Study: At Least 1-in-9 Prison Inmates Are Muslim Across 34 U.S. States

At least one-in-nine inmates residing in prisons across Washington, DC, and 34 states identify as Muslim, state data reveals.

According to data obtained by the Muslim Advocates organization, followers of Islam represent about nine percent of the state prison population in Washington, DC, and 34 states, including Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

While the Muslim population in the United States stands at about 1.1 percent of the 330 million residents living in the country, the number of Muslims in these 35 prison populations stands at about nine percent — a total that is likely to be even higher if every state was included in the study.

“In recent years the share of prisoners who identify as Muslim, the absolute number of Muslim prisoners, or both, has steadily been increasing,” the study concluded.

In less than a decade, the Islamic share of the prison population of D.C. jumped from less than 20 percent in 2010 to more than 25 percent in 2018. In Georgia, Muslims in the state prison population was at about 2.8 percent in 2010. By 2018, the Muslim share of the state prison population had grown to nearly seven percent.

D.C., Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania all have a Muslim population in their state prison population that exceeds 20 percent. This indicates that in these four regions, at least every one-in-five prison inmates are followers of Islam.

In Maryland, more than every one-in-four state prison inmates follow Islam, and in Washington, DC, almost every one-in-four prison inmates follow Islam.

As Breitbart News reported, Muslims are set to be the second-largest religious group in the U.S. by the year 2040, according to the Pew Research Center. While there are less than four million Muslims living in the country today, by 2040, the Muslim population is expected to boom to an unprecedented 8.1 million.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.