprint of jails―for example, by changing enforcement priorities, reducing pretrial detention, pursuing alternatives to incarceration, and ending contracts to hold people for other agencies. Use the charts below to examine how Hamilton County’s use of jail has changed over time.
Number of people in jail
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Sentenced*PretrialTotalCapacity
Number of people incarcerated per 100,000 residents ages 15 to 64
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Hamilton CountyTennessee totalU.S. total
*Note: The sentenced population includes people who are serving sentences in a local jail. Jail sentences are typically given to people serving brief sentences, usually for misdemeanor or low-level felony convictions. In some states, the sentenced population also includes people who have been convicted of charges and are awaiting transfer to state facilities and people convicted of felonies who are housed in local jails to alleviate overcrowding in the state prison system. For more information, see the methodology. Women's Incarceration
The number of women held in local jails has grown exponentially in the last several decades, outpacing rates of growth for men. Women are particularly vulnerable to the harms of incarceration for several reasons: the majority of women in custody have experienced trauma, have unmet mental and physical health needs, are single mothers, and come from low-income communities of color. Use the charts below to view women’s jail population and jail admission counts and rates in your county since 1970.
Racial Disparities in Incarceration
Black people are treated more harshly than white people at every stage of the criminal legal process. As a result, people of color―and Black people in particular―are incarcerated at strikingly higher rates than white people in jails and prisons across the country. The bar graphs below show the proportion of people in jail who are from each racial group against that group’s share of the general resident population.
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Resident population, as a percentage of total populationAsian American/Pacific IslanderBlack/African AmericanLatinxNative AmericanWhite
Asian American/Pacific Islander
Use the charts below to see how racial disparities in jail incarceration have changed over time.
Jail population vs resident population by race Asian American/Pacific Islander
Although Latinx people are overrepresented in jails and prisons nationally, common misclassification leads to distorted, lower estimates of Latinx incarceration rates and distorted, higher estimates of white incarceration rates. For more information, see the methodology.