Highlights from a busy year at Prison Policy Initiative

In our new annual report, we share examples of how we are building on the foundations of our research and visualizations to meet the challenges of this moment

by Danielle Squillante, October 23, 2025

We wrapped up another productive year at the Prison Policy Initiative, and are thrilled to share our 2024-2025 Annual Report with you. We released 5 major reports, 24 research briefings, 2 new resources as part of our Advocacy Toolkit, and several briefings related to our campaign to end prison gerrymandering. We also provided technical support to advocates at the state and local levels working on issues such as fighting jail expansion, making prison visitation a right, and water contamination in prisons.

Here are a handful of accomplishments we’re particularly proud of:

• We published an update to our flagship Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie report detailing the scale of mass incarceration in the U.S.
• We released reports tackling two of the most consequential issues for incarcerated people — prison disciplinary systems and prison health care. Using a combination of deep analysis and first-hand accounts of these systems, we peeled back the curtain to show how these systems traumatize incarcerated people both physically and mentally.
• As part of our campaign to end prison gerrymandering, we produced 5 reports that highlight the scale and impact of prison gerrymandering in Oklahoma, North Carolina, Louisiana, West Virginia, and Kansas.
• Through our partnership with the Jail Data Initiative, we published 3 briefings utilizing present-day data from roughly 900 jails to provide a better understanding of those who are criminalized and locked up. Our briefings focused on the criminalization of unhoused people, the demographics of people booked into jails multiple times, and offense data for people in local jails.
• We expanded our focus on federal criminal legal system policy and launched our new federal tracker that connects the dots of the Trump administration’s actions to show its larger strategy of doubling down on the failed policies that created the nation’s mass incarceration crisis in the first place.
• Our Policy & Advocacy team hosted 3 webinars on organizing legislative testimony from incarcerated people, pushing back against unproductive and inaccurate uses of recidivism stories and statistics, and fighting back against jail expansion.

This is only a snapshot of what we produced this past year. We are proud of our accomplishments and look forward to sharing new projects with you in the year to come.