What’s New

• New reentry simulator highlights the perils of life after prison “ReEntry” was created by formerly incarcerated people to communicate the contradictions, difficult decisions, and unexpected events that make staying out of prison nearly impossible for people under community supervision.

  December 5: Prison Policy Initiative Blog

• 32 reforms to the criminal legal system ripe for victory in 2024 New report highlights actionable solutions that will shrink the size of the carceral system, promote public safety, and take action on racial inequities in the system.

  November 29: Press releases

• Making the grade: New report grades states on their 2020 redistricting processes — including whether they ended prison gerrymandering Report highlights growing bipartisan support for counting incarcerated people in their home communities.

  November 9: Prisoners of the Census Blog

• Guilty by association: When parole and probation rules disrupt support systems Requiring people on supervision to avoid others with criminal legal system contact can actually hinder their success in the community. We found that it’s common for probation and parole agencies to impose these “association” restrictions, tearing apart critical social networks and threatening to lock people up for harmless — and even helpful — interactions.

  November 8: Briefings

• Not an alternative: The myths, harms, and expansion of pretrial electronic monitoring The expansion of pretrial electronic monitoring across 70 counties threatens to undermine Illinois’ groundbreaking Pretrial Fairness Act, despite both the lack of evidence of EM’s efficacy and its well-documented flaws and harms.

  October 30: Briefings

• Ten statistics about the scale and impact of mass incarceration in the U.S. A curated list of some of the most useful statistics to help the public comprehend the magnitude of criminalization in the U.S.

  October 24: Prison Policy Initiative Blog

• New resource: Prison discipline policies Our collection of prison discipline policies covers all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and highlights how each system classifies the severity of offenses and punishments.

  October 17: Prison Policy Initiative Blog

• No Release: Parole grant rates have plummeted in most states since the pandemic started Among the 27 states we surveyed, only 7 saw an increase in parole approval rate, and almost every state held substantially fewer hearings than in years past.

  October 16: Briefings

• Webinar: Combating “carveouts” in criminal justice reforms Learn strategies to convince policymakers to adopt reforms that help all people tangled in the criminal legal system.

  October 12: Prison Policy Initiative Blog

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