U.S. has second-highest rate of female incarceration

By Kelly Cohen, Kelly Cohen

Published December 20, 2015

The United States incarcerates women at a rate higher than every other country except for Thailand, according to a new report.

And if every U.S. state were its own country, the top 25 countries with the highest rates of female incarceration would be U.S. states. The top three would be West Virginia, Oklahoma and Kentucky, according to a report by the non-profit organization Prison Policy Initiative released this week.

Thailand sits at number 26 on that list, followed by the U.S. at 27, and the next 17 jurisdictions are all American states.

The report found that though the U.S. has only 5 percent of the world's female population, it accounts for nearly 30 percent of incarcerated women globally, twice the percentage as in China and four times as much Russia.