What’s New
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Bottleneck: The Place of County Jails in California’s COVID-19 Correctional Crisis by Hadar Aviram
July 14: Research Library: Jails
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New data: People with incarcerated loved ones have shorter life expectancies and poorer health Locking up the most medically vulnerable people in our society has created a public health crisis not just inside….
July 12: Briefings
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Smoke and mirrors: A cautionary tale for counties considering a big, costly new jail How law enforcement and jail architects almost duped taxpayers into approving a new jail far bigger than the county needs, by offering biased analysis and misleading arguments.
July 6: Briefings
Featured report
Building exits off the highway to mass incarceration: Diversion programs explained
"Diversion program" can refer to a wide variety of initiatives to keep people out of jail. We wrote one report that explains them all. Our report envisions the criminal justice process as a highway, with five major "exits" off the road to incarceration — that is, five basic types of diversion programs. We compare and contrast the different programs, showing how the best programs get people off the highway to incarceration as early as possible, long before jail time or arrest.
Mass incarceration, state by state
Learn about the national prison crisis and how we can begin to turn the tide on mass incarceration. Then, drill down to your state.
If our work is new to you, you might want to check out our 2019-2020 annual report.
Recommended Reading:
Five ways the criminal justice system could slow the pandemic
Quick action could slow the spread of the viral pandemic in prisons and jails and in society as a whole
The "services" offered by jails don't make them safe places for vulnerable people
Even in the best of times, jails are not good at providing health and social services.
The most important statistics from our work on policing
Racial disparities, bloated budgets, the criminalization of homelessness, and more.
Is social distancing possible behind bars?
No. It's even harder than on cruise ships or in nursing homes.