The report, released Oct. 21, found that arrests for vagrancy rose 44% in one year, from 22,769 in 2024 to 32,728 in 2025. Arrests for marijuana possession climbed 6%, from 190,182 to 201,273, while arrests for possession of other drugs increased 3%, from 508,087 to 523,520.

The analysis draws on publicly available FBI and immigration arrest data. It does not show whether charges were dismissed or whether people arrested spent time in jail or prison.

“An arrest has life-changing consequences for the person involved and for their family,” Zoë Towns, FWD.us executive director, said before the report’s release. She said an arrest can lead to lost work, missed housing payments or family separation.

Vagrancy arrests were concentrated in four states — California, Hawaii, Nevada and Arizona — which together accounted for more than half the increase, the report found. Vagrancy laws target people described as moving from place to place without a permanent home, job or resources, and are often enforced against people experiencing homelessness.

Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders accounted for 17% of the increase in vagrancy arrests, despite making up about 7% of the U.S. population. The report attributed much of that disparity to Hawaii.

Black people accounted for 83% of the national increase in marijuana-possession arrests and 45% of all such arrests in 2025, according to FWD.us. The increase was concentrated largely in Southern states that have not legalized marijuana.

Policy changes contributed to increases in some states. California voters approved Proposition 36 in 2024, expanding criminal penalties for repeat theft and drug offenses; FWD.us said arrests for drug possession in the state rose by more than 14,000 the following year. Oregon’s return to criminal penalties for simple drug possession was followed by a 39% increase in non-marijuana drug-possession arrests, or 2,205 additional arrests, the report said.

Immigration-violation arrests also surged, rising 188% from 109,936 in 2024 to 316,304 in 2025. FWD.us linked the increase in part to expanded federal immigration enforcement and a program that allows local police to carry out immigration arrests.

The report covers the first full year of President Donald Trump’s second term. It also points to the administration’s deployments of federal immigration officers and National Guard troops as possible drivers of increased policing. In Washington, D.C., marijuana-possession arrests more than doubled after a National Guard deployment, according to FWD.us.

The report’s authors also cited a 2024 Supreme Court ruling allowing cities to prohibit sleeping and camping in public places as a factor that may have contributed to more vagrancy arrests.

Insha Rahman, who leads the Vera Institute of Justice, said falling crime rates remain an important positive trend and credited states and localities that have invested in approaches such as treatment, diversion programs, youth services and community violence prevention. Adult drug arrests peaked at about 1.7 million in 2006, more than 2.5 times the 1980 figure, according to data cited in the report.

The findings highlight a distinction often obscured in public debate: changes in arrest totals do not by themselves show that serious crime is rising or that people arrested were convicted. But arrests can impose immediate costs on individuals and families, while the data reviewed by FWD.us do not track what happens to cases afterward.