100 days of the Trump administration rolling back progress in the criminal legal system

Today, we released a new tracking tool that shows the full scale of the crisis unfolding in communities and behind bars, and a new resource page for folks looking to learn more about the repression and detention of undocumented immigrants.

by Mike Wessler, April 30, 2025

With the first 100 days of President Trump’s second term complete, today, we released a new tracker on our website that highlights the ways the administration is making the criminal legal system larger, harsher, and less effective. The new tool, which will be updated regularly, highlights the ways that the administration is eviscerating the rule of law, undermining solutions that reduce incarceration and improve community safety, encouraging the use of extreme sentences and harsh law enforcement tactics, making prisons and jails worse, and reducing transparency in the carceral system.

Actions from the administration have come so fast that it has been nearly impossible to keep track of them all. This new tool connects the dots on these actions to show that they’re not individual policy choices but instead part of a larger strategy that doubles down on the failed policies that created the nation’s mass incarceration crisis in the first place.

The tracker also explains that, while the federal government directly controls only a relatively small slice of the American carceral system, the administration is using its bully pulpit and control over federal spending to coerce state and local governments into expanding their criminal legal systems and making them even more brutal.

Additionally, today we released a new resource page on our website that focuses on the intersection of criminal and immigration law, often referred to as “crimmigration.” While we include immigration detention in our broad view of mass incarceration, it is not our primary area of expertise. For those looking to learn more about the crimmigration crisis, we have compiled resources from experts and organizations directly focused on immigration on this new page.

The new federal policy tracker is available at: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/federaltracker.html

The new crimmigration resource page is available at: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2025/04/30/crimmigration_resource_roundup/

This new tracker and resource page are just the first steps in our organization’s commitment to create tools, data, and resources for advocates, lawmakers, and journalists as they work to push back on this new crisis in America’s criminal legal system.

Crimmigration resource roundup: Where to find data and resources on the criminalization of immigrants

A list of valuable online resources from organizations and agencies focused on immigration detention.

by Prison Policy Initiative, April 30, 2025

The current presidential administration is hellbent on making life difficult, if not impossible, for immigrants in the United States. Following through on campaign promises of mass deportation, Donald Trump has directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to raid neighborhoods and workplaces or otherwise expedite the removal of hundreds of thousands of people² who are in the country under various programs. This is an escalation of the troubling, decades-long merger of criminal and immigration law, sometimes referred to as “crimmigration.“ The government’s treatment of immigrants as criminals — from policing and criminally prosecuting them to incarcerating them in oppressive detention centers — raises profound concerns about due process, constitutionality, and the humane treatment of people.

About 48,000 immigrants¹ are languishing in immigration detention centers, local jails, private prisons, and other facilities like hospitals and hotels. Tens of thousands more are in federal prisons and local jails, primarily for simply entering the country; thousands more are children, in shelters, awaiting permanent placement. Add to this the hundreds of people from Venezuela that the U.S. has now disappeared to a mega prison in El Salvador, arguing it has no duty to provide them due process, and no power or responsibility over what happens to them next.

These numbers provide only a glimpse at the complex web of immigration detention, but they’re important given the many false narratives and misinformation filling the airwaves. It’s more important than ever to know where timely, reliable data exist about immigration detention and advocacy efforts to end the unjust confinement and removal of people and families who enter the U.S.

While we include immigration detention in our broad view of mass incarceration, it is not our primary area of expertise. For those looking to learn more about the crimmigration crisis, we’ve compiled several resources from experts and organizations directly focused on immigration. These lists are far from exhaustive and resources listed in no particular order; if there are others you think we should know about, please get in touch via our contact form.

Information and statistics about immigrant detention and removal

• The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) is an essential resource for immigration data and summary reports about trends in immigration detention. (It also offers data and analysis on other federal agencies and issues.)
• Freedom For Immigrants, an organization working to abolish immigration incarceration, maintains a detailed interactive map on immigration detention, with data points like ICE field offices, companies that contract with ICE, and deaths in ICE detention.
• The federal agency itself, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), maintains the following data, though it should be approached with a measure of “data skepticism”:
  • ICE’s Detention Statistics dataset is updated twice per month and contains detailed data about people in custody, where they’re confined, the number of people on electronic monitoring or other surveillance technologies,³
    and other metrics like length of stay and segregation. (Scroll down to the bottom of the linked page to find the download links for the most recent data and previous year-end reports.)
  • ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) statistics dashboards present the agency’s arrest, detention, removal, and expulsion data in a more interactive format, and include information about country of citizenship, how many people had a criminal conviction or pending charges, and changes over time.
  • ICE publishes lists of both active and pending 287(g) partnerships — those state and local law enforcement agencies who voluntarily report the immigration status of people in their custody to ICE, and carry out other immigration functions on ICE’s behalf.

