Highlights In three weeks, jails have contact with as many people as prisons do in an entire year. Each year, U.S. jails process an estimated 12 million admissions and releases. That translates into 34,000 people released from jails each day and 230,000 released each week. More than two-thirds (70%) of jail inmates were held for felony charges. Inmates in local jails were less likely to die than were adults in the adjusted U.S. resident population (same with prisons). Local jail authorities supervised 38,700 persons in programs outside of jail. From 2008 to 2019, the number of persons supervised outside of jail declined 36%, the number of weekenders declined 47%, and the number of confined inmates declined 6%.