What’s New
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Updated data and charts: Women’s incarceration, national prison population counts, psychological distress behind bars, and more
Updated data visualizations illustrate the scale of — and disparities within — mass incarceration.
April 27: Briefings
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Guaranteed income helps people leaving jail and prison, and that helps everyone
Guaranteed income programs show reduced recidivism and improved self-sufficiency, quickly paying for themselves.
April 10: Briefings
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New 50-state report, Punishment Beyond Prisons 2026, shows that 5.5 million people are under the control of the criminal legal system
The U.S. keeps millions of people on probation and parole every day. Rather than serving as an alternative to incarceration, supervision is often a tripwire to harsher punishments.
April 7: Press releases
Featured report
Reforms Without Results: Why states should stop excluding violent offenses from criminal justice reforms
Too many states are passing criminal justice reforms that ignore the majority of people in prison: people convicted of violent crimes. In Reforms Without Results, we explain why people convicted of violence must be allowed to benefit from laws that expand early release, create alternatives to incarceration, and ease the reentry process. Our report includes a concise, rigorous overview of the existing research on violent crime, as well as an interactive U.S. map showing which states have passed laws that exclude people convicted of violence.
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. Be sure to also check out our pages focused on D.C., and the incarceration of Native people.
If our work is new to you, you might want to check out our 2024-2025 annual report.
Recommended Reading:
50 state incarceration profiles
All of our recent reports about prison/jail growth, racial disparities, and more, re-organized by state.
The rapid & unregulated growth of e-messaging in prisons
It can strengthen connections, but instead has been used to sap money from incarcerated people.
Incarceration and supervision by states
Probation and parole are the leading forms of mass punishment in America.
Prison Gerrymandering Project
We are leading the movement to protect our democracy from the Census Bureau's prison miscount.