Immigration advocacy efforts (national-level)

• The National Immigrant Justice Center, which has been providing legal services, research, and advocacy for over 40 years, has a lot of information on its website for those interested in how immigration intersects with mass incarceration, legal representation, the LGBTQ+ community, and other topics.
• Similarly, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, which engages in policy advocacy as well as training and support for legal advocates, has compiled a number of policy maps, explainers, toolkits, model policies, and other timely resources for advocates on its Immigration Enforcement webpage.
• Detention Watch Network has comprehensive overviews of immigration detention issues, from family detention to ineffective oversight and the laws, quotas, and financial incentives that keep immigration detention centers filled.
• United We Dream has an extensive library of resources ranging from guides and fact sheets to webinars and livestreams.
• The Black Alliance for Just Immigration has compiled all immigration-related executive actions from the Trump administration, with clear explanations of what they entail and how they may impact Black immigrant communities.
• The Pioneer Valley Workers Center, an organization of low-wage immigrant workers in western Massachusetts, has advice for those looking to set up a “rapid-response network” of volunteers and services that can provide immediate assistance during immigration crackdowns and workplace raids. Though originally published in 2018, this resource remains relevant today.

Analysis and commentary

• César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández is a writer, law professor, and fierce advocate for a just and functional system of immigration laws. In addition to authoring three books about crimmigration, he maintains a newsletter, Immigration Law Unhinged, which has been tracking the Trump administration’s actions.
• Syracuse Professor Austin Kocher also writes a helpful data-focused newsletter with insights about immigration data and policy, as well as tips for data literacy for people working with official immigration data published by ICE.
• John Washington is a journalist and author of The Case for Open Borders, which exposes the dangers and lost creative potential of closed national borders, and makes the case for drastically rethinking how we approach borders.
• A recent Truthout article details the embrace of increased immigration detention by jails and private prisons across the country.
• In These Times, a monthly news magazine focused on politics and the economy, has published an opinion piece on the current blitz on immigrants and others who merely express ideas counter to the current administration.
• Silky Shah is a longtime immigrant justice organizer and currently the Executive Director of Detention Watch Network. Her writing can be found in several media outlets, but her book Unbuild Walls is a thorough primer on the intertwined systems of immigration and incarceration.
• Debunking misinformation is just as helpful as putting out accurate information. The American Immigration Council has done just that, with a fact sheet amassing dozens of studies all showing plainly that there is no connection between immigration and crime.
• The Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, put out this helpful explainer on why immigration is beneficial to the U.S. economy, busting myths about how immigration impacts jobs, taxes, housing costs, and more.
• Migrant Insider provides regular coverage and analysis of immigration news with a special focus on happenings ‘inside the Beltway’ — i.e., in Congress, the executive branch, and more.
• Jess Pishko’s Posse Comitatus newsletter is an indispensable resource on sheriffs, who play a unique and important role in immigration enforcement. One recent article examines Florida as “ground zero” for Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

Resources for immigrants, journalists, attorneys, and educators

For immigrants, “Know your rights” resources are all over the internet. These are some we found to be the most valuable:

• United We Dream published a Preparedness Packet of essential documents and key legal information to keep in a safe place, in case of immigration emergencies.
• Muslims for Just Futures has a free double-sided poster print-out with guidance on how to handle an unexpected visit from immigration law enforcement.
• Freedom for Immigrants‘ Resources page contains contact information and answers to common questions about immigrant detention and legal assistance.
• The National Immigration Law Center has a library of FAQs, fact sheets, and one-pagers about immigration enforcement and the rapidly changing policies and executive orders impacting immigrant communities.

Journalists, attorneys, and educators may find these additional resources helpful:

• Freedom for Immigrants has specific resources for journalists covering these issues.
• The Immigrant Legal Resource Center is a treasure trove of resources for attorneys and legal advocates, offering legal trainings, practice manuals, technical assistance, and other educational materials, including timely, responsive guidance about new policies and practices. In addition to serving legal advocates, they publish resources for directly-impacted people and community advocates.
• The National Immigration Project trains thousands of attorneys each year to ensure high-quality legal representation for immigration. Their library of resources for attorneys includes practice advisories, quick guides, and summaries of relevant case law.
• For educators, we suggest checking out this robust toolkit from the Children Thrive Action Network, which features a wide range of resources for helping children and families facing deportation, preparing communities to respond to workplace raids, and educating the public and lawmakers about the impact of immigration enforcement on children.
• The Zinn Education Project offers educators several role play lessons to help students think critically about immigration, particularly in historical context.
• The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, “strongly encourages schools and school districts to adopt a Safe Zones policy that outlines what educators, and staff should do if ICE attempts to engage in immigration enforcement at school.” It offers a toolkit for creating these protections.

President Trump said, “home-growns are next.” Here’s our response.

President Trump’s recent comments about sending Americans to a Salvadoran prison mark a new, dark turn in the fight to end mass incarceration.

by Prison Policy Initiative, April 17, 2025

Standing in the Oval Office on Monday, just before members of the media were ushered into the room, President Trump said to President Bukele of El Salvador, “Home-growns are next. The home-growns. You gotta build about five more places. It’s not big enough.”

Those “home-growns” he’s talking about, they’re United States citizens. They’re you and me.

