The Prison Policy Initiative submits testimony in opposition to HB 338, which would curtail higher education in prison in Ohio

HB 338 would end access to higher education for people in maximum security prisons in Ohio, making prisons less safe and worsening outcomes after release.

by Sarah Staudt, June 16, 2026

On June 10, 2026, the Prison Policy Initiative submitted written testimony in the Ohio Senate in opposition to HB 338, also known as “Andy’s Law”.

The bill claims to promote safety in prisons, but instead is counterproductive. It removes all higher education from maximum security prisons in Ohio, and bans access to tablets and contact visitation. As our testimony notes, higher education in prison is shown to reduce both recidivism and violent incidents in custody. In short, it makes prisons and communities safer.

If you are a criminal legal system reform advocate or legislator who would like to talk to our Advocacy department about providing testimony for or against a bill, please reach out to us using our contact form.

New research: How past incarceration affects people later in life

Two recent studies authored by Professor Carmen Gutierrez and her colleagues show that prior incarceration is associated with various geriatric health conditions and reduced life expectancy later in life.

by Emily Widra, June 9, 2026

As a consequence of the dramatic expansion of incarceration in the last 50 years, a significant and growing portion of older adults in the U.S. have experienced incarceration.¹ In fact, three in every four people released from state prisons between 1991 and 2021 — more than 12 million people — would be over the age of 50 by 2026.² Most existing research about the effects of incarceration on health and mortality have focused on the initial weeks, months, and years after people are released from prison,³ but two recent studies call attention to the health and mortality consequences of incarceration that can take place decades later, when people are 50 or older. The most recent of these studies finds that older adults who have experienced any incarceration have shorter life expectancies than those who haven’t. The other study, published in 2024, reveals troubling details about the health and wellbeing of older formerly incarcerated people compared to their peers who have never been locked up. Taken together, these studies highlight the serious health consequences in later life that stem from past incarceration.

Older adults who have ever been incarcerated face reduced life expectancy

The newest publication from Professor Carmen Gutierrez and her colleagues, published last month (May 2026) in the American Journal of Public Health, is one of the first studies to show that any history of incarceration increases mortality (death) risk for older adults. While prior research has shown that incarceration accelerates physiological aging and shortens life expectancy overall, there is little known about how incarceration impacts mortality risk in later adulthood specifically. The researchers find that older adults who have experienced any amount or form of incarceration in their lives have shorter life expectancies than their peers who have never been incarcerated.

Professor Gutierrez and her colleagues analyzed the results of the 2012 and 2014 iterations of the Health & Retirement Study, a longitudinal, nationally representative survey of nearly 14,000 U.S. adults over the age of 50. As a measure of incarceration history, the survey asks a simple yes-or-no question: “Have you ever been incarcerated, that is, spent time in a jail, prison, juvenile detention center or other correctional facility?” The study also links individual responses to participants’ administrative records, including their appearance in the National Death Index. The researchers measured participants’ rates of death from any cause (i.e., all-cause mortality rates) between the 2012 and 2014 surveys and the follow-up interviews conducted in 2022, when the respondents would be roughly 60 or older.

While controlling for other characteristics like age, sex, race and ethnicity, and childhood health and socioeconomic factors, the researchers found that formerly incarcerated older people have an 88% higher hazard of premature death compared to those with no incarceration history.⁴ More specifically, older people who have experienced incarceration are expected to live nearly six fewer years than similar peers who have never been incarcerated. Formerly incarcerated men and women died at significantly younger average ages (74.8 and 68 years, respectively) than men and women without incarceration histories (82.3 years and 82.9 years, respectively).⁵ For men between 50 and 75 years old, the difference was even greater at close to eight fewer years, but after age 75, incarceration history appeared to have less of an effect on life expectancy.

In addition to its findings about mortality, this study found significant demographic differences between older adults with histories of incarceration and those with none, consistent with what we know about the socioeconomic and racial disparities of incarceration. Compared to older adults with no prior incarceration, formerly incarcerated older adults were more likely to be Black and to report childhood poverty, childhood housing insecurity, lower educational attainment, and fair or poor self-rated health (as opposed to good, very good, or excellent health). In addition, formerly incarcerated older adults were more likely to be unmarried, unemployed, and have a disability than those never incarcerated.

