Our favorite reports by our colleagues in 2015

Our colleagues helped build momentum for criminal justice reform by providing key research and proposing reforms that could help our nation reduce its overuse of incarceration. Our favorites from 2015.

by Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy, December 29, 2015

2015 was another year of growing momentum for ending mass incarceration. Our colleagues helped build that momentum by providing key research and proposing reforms that could help our nation reduce its overuse of incarceration. These are some of our favorite reports produced by our colleagues in 2015:

• Who Pays?: The True Cost of Incarceration on Families
  Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Forward Together, and Research Action Design
  September 2015
  Each year, the U.S. spends over $80 billion to lock people up, but there are many more costs to mass incarceration. Through a collaborative participatory research project including 20 community-based organizations across the country, Who Pays reveals the apparent and hidden costs that families pay when their loved ones are locked up.
• What Caused the Crime Decline?
  by Dr. Oliver Roeder, Lauren-Brooke Eisen, and Julia Bowling, Brennan Center for Justice
  February 2015
  This groundbreaking 50-state report finds that we’ve reached the point of diminishing returns when it comes to incarceration as a crime-control strategy: at today’s levels, further incarceration will have a negligible effect on crime.
• Incarceration’s Front Door: The Misuse of Jails in America
  by Ram Subramanian, Ruth Delaney, Stephen Roberts, Nancy Fishman, and Peggy McGarry, Vera Institute of Justice
  February 2015
  This report highlights some of the key points about jails, incarceration’s front door and the second largest slice of the criminal justice system. Also check out Vera’s recent interactive map allowing you to see jail population growth or decline in your county.
• Reproductive Injustice: The State of Reproductive Health Care for Women in New York State Prisons
  by Tamar Kraft-Stolar, Correctional Association
  February 2015
  This report describes the struggles of incarcerated women in New York State prisons, from the denial of basic hygiene items to the shackling of pregnant women.
• Reducing Mass Incarceration Requires Far-Reaching Reforms (State Prison Population Forecaster)
  by Ryan King, Bryce Peterson, Brian Elderbroom, and Elizabeth Pelletier, Urban Institute
  August 2015
  The report and interactive tool allow you to see the impact that various types of reforms would have on the state prison population, making the point that a real dent in mass incarceration will require some tough policy choices. Also check out Urban’s Federal Prison Population Forecaster.
• In Jail & In Debt: Ohio’s Pay-to-Stay Fees
  ACLU of Ohio
  Fall 2015
  This ACLU of Ohio report finds that a majority of Ohio jails are charging people for their incarceration.
• Electronic Monitoring Is Not the Answer: Critical Reflections on a Flawed Alternative, by James Kilgore, Center for Media Justice, October 2015. This is the most comprehensive review of the electronic monitoring industry in the context of mass incarceration and the expanding surveillance state.

And don’t forget to check out our reports page for this year’s original Prison Policy Initiative research.