Those “five more places” he asked the Salvadoran dictator to build, they’re “prisons”¹ like the one where the Trump Administration has already sent hundreds of immigrants, many of whom were snatched off the streets and shipped off without due process. This includes Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whom the Trump administration has refused to bring back to the United States, defying a unanimous order from the Supreme Court.

The actions of the Trump administration against immigrants in this country, many of whom were here legally, are an unconstitutional human rights violation. At Prison Policy Initiative, we know that we are not experts in the immigration system in the United States, and as such, have so far deferred to the amazing organizations, experts, and advocates leading the fight against these policies. Trump’s words make clear that a different approach is needed from us.

Our mission at Prison Policy Initiative is to provide facts, research, and data about the ways mass incarceration harms residents of the U.S. — and not just those behind bars.

After these comments, we’ve been asked by countless people to weigh in on the steadily increasing signs that Trump is working to deport and incarcerate U.S. citizens to El Salvador. However, the truth is that there are no facts or data to provide context for this situation.

American presidents have done some really heinous things, and while these injustices provide clues about what we can expect next, they are not exact parallels to the threat that every resident of the U.S. currently faces.

American and Salvadoran prisons have more in common than you think. They’re large, brutal, costly, and don’t make communities safer. They destroy the lives of the people ensnared in them and the lives of their families. Both countries incarcerate similar numbers of people per-capita and both of their prisons serve as a death sentence for many inside. It is important to note, though, that the American system has at least the guise of due process and legal standards for facilities — such as prison conditions, oversight, and transparency — while this Salvadoran facility does not. Sending U.S. residents to far-flung prisons without due process would be a dramatic escalation of our country’s already misguided policies.

Those three words — “home-growns are next’ — should send a chill down the spine of every person in the country.

We don’t know exactly what Trump and his subordinates are planning. He’s made clear that Attorney General Pam Bondi is exploring the legality of incarcerating American citizens in another country. All credible legal experts agree that doing so would be unconstitutional.

But as we’ve already seen, the Trump administration doesn’t see the Constitution as an impediment to its actions. So there is little doubt that once the administration recognizes it can’t find a legal rationale for deporting U.S. citizens, it will surely make one up out of thin air.

In his remarks, he indicated that he was talking about deporting “violent people.” Perhaps this is an attempt to assure people that his unconstitutional plan to deport American citizens won’t go too far. But the truth is, many so-called “violent” crimes don’t actually involve physical harm. In some states, even drug offenses are deemed a violent crime.

The simple fact is that law enforcement can spin nearly any criminal accusation to be a “violent” offense in the U.S. criminal legal system. There is little doubt that if given the chance, the administration would warp the definition of “violent crime” beyond its already sagging bounds.

Of course, some apologists will attempt to assure the American people that as long as they don’t commit a crime, they have nothing to be afraid of. But does anyone really doubt that Trump is planning to use the full force of law enforcement to go after those who displease or oppose him? For months, he has said he wants do just that. This would make it so any act he doesn’t like would put you at risk of deportation to a Salvadoran prison, without due process and the opportunity to defend yourself in a court of law.

You would think that a president convicted of multiple felony offenses, which he insists are politically motivated, would be more attuned to the risks of such political prosecutions. But you’d be wrong.

Those three chilling words — “home-growns are next” — signal a dark pivot for our country and a dramatic expansion of the already devastating criminal legal system.

For an organization that prides itself on its ability to use visualizations and clear language to make sense of the goings-on in the criminal legal system, we are, for perhaps the first time ever, left at a loss for what to say.

But just because we’re at a loss today, doesn’t mean we’re sitting on the sidelines. Over the coming weeks, months, and maybe even years, as this crisis unfolds, we’ll be here:

• When we can provide data and analysis, we’ll share them with you.
• When we can elevate the voices and actions of experts and organizations in areas that are outside of our expertise, we’ll point you to them.
• And when there are opportunities to take action, we’ll tell you about them and be by your side.

We don’t know what comes next, but we’re in this fight with you.

New national data help fill 20-year data gap: Offense data for people in local jails

Our analysis of Jail Data Initiative data offers the first detailed, national view of the criminal charges for which people are jailed since the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2002 survey. We look at the one-day jail population as well as bookings over a full year; ‘top’ charges versus all charges; and break down trends by sex, jail size, and region.

by Emily Widra, April 17, 2025

Millions of people are arrested and booked into jail every year, but existing national data offer very little information about the actual criminal charges for which they are detained. In fact, the most recent national offense data published by the government about people in jail is from 2002, so we worked with the Jail Data Initiative to fill that gap using the best, up-to-date nationally representative sample available.¹ We now have a new “snapshot” of people in jail, by offense, on a given day; new insights about how low-level offenses like misdemeanors and supervision violations impact “jail churn” over the course of a year; and we were able to analyze some variation in offenses by sex and, for the first time, by region and jail jurisdiction size.

One-third of annual jail admissions are for misdemeanor charges

The “massive misdemeanor system” in the U.S. is an important but overlooked contributor to overcriminalization and mass incarceration. An estimated 13 million misdemeanor charges – for behaviors as benign as jaywalking or sitting on a sidewalk – sweep droves of Americans into the criminal legal system each year (and that excludes civil violations and traffic offenses, like speeding).