Incarceration is tied to serious health problems in later adulthood

An earlier study authored by a team of academic researchers including Professor Gutierrez — published in the Journal of Gerontology in 2024 — sheds more light on the health of formerly incarcerated people in their older age, with particular focus on chronic conditions that undoubtedly contribute to their shortened life expectancy. Previous research has shown that incarceration takes a toll on both individual health and public health, but this study provides evidence that incarceration is associated with poor health outcomes specifically in later life. The researchers find that any past incarceration is associated with impairments of mobility, vision, and activities of daily living,⁶ as well as diagnoses of cancer, depression, and chronic lung disease among people 50 and older in the U.S.

This study is based on an analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), which follows a nationally representative sample of over 20,000 people who were in grades 7-12 during the 1994-95 school year. The research team analyzed data collected from two specific groups of people⁷ in this massive, long-term study:

• Parents: A survey of parents — biological, adoptive, or stepparents — of children who participated in the Add Health study. Almost all (96%) of the surveyed “parents” were women (mothers).
• Partners of parents: A survey of the cohabitating partners and spouses of the adults in the “parent” sample, as of the 1994 survey. The vast majority (95%) of these respondents were men (fathers or other male partners). To be clear, “partners” could also be parents of Add Health study participants, but only one adult in each household was included in the “parent” sample.

At the time of the 2015, 2016, and 2017 rounds of the Add Health study, there were 2,007 parents and 976 partners of parents who were at least 50 years old. The researchers analyzed survey responses about age-related health concerns among these nearly 3,000 older adults to compare those who reported any history of incarceration and those with no previous incarceration.⁸

In terms of health outcomes, the researchers found that the prevalence rates of a number of age-related conditions were higher among formerly incarcerated older adults. In the sample of parents (again, primarily mothers), those who were formerly incarcerated faced significantly higher rates of cancer, heart disease, stroke, depression, and chronic lung disease. In addition, those who had experienced incarceration were more likely to rate their own health as poor or fair, as opposed to parents without incarceration histories. When controlling for age and sex differences, parents with histories of incarceration were more likely to report difficulty walking and difficulty with activities of daily living than those parents with no history of incarceration.

Among the partner sample, made up of mostly men, the researchers also found alarmingly elevated rates of age-related health concerns associated with previous incarceration. In particular, prevalence rates of cancer, depression, chronic lung disease, and “heavy” alcohol use⁹ were significantly higher among formerly incarcerated people in the partner sample compared to those with no prior incarceration. In addition, formerly incarcerated partners reported difficulty with walking, seeing, and with activities of daily living at higher rates than those who reported no time spent in jail or prison. While the researchers do not explain the reason for the different findings between the parent sample and the partner sample, sex is the most obvious difference.

Aside from the findings about health concerns among formerly incarcerated older adults, the analysis of these samples also helps paint a picture of formerly incarcerated parents. First, incarceration was more common in the sample of partners (mostly men) than among the sample of parents (mostly women): 15% of partners reported any previous incarceration compared to only 4.2% of parents. Compared to parents and partners with no incarceration history, a greater portion of parents and partners with incarceration histories were Black, reported parental childhood abuse, had lower educational attainment, and reported receiving public assistance in the past 12 months. In terms of their access to healthcare, parents and partners who had ever been incarcerated were more likely to identify the emergency department as their usual source of medical care, report at least one overnight hospital stay in the past 12 months, and/or to have Medicaid or no health insurance. These differences tell us that not only are formerly incarcerated older adults particularly vulnerable to a number of serious health issues, a number of socioeconomic factors also limit their access to the appropriate and necessary care.

Conclusion

Millions of formerly incarcerated people are aging into older adulthood: approximately 1 in 15 adults aged 50 or over has a history of incarceration and therefore faces both an elevated risk of death and a number of serious medical conditions. These two studies provide further evidence that incarceration is a social determinant of health and should be included in assessments of public health. In addition, the elevated mortality risk and prevalence of chronic age-related conditions among formerly incarcerated older adults in these studies supports the argument that healthcare providers need to consider individuals’ history of incarceration to better understand the health risks they may face.

