The national criminal-justice focused thinktank found that there are an estimated 84,000 jail admissions per year in Mississippi. Mississippi is second in the country behind South Dakota and Oklahoma with 2,814 jail admissions per 100,000 people. Wanda Bertram, spokesperson for Prison Policy Initiative, said that this should alarm. It should shock anyone to see that the U.S. prison rate is lower than other countries’. In many states, we are jailing upwards of 2,000 people for every 100,000 residents. This is outrageous.” The data are based on a larger national report that the group released in August. It examined repeat offenders and people who were repeatedly arrested. It also drew on federal data on drug use and health. These “frequent users” are more likely people of color, to be unemployed, have no high school education, and live in poverty, according to the report’s authors. These people are also more likely be diagnosed with chronic conditions. Bertram stated that this should give us hope. “We can reduce the number of criminal justice system inmates radically by implementing policies to expand social welfare and protect vulnerable persons. “Those policies will make life easier for everyone, rather than jail,” Bertram said. However, the federal survey does not include certain groups such as people currently in prisons or jails. This report gives a rare look at the number detained each year. Data otherwise unavailable across Mississippi’s municipal and county jails is not available. The lack of data on local jails is a problem that state lawmakers still have to deal with. Last year, multiple bills were introduced to establish central data collection for local jails.