Can you help us sustain this work?
Thank you,
Peter Wagner, Executive Director Donate
What’s New
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Updated charts provide insights on racial disparities, correctional control, jail suicides, and more New data visualizations expose the harms of mass incarceration
May 19: Prison Policy Initiative Blog
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Working in “a meat grinder”: A research roundup showing prison and jail jobs aren’t all that states promise they will be No wonder prisons and jails face constant understaffing and that communities increasingly resist new facilities: Decades of research show that the physical and mental health problems associated with correctional officers’ jobs are inherent to the work, and that new prisons and jails fail to deliver on promises of economic development.
May 9: Briefings
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The Hidden Costs of Pretrial Detention Revisited by Christopher Lowenkamp
May 9: Research Library: Pretrial Detention
Featured report
States of Incarceration: The Global Context 2021
We also have a parallel report from 2018 focused on the incarceration of women.
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 2020-2021 annual report.
Recommended Reading:
The COVID-19 pandemic and the criminal justice system
Our central hub of data, research, and policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in jails and prisons.
Dive deep into the lives & experiences of people in prison
From homelessness to childhood trauma, learn about the lives of people in prison before they were locked up.
Compare your state's use of the prison to the world at large
Criminal justice policy in every region of the United States is out of step with the rest of the world.
Prison Gerrymandering Project
We are leading the movement to protect our democracy from the Census Bureau's prison miscount.