WEBINAR: Fighting for families: How advocates are resisting attacks on visitation and physical mail

by Sarah Staudt, June 4, 2026

Protecting family connections and bonds with loved ones during incarceration is one of the most important and, increasingly, one of the most difficult things advocates can do. Contact visitation, handwritten cards and letters, and regular phone calls improve mental health outcomes for both people in prisons and the families who love and support them. They also strengthen parent-child relationships and familial bonds, improve in-prison conduct and make prisons safer, and can significantly increase a person’s chance of success upon release.

Nevertheless, jails and prisons across the country are implementing increasingly restrictive communication policies. Contact visitation is under attack, and more than 30 states no longer allow incarcerated people to receive physical mail from their loved ones. These moves, ostensibly in the name of security, not only devastate incarcerated people and their loved ones but make us all less safe in the long run. But families are fighting back, championing policies to protect these vital lifelines and the benefits that come with them.

Join the Prison Policy Initiative on July 1 from 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm EST, as we welcome Jodi Hocking, Executive Director of Return Strong Nevada, and Taj Mahon-Haft PhD, Director of The Humanization Project in Virginia. We’ll take a closer look at the importance of family connections, learn more about the ways they are under attack, and share strategies to help families fight back.

This webinar will include live American Sign Language and Spanish interpretation.

Register for the webinar

Probation and parole trends by state: A look back at the data on ‘alternatives’ to incarceration

We compiled, corrected, and analyzed 45 years of state-level probation and parole data, and found that while most (but not all) states have reduced the number of people they’ve placed under supervision, many states have had more people on probation than previously reported.

by Jacob Kang-Brown, June 2, 2026

Around two-thirds of all people under correctional control are on probation or parole. For data details, see the methodology.

Community supervision represents the largest segment of the criminal legal system and, much like incarceration, it is almost entirely a state- and locally-run enterprise. As we explain in Punishment Beyond Prisons, on an average day, around 3.5 million people are on probation or parole compared to 2 million people who are incarcerated. To put this into perspective, that means more people are on parole than are in local jails nationwide, and people on probation make up more than half of all people under correctional control of any kind.
But how has the number of people under supervision in each state changed over time? In this briefing, we clean up and piece together state-level community supervision data covering roughly the last 45 years to provide a clear view of supervision dynamics in each state, as well as how states compare to one another.

This briefing includes state-level annual data tables and detailed trendline graphics going back to the 1970s, at the start of a rapid expansion of incarceration and community supervision. Compiling these data required correcting data published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and updating estimates that states had previously reported during the 1990s or early 2000s. ¹ Through this process, we discovered that many states have had more people on probation than previously reported. We also found that people under supervision are trending older, much like the rest of the criminal legal system.

To learn more about the data we used and the corrections we made, see the data discussion and the detailed methodology.

Community supervision has declined by nearly a third since its peak in 2009

After experiencing rapid growth alongside the jail and prison boom decades of the 1980s and 1990s, parole and probation populations have changed course. Between 2009 and 2024, the overall rate of people on community supervision across the United States fell by 31%. ² This decline has happened nearly across the board: 41 states and the District of Columbia have substantially reduced community supervision rates over the past 15 years.

Declining numbers of people on community supervision are primarily the result of courts placing fewer people on probation, specifically. Parole boards have also been stingier with granting release in recent decades, holding fewer hearings and handing down denials in greater numbers. In fact, nearly every state with discretionary parole is granting release to fewer people each year.

While the number of people on community supervision has been trending downward, supervision nonetheless remains at a high level compared to other forms of correctional control. Looking beneath the national-level data can help us understand what is driving these changes.

At the regional level, the South ³ had the highest rate of community supervision in both 2009 and 2024; the Northeast ⁴ had the lowest. While every region saw falling supervision rates, the drops were larger in the West ⁵ and Northeast than in the South and Midwest.⁶ Meanwhile, in both the West and Northeast, the total number of people on community supervision fell to less than 1% of the total state population (a rate of 1,000 per 100,000 residents). In 2009, only 12 states were below that 1% mark; by 2024, half of all states were.