The Jail Data Initiative data reveal that misdemeanor charges accounted for more than 2.7 million jail admissions (35%) in 2023. This is a much higher percentage than the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ snapshot of the jail population on a single day in 2023 shows: the Bureau reports that only 20% of people in jail were held for misdemeanor offenses.⁵ The difference is explained by “length of stay” or how long people are held in jail for different kinds of offenses. People charged with felony offenses show up disproportionately in single-day snapshots because they spend more time in jail than those facing misdemeanor charges.⁶ Longer jail stays associated with felony charges are due in part to higher bail amounts for felony offenses.⁷ Because of these differences, single-day snapshots make it easier to overlook just how many people are jailed for low-level, misdemeanor offenses each year.

Misdemeanor charges may sound trivial, but they carry serious financial, personal, and social costs, especially for the accused but also for broader society, which finances the processing of these court cases and all of the unnecessary incarceration that comes with them. Pretrial detention actually makes people charged with misdemeanors more likely to plead guilty, to be sentenced to incarceration, and to receive longer jail sentences. Rather than investing in community-driven safety initiatives, cities and counties are still pouring vast amounts of public resources into the processing and punishment of these minor offenses.

Many people are jailed for “technical violations” of community supervision, not new criminal charges

Probation and parole are often seen as a “lenient” punishment or as an ideal “alternative” to incarceration. But while remaining in the community is generally preferable to being locked up, the conditions⁸ imposed on those under supervision are often so restrictive that they set people up to fail.⁹ “Technical violations” are behaviors that break these probation or parole rules, such as missing curfew, failing a drug test, or missing a check-in meeting; they are not behaviors that would count as “crimes” for someone not under community supervision. However, when people who are under community supervision are charged with a new crime, that also constitutes a violation of their probation or parole, and typically must be reported. Individuals can often be kept in jail without bail for either type of violation on a probation or parole detainer.

In 2023, there were about 7.6 million jail bookings, and the new Jail Data Initiative data indicate that almost 926,000 of those bookings (12% or 1 in 8) involved an alleged probation or parole violation. Almost a half million (484,000) people jailed in 2023 were jailed only for technical violations of community supervision and faced no additional criminal charges.¹⁰ We did not find much variation between men and women related to bookings for violations; 11% of women and 13% of men were booked into jail with probation or parole violations and about 7% of both women and men booked into jail were jailed for only technical violations.

Looking at a single-day snapshot, we see that about 19% of people in jail on a single day in June 2024 had probation or parole violations. This is comparable to what the Bureau of Justice Statistics found in 2023.¹¹¹² Our single-day snapshot also showed that women were more likely to be stuck in jail for a technical violation: 9% of women in jail had been admitted with only a charge of a violation, compared to 6% of men. To square this with the findings of only minimal sex differences in the year-long booking data, recall that “length of stay” impacts who is likely to be sitting in jail on a given day. Since women held on unaffordable bail typically have very low incomes, it’s plausible that women spend more time in jail for violations because they are less able to afford the bail money, when they are eligible for bail at all.

The first detailed national jail offense data published in two decades

Given that the most recent jail offense data is over 20 years old,¹³ the Jail Data Initiative dataset offers a rare opportunity to analyze the charges that people are booked under today. Our partners at JDI standardized the listed charges into both broad offense types (violent, property, public order, drug, DUI offense, and criminal traffic) and more specific charge types like aggravated assault, burglary, liquor law violations, drug possession, driving while intoxicated, and minor traffic offenses.¹⁴ Additionally, unlike the Bureau of Justice Statistics 2002 data, the JDI dataset allows us to look at all the charges individuals are booked under, in addition to the “top” – or most serious – charge for each person.

People frequently face multiple charges when they are booked into jail

People booked into jail often face more than just one criminal charge: in our sample, there were an average of four separate charges per person.¹⁵ When we look at all charges for each booking rather than “top” (most serious) charges, we find that the most frequently-used charges are often not the same as the most common top charges. People in jail often face “stacked” charges, where additional charges are added on to the most severe charge. Nine of the top 10 most common charges are relatively low-level offenses that don’t involve physical violence, including failure to appear in court, forgery or fraud, contempt of court, and drug offenses (the only serious violent offense in the top 10 most common charges is aggravated assault).¹⁶

In addition, some charges are more likely to be levied “in bulk” (e.g., people will often be detained on many counts of forgery/fraud) and this may also explain why we see charges like forgery/fraud in the top 10 most common charges. Regardless of the severity of the charges, people facing more charges face higher bail amounts, are more likely to be jailed for longer periods of time, and are more likely to be convicted.

Offense data by most serious charge per person: Most people are jailed for non-violent offenses

Looking at just the “top,” or most serious, charge facing each person in jail on a given day in 2024, we find that almost two-thirds (about 415,000) are facing a top charge that is not considered a violent offense.¹⁷ About 23% of people are jailed for a most serious charge that is a public order offense, 21% for a property offense, 14% for a drug offense, and 4% for a driving under the influence (DUI) or criminal traffic offense.

