Mass incarceration is trend of rapidly expanding use of incarceration and the rising rate of incarceration. In the U.S. the trends of mass incarceration are a product of sentencing laws, extreme sentences, and curtailment of parole during the "Tough on Crime" penal harm movement. The growing number of people in U.S. prisons is due to the use of long/extreme sentences that keep people behind bars while new cohorts enter prison. These include life in prison, life without parole (LWOP), and virtual life sentences (50 years or more), which often result in death by incarceration where a sentence is greater than a person's natural life. More people reaching old age while incarcerated has resulted in a graying of America's prisons.

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