Of the 10 jurisdictions that had, at minimum, a staggering 1 in 50 people on probation or parole in 2009, only two (Georgia and Idaho) continue to place people under supervision at such a massive scale today. ⁷ Even so, Georgia’s community supervision rate has fallen by almost 30% in that time.

Arkansas has earned the ignoble distinction of having the largest rise in the community supervision rate between 2009 and 2024. The state went from having 1,785 to 2,399 per 100,000 residents under supervision — an increase in the rate of 614 per 100,000 residents. Remarkably, Arkansas went from the state with the 14th highest rate of supervision in the country (below the overall rate in the South) to the second highest. It is also one of only six states that saw a growth in its supervision rate of 10% or more. ⁸ See our appendix tables for a detailed breakdown of supervision population counts and rates for each state since the 1970s.

The new, more accurate data we present offer new insights on historical trends in community supervision. For example, Illinois and Oklahoma both had more or less unchanged rates of community supervision in 2009 and 2024. ⁹ However, the uncorrected data published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics would give a different impression: that Illinois had reduced community supervision by 42% in that period.

Importantly, readers should note that, when interpreting trend lines in different states, changes in probation and parole populations over time are not inherently good or bad; they can result from a wide range of reforms across the criminal legal system. For example, more people on parole might mean that states are moving more people out of prisons in recognition of the fact that they don’t threaten public safety. Declining community supervision could reflect new policies lowering barriers to successfully completing a supervision term, like reducing the number of conditions or the use of carceral sanctions for violations. We argue that far more people should be granted parole, ¹⁰ which would reduce prison populations and return people to their communities, and that probation is overused for lower-level offenses. Determining the forces that have shaped probation and parole in each state is outside the scope of this briefing, but we hope the data series we provide can help others carry that work forward.

The age of people on community supervision has risen dramatically

As mass incarceration ramped up between the 1970s and 1990s, politicians stoked racism and criminalized youth as easy targets, leading to an estimated 2.8 million youth and young adults on community supervision in 2009. ¹¹ By 2024, however, their number had fallen by two-thirds to under 1 million. Youth and young adults went from representing close to half of all people who were under supervision in 2009 ¹² to only a quarter in 2024. ¹³

While primarily a sanction for youth and young adults in the early 2000s, community supervision now appears to be more concerned with older adults and those living in poverty. In stark contrast to the drop in the supervised youth and young adult population, the number of people aged 50 or older who were under supervision grew by 2% between 2009 and 2024. ¹⁴

It’s worth noting just how much the parole and probation age distribution has changed in this time span. In 2009, 1 in 17 young adults were on supervision; for youth under 18, the rate was 1 in 30. For young people today, community supervision is a far rarer circumstance, inflicted on 1 in 65 people under age 18, and 1 in 59 young adults aged 18 to 25. For others, there has been much less of a change: in 2009, 1 in 33 adults aged 26 to 49 were on supervision, a rate that grew to 1 in 45 in 2024. Meanwhile, the supervision rate for adults aged 50 and older went from 1 in 130 in 2004 to 1 in 164 in 2024.

What we’ve learned about supervision data quality (and ongoing issues in certain states)

The fractured nature of correctional control across local, state, and federal jurisdictions makes it hard to truly comprehend the scale of mass punishment. While we typically rely on and trust data published by government agencies to produce our analyses, this research provided an opportunity to compare state and federal sources and correct what were, in many cases, obviously distorted datapoints. In this section, we give a high-level overview of some of the most common problems we identified in the data; you can skip ahead to read the full methodology for more detailed information on how we compiled these data and arrived at our estimates.

There are three different ways we honed the data to clarify trends in each state (impacting probation figures in particular).

1. The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ (BJS) improved sample makes it looks like caseloads grew when they didn’t: Recent BJS methods are finally catching up to the extent of probation in states like Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Virginia by collecting data from local (in addition to state) probation agencies. However, this change in collection practices has appeared in the data as a rapid rise in probation in those states. To the contrary, by constructing an accurate and comparable data set, we find that the number of people on probation in those states in recent years has been generally trending downward.