The number of people in jail for charges that reflect little-to-no risk to public safety is alarming: 8% of people were in jail with a top charge of a supervision violation, 7% for drug possession, 5% for offenses against courts, legislatures, and commissions,¹⁸ and 3% for contempt of court¹⁹ – these four kinds of charges alone account for almost a quarter of the total jail population. Probation and parole violations are the second-most common top charge, following aggravated assault. We’ve long argued that noncriminal behaviors (like missed check-ins or nonpayment of fees) should not lead to incarceration — this strips people on community supervision of any progress they’ve made, further destabilizes them and their families, and is a thoughtless waste of public funds. Each state approaches supervision violations differently, but some rely on incarceration as a response more than others. For example, 2019 data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics show:

• Tennessee’s jails hold 9,280 people for an alleged violation of supervision, accounting for 30% of the total jail population;
• In both Georgia and West Virginia, over 15,000 people — 28% of the jail population — are behind bars for supervision violations;
• An alarming 39% of the jail population in Ohio is composed of people accused of violating the rules of their supervision.

Probation and parole officials can use more effective alternative sanctions and approaches, such as incentive-based systems, but clearly too many continue to default to a “lock ‘em up” response.

Three in four women in jail are facing non-violent charges

More than 90,000 women are locked up in local jails on any given day in the U.S., representing about one-seventh of the entire jail population (14%). The new data from the Jail Data Initiative reveal that three-quarters (75%) of these women have non-violent top charges: 28% public order, 25% violent, 25% property, 19% drug, 2% DUI, and 2% criminal traffic. Further, a smaller share of jailed women (25%) than jailed men (38%) are facing a top charge that is considered violent. Compared to the 2002 Bureau of Justice Statistics data, public order and violent charges account for a larger portion of the top charges women face in 2024, while a smaller portion of women in jail are facing drug charges (-10 percentage points) and property charges (-7 percentage points).²⁰

Over a three-year period from 2020-2023, the number of women jailed at midyear increased 36%, compared to 19% for men. Women are disproportionately locked up in local jails, because they are less likely to be able to afford money bail required for pretrial release, and if convicted, they are more likely to serve a shorter sentence for a property or drug offense in jail than go to prison. While there, women in jail experience bleak conditions like expensive phone calls, a lack of programming and education opportunities, and poor quality healthcare.

In addition, the jailing of women has a devastating “ripple effect” on families and communities: at least 80% of women booked into jail are mothers, including over 55,000 women who are pregnant when they are admitted.²¹ Beyond having to leave their children in someone else’s care, these women are impacted by the brutal side effects of going to jail: aggravation of mental health problems, a greater risk of suicide, and a much higher likelihood of ending up unhoused or deprived of essential support and benefits.

Regional variations in criminal charge distributions reflect differing priorities across states

Breaking down the data by region (i.e., Northeast, Midwest, South, and West) allows us to assess how different parts of the country use jails.²² For example, previous research shows that jails in the Midwest and West have the highest percentages of people detained pretrial, while jails in the South have the highest percentages of people being held in jails for state, federal, and tribal authorities (20%).²³

We find that regionally, jurisdictions respond to certain types of offenses differently. For example, only 8% of people in jails in the Northeast are held for a top charge related to drugs, but in the South, 16% of people are held for drug charges, suggesting that a significant regional difference in the criminalization of drug use influences who is locked up. In addition, the Northeast is the only region to have weapons offenses and rape among the most common top charges, while the West is the only region with DUIs among the most common top charges. It’s important to note that these variations don’t necessarily reflect differences in actual crime rates across regions, but rather the kinds of charges law enforcement and courts in those areas deem appropriate for jail detention.²⁴

Drug possession is among the top 10 most common top charges for all regions except the Northeast.²⁵ It’s worth noting that drug and drug paraphernalia²⁶ possession offenses have been reduced to misdemeanors only – or decriminalized in part or in full – in a larger portion of Northeastern states than in any other region. Half of the Northeastern states have decriminalized drug paraphernalia, and in the remaining half of Northeastern states, possession of drug paraphernalia is limited to a misdemeanor. Only three Northeastern states (33%) classify drug possession as a felony offense, while other regions more commonly classify drug possession as a felony offense (83% of states in the Midwest, 69% in the South, and 46% in the West).

Laws and policies are largely set at the state level, so further investigation of state-level differences in charge distributions would help policymakers understand how their decisions impact jail populations, in places where the data are available. (In the sample used in this analysis, state-level comparisons were not possible.)

Smaller jails disproportionately incarcerate people for low-level offenses

Differences between jails in larger and smaller counties have grown more pronounced in recent years: as jail incarceration in large, urban counties has decreased in a number of jurisdictions, jail incarceration has exploded in smaller jurisdictions – including rural counties and those with small towns and cities.²⁷ While the Jail Data Initiative data are not broken down by rural vs. urban areas, we used jail size as a proxy measure to explore the differences in the charges smaller vs. larger jurisdictions are using their jails for.

We find that smaller jails – typically in jurisdictions with smaller overall populations – tend to have a larger portion of people incarcerated for public order and drug offenses, while larger jails hold people primarily for violent offenses. While we can’t identify the causes behind these differences from this dataset, this difference is likely explained – in part – by higher rates of violent crime in metropolitan areas.²⁸ Jails in these more populous jurisdictions are more likely to use their available beds for these more serious offenses, while smaller jurisdictions may have more space available to fill with people accused of low-level offenses. For example, charges of rape and armed robbery only appear in the ten most common top charges in jails holding 1,000 or more people (the largest jails). In the smallest jails that hold 250 people or less, 9% of people jailed are held for supervision violations, compared to 5% in jails holding 1,000 or more. Similarly, 8% of people in those smaller jails are held for “offenses against the court,” compared to 3% in the largest jails.

Conclusion

The importance of local jails to the full picture of mass incarceration cannot be overstated. Jails hold one-third of all people locked up in the U.S., most of them not convicted of the charges they are facing and detained because they cannot afford bail. Pretrial detention is the primary driver of jail population growth: over the last twenty years, the number of unconvicted people in jail increased by 34%.²⁹ Our findings come amidst a trend of small, less-populous counties (along with some larger urban counties) continuing to build new and bigger jails. This analysis shows that these costly projects, far from being a public safety necessity, are likely to exacerbate the jailing of poor people for minor offenses—while taking away resources from investments that make communities safer, such as affordable housing and healthcare.

Our analysis highlighting trends in jail detention across the country would not be possible without the data collected by the Jail Data Initiative. JDI offers one of the only alternative sources of information about why hundreds of thousands of people are behind bars, given that the Bureau of Justice Statistics has not released updated offense information for jail populations nationwide in over twenty years. This invaluable data source enables even more comprehensive analysis by capturing and standardizing individual-level booking data from hundreds of jurisdictions, offering a unique view of the flow of people through local jails over time, in addition to a detailed, updated “snapshot” view.

Rolling back solitary confinement reforms won’t make prisons safer

Thousands of New York prison guards went on strike to demand changes to the HALT Solitary Confinement Act. They claim limitations on solitary confinement have worsened working conditions. Here’s why the decision to return long-term isolation to New York’s prisons won’t fix things.

by Emmett Sanders, April 11, 2025

While the international community has long recognized solitary confinement as a form of torture, in the United States, the practice is as ubiquitous as the prison system itself. A 2023 report from Solitary Watch noted that on any given day more than 80,000 people in U.S. prisons are held in solitary confinement. People may spend months or even years in isolation, with devastating results. The HALT Solitary Confinement Act (HALT), passed in 2022 and advanced by the New York Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement (many of whom are themselves survivors of solitary confinement), was intended to change this for people in New York’s prisons. While this legislation did not eliminate the use of solitary confinement altogether, it made important changes like limiting stays to 15 days at a time, initiating review practices, and providing protections for vulnerable populations like the elderly, pregnant people, and those with mental or physical disabilities. However, as in many places that have attempted solitary confinement reform, these efforts have been met with resistance.

In February, correctional officers across the state of New York began a “wildcat” strike, an unsanctioned work stoppage in violation of New York law. For 22 days, around 15,000 correctional staff across 42 prisons refused to work, forcing Governor Kathy Hochul to call in the National Guard as a stopgap measure. As might be expected, incarcerated people bore the brunt of harm of the strike; at least seven incarcerated people died during the strike. There were also reports of insufficient medical care, dangerously filthy living conditions, and the interruption of programming and visitation. Striking corrections officers’ representatives claim the strike was a desperate response to deteriorating working conditions and understaffing, much of which they blame on HALT.

Ultimately, Hochul gave in to strikers’ demands to rescind HALT protections, first temporarily suspending them, then later agreeing to extend this suspension pending further evaluation,¹ a move that illegally sidesteps the legislative process.² The rollback of HALT protections leaves people in prison once more subject to extended isolation in solitary confinement. It will also do little to improve working conditions or to fix staffing concerns and stands to make prisons even less safe.

Unpacking the claim that solitary reforms have compromised safety

Strikers’ claims that the HALT Act’s restrictions have hamstrung correctional officers’ ability to maintain order is dubious at best. This is largely because many prisons have simply ignored HALT provisions, routinely violated the law, and have continued to use solitary confinement in much the same manner as before. New York’s Office of the Inspector General, as well as a June 2024 court ruling found that:

• 40% of people were held in solitary confinement longer than the law allowed;
• 24% of the time, people were held without sufficient evidence of a segregable offense;
• People were routinely held hundreds of days past the 15-day time limit without sufficient review;
• People with disabilities have also continued to be thrown in solitary; and
• The head of the prison system even issued a blanket order to use restraints for all out-of-cell activities, in direct violation of the law.

Correctional officers’ claim that a tool has been taken out of their toolbox is disingenuous when that tool is still being used every day, and in much the same way it was before the law changed. Simply put, you cannot attribute a rise in violence to a change in policy when you have refused to implement that policy.

Dubious statistics around rising staff assaults

Reports do show rising numbers of assaults on staff as well as on incarcerated people. However, this rise predates the implementation of the HALT Act by several years. Between 2012 and 2014 the number of assaults on staff nearly doubled. In fact, both the number of staff assaults and the rate of staff assaults per incarcerated person have risen every single year since 2016. Thankfully, the vast majority of incidents result in “no injury” at all to correctional staff staff and most others result in “minor injuries” that “require no or minimal treatment.”³ It is also worth noting, like the department of corrections itself does, the distinction between assaults as defined by penal law, “which require physical harm,” and assaults as defined by department policy; according to its policy, “events where no physical injury occurs and events where any object, including a small object, is thrown at and hits another person” can result in assault reports. While this current spike is concerning and should be investigated, formerly incarcerated advocates also point to a history of correctional staff falsifying reports and weaponizing the disciplinary process to cover up a culture of abuse. One formerly incarcerated survivor of abuse at the hands of correctional officers noted, “They control the statistics.“

Skepticism also surrounds the timing of the strike, which comes just as the department faces public outcry after correctional staff accidentally videotaped themselves beating an incarcerated man, 43 year-old Robert Brooks, to death in December. More than a dozen correctional staff were indicted in the case on February 20th, which drew national attention. Critics point to previous work stoppages which coincided with allegations of abuse and increased scrutiny.

Claims that changes in the use of solitary confinement are responsible for a massive staffing shortage in New York Prisons also bear closer scrutiny. Most jails and prisons across the country have not implemented reforms to solitary confinement, but have seen similar recent reductions in staffing levels. While physically and mentally hazardous working conditions are certainly a contributing factor, they are far from the only reason. In fact, in a recent survey by Corrections Today, the top three reasons people reported leaving corrections were work-life balance, pay, and a lack of flexibility in schedule. Safety concerns ranked 8th on the list of 15.

Prisons are not understaffed, people are over-incarcerated

Moreover, prisons are not understaffed, but rather people are over-incarcerated. In New York, much of the problem lies in the fact that despite massive reductions in the prison population that have far outpaced reductions in staff, correctional officers and politicians alike have actively opposed efforts to decarcerate. While New York has managed to close a number of prisons since 2011, saving taxpayers more than $492 million, these efforts have been met with resistance and, at times, resignations from correctional staff. They persist in fighting to keep prisons open, even when they are two-thirds empty, when these facilities could be closed and their resources reallocated. Their argument is that closing prisons will bring economic collapse to small towns. These claims underscore that incarceration is indeed an industry in which the primary end-product is human misery. They are also patently untrue; prisons actually weaken rural economies.

A closer look at the numbers shows how problematic this insistence on keeping unnecessary prisons open actually is. Since 2003, the number of prison staff has fallen by just over 32%. However, New York’s prison population has fallen by more than 49% over that same period of time. Indeed, while prison staff dropped around 6% between 2020 and 2021, the incarcerated population dropped nearly 11% that same year and had fallen 22% the year before.

Perhaps most interestingly, the ratio of correctional staff to incarcerated persons stood at 1:2.4, or around one staff member for every 2 to 3 people incarcerated in New York prisons. This ratio is actually better than in 2018. In fact, the most recent national data show that New York prisons have the best staff-to-incarcerated person ratio in the nation. However, this is undercut by maintaining prisons that are far below capacity, largely because of, as the Department of Corrections notes, “the security needs that exist in the facilities regardless of the incarcerated individual population.”

Solitary confinement doesn’t prevent harm, it creates it

Counter to strikers’ claims that the use of solitary confinement is necessary to maintain safety, isolating people who often already have mental health support needs in prison conditions that impair emotional, social, and cognitive function does not make anyone safer. Solitary confinement doesn’t reduce prison violence, nor does it make people rush to fill out applications for prison jobs and make prisons better staffed. What is does do is create lasting harm that shortens people’s lives, devastates their mental and physical health, has been associated with heightened risk of suicide and self-mutilation, and further entrenches racial and gender disparities in the prison system. Even worse, perhaps, solitary confinement has actually been shown to diminish public safety by increasing the chances of a return to prison after people come home. Research has repeatedly shown that reducing the use of solitary confinement significantly reduces prison violence.

Ultimately, the crisis in New York prisons is one of an ongoing commitment to brutality rather than a crisis of capacity, and it is not one that will be resolved by doubling down on state-sanctioned torture and abuse. If New York wants to resolve the capacity issues that strikers claimed were at the heart of their protest, the state needs to address the real issues, rather than attack a humane reform that has never fully been implemented. HALT’s provisions should be fully reinstated, and, as incarcerated journalist Eric Williams rightfully points out, the state should implement legislation, and common-sense policies that can safely and cost-effectively further reduce New York’s prison population. Most importantly, the state should continue to close unnecessary prisons and fund new forms of economic development in these rural communities that don’t rely upon the narrative that incarcerated people are, as one New York legislator has claimed, “the animals of society.“ They are not. They are family members and loved ones. They are human beings, and they should not be subjected to torture.

Seven facts about mass incarceration that sound like April Fools’ Day hoaxes, but aren’t

Fines for suicide attempts, prisons built near toxic wastelands, the overwhelming number of people in the system…it's hard to believe, but it's true.

by Wanda Bertram, April 1, 2025

We at the Prison Policy Initiative are in the business of making America’s draconian, exploitative, sprawling incarceration system more obvious to everyone. The basic facts of mass incarceration are easy to grasp when laid out in, say, a pie chart. But there are other elements of the criminal legal system that never stop boggling the mind — even for us.

For April Fools’ Day, here are seven facts about incarceration and supervision that are as hard to believe as they are hard on people in the system:

Prisons and jails maintain “welfare funds” that are supposed to benefit incarcerated people, but often use the money to shore up their budgets or spend it on treats for themselves.

When incarcerated people and their loved ones pay for phone calls or commissary goods, it creates revenue for companies, which kick back some of the money to the facilities themselves. This money is funneled into “inmate welfare funds.” But what happens to it then? In our report Shadow Budgets, we revealed that prisons and jails often use the funds not for special purchases on behalf of incarcerated people, but to shore up their own operating budgets — or even to pay for perks for themselves.

In one county — Dauphin County, Pennsylvania — the local paper exposed the jail using its welfare fund for purchases as inappropriate as fitness trackers and gun range memberships for staff.

For more, see the original story from PennLive.

One-third of state and federal prisons sit within three miles of federal Superfund sites.

Research warns against living, working, or going to school near Superfund sites — the most toxic places in the country — as this proximity is linked to lower life expectancy and a litany of terrible illnesses. But many incarcerated people have no choice. With many prisons located near toxic wastelands, people in prison all too often develop health problems: For instance, in western Pennsylvania, a state prison located on top of a coal waste deposit has led to skin rashes, sores, cysts, gastrointestinal problems, and cancer.

The average yearly income of someone in jail pretrial is less than $20,000.

Nearly half a million people are sitting in a local jail awaiting trial. Their average yearly income hovers just under $20,000, meaning that it’s easy to keep them locked up by imposing cash bail (the median bail amount for people detained on bail who are accused of felonies is $25,000). Women and Black people in jail have even lower incomes on average, making them even more vulnerable to being stuck in pretrial detention, which can very quickly lead to losing one’s job, losing custody of children, forgoing medical appointments, and so on. And pretrial detention doesn’t just throw someone’s life into chaos — it makes it more likely that they will plead guilty just to get out of jail.

Felony convictions may not disqualify someone from being president, but they still block people from jobs like bartending, car sales, and pest control.

19 million people in America have felony records. And occupational licensing requirements, the standards and rules that govern who can work in certain professions, often explicitly exclude anyone with any felony conviction. These rules thus lock millions of people out of jobs like nursing, sales, bartending, and firefighting, no matter the details of their conviction — making it much more likely that formerly incarcerated people will end up in low-paying, itinerant jobs rather than stable employment.

You can’t help but ask: If someone with a felony conviction isn’t barred from becoming president, why should they be barred from all of these positions that have far less power and responsibility?

Many of the 2.9 million people on probation have to take regular drug tests — which they often must pay for — even those whose convictions have nothing to do with drugs.

In our report One Size Fits None, we combed through probation rules in 76 jurisdictions and found that 62% of those places require all people on probation to submit to regular drug tests. Not only is drug testing dubiously effective in advancing any public safety goals; the rules mean that even if someone’s conviction had nothing to do with drugs, they have to get tested anyway. Worse, many of these jurisdictions make people on probation pay for their own tests, at a cost of between $15 and $20 per test (often multiple times a week).

Several state prison systems slap financial sanctions on people who attempt suicide or harm themselves.

Not only do most prisons coerce incarcerated people to pay copays to see a doctor; some actually make people pay the prison back for costs incurred through acts of self-harm. Iowa, Georgia, Nevada, and New Mexico’s policies on disciplinary fines state that incarcerated people can be made to reimburse the state if they attempt suicide or hurt themselves in prison, an environment known to aggravate mental illness. In Virginia, corrections staff recently discussed financially penalizing people who self-immolated in protest last year.

Nearly half of all Americans have an immediate family member who has been incarcerated.

FWD.us reports that 113 million adults, or 45% of all adults in America, have had an immediate family member locked up for at least one night. These figures underscore that while having a criminal record — or even having an incarcerated loved one — carries heavy stigma in this country, it is an incredibly common experience. Making the criminal legal system fair and just is not something that impacts a select few; it’s directly relevant to our friends and neighbors.

And 10 things you shouldn’t believe

While these facts about incarceration are hard to believe but unfortunately true, there are also a number of myths floating around about the criminal legal system. Head over to our recent report Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2025 where we bust 10 common myths about incarceration the far too many people do believe. We cover the exaggerated impact of private prisons, phantom “factories behind fences,” the crime waves that weren’t, and more.