2. Incomplete data reporting by probation agencies sometimes leads to over-estimates in BJS publications. The Bureau of Justice Statistics imputes (creates estimates for) missing or incomplete data, and sometimes does so in a way that leads to an otherwise unexplainable data spike in a single year. In Delaware, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Mississippi, BJS data appear to show sudden peaks in the number of people on probation, while alternative state-level data sources we found show those increases never actually took place.

3. States often correct their data when they find errors, but the updates don’t always make it to BJS: In states like California, Illinois, Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania, state agencies collect and synthesize probation information in ways that lead to data improvements over time. Unfortunately, the Bureau of Justice Statistics does not have a mandate to go back and collect this updated data, which would otherwise correct double counting, typos, and other issues. Neglecting these updates can enshrine errors in the historical record, as is the case with California’s peak probation population, which is actually quite a bit lower than reported by BJS. Worse, ignoring updates can obscure real-world changes. Take, for example, the real and sudden drop in probation cases between 2014 and 2015 in California due to Prop 47 making many criminal cases eligible for misdemeanor sentences that would have otherwise been felonies. The BJS data show a smoother decline, but subsequent data improvements from the California Department of Justice show that, while relatively small, the change was nonetheless much more abrupt.

Conclusion

As a true “alternative” to prison or pretrial detention, parole or probation can be an improvement over the status quo. Unfortunately, community supervision tends to be poorly designed as a way to balance accountability with connecting people to the services and treatment they need to achieve stability. Both probation and parole impose an excessive number of conditions on people that can be nearly impossible to comply with all the time. When someone on supervision is accused of violating a condition — particularly through behaviors that are not crimes — they are often incarcerated as a response, which only further destabilizes their lives. And “failure” is indeed common: Only about 36% of people successfully completed a term of probation, and 62% completed parole, in 2024. ¹⁹

Correctional control is practiced at an enormous scale in the United States, too often shuffling people back and forth between detention, incarceration, and supervision to the detriment of community health and public safety. It’s important for all jurisdictions to implement reforms to reduce and avoid correctional control as safely, efficiently, and as quickly as possible. Since community supervision is, like most of the criminal legal system, almost entirely a state and local affair, more accurate state-specific data (like those we’ve provided in this briefing) can help us see how the myriad supervision systems have developed over time. For those states that have genuinely reduced the burden of community supervision, it is worth understanding whether they can share lessons with other states, especially if they have been able to reduce incarceration as well.

The California Supreme Court puts on the record the best arguments against money bail

A recent case, In re Kowalczyk, affirms that money bonds are unfair, harmful, and make communities less safe.

by Sarah Staudt, May 27, 2026

In January 2021, Gerald Kowalczyk, a disabled man experiencing homelessness, found a credit card on the ground in San Mateo, California. He attempted to use the credit card to buy a $7 hamburger, then had a change of heart, asked for a refund, and when the manager refused, left without the hamburger. He was arrested shortly afterwards and charged with identity theft and petty theft. California law would generally not have allowed Mr. Kowalczyk to be detained pretrial on such minor, non-violent charges. But the judge, like too many prosecutors and judges, set an astronomical $75,000 bond in the case, stranding Mr. Kowalczyk in jail for six months before he pled guilty.

On April 30, 2026, the California Supreme Court expanded on a previous case, In re Humphrey, and ruled that Mr. Kowalczyk’s detention was unconstitutional under the California State Constitution because detaining people using unaffordable cash bails is the exact same thing as detaining them without bail, something that can only be done in limited circumstances with rigorous due process protections. Because of this case, unaffordable bail is now never an option in the California courts — if they use monetary bail, courts must set bail at a level that an accused person can pay.

The opinion and concurrence state in no uncertain terms what pretrial reform advocates have been saying for years:

• Using money to decide who goes to jail and who goes free is a lawless system that puts the opinions of judges and prosecutors above the will of legislatures and the public.
• Money bail privileges the rich and leaves everyone else stranded in jail.
• The overuse of pretrial jailing does more harm than good and destabilizes the very communities prosecutors and judges claim to be protecting.

In re Kowalczyk could free tens of thousands of people every year in California, if appropriately implemented. Even though this case can’t be used as binding precedent in other states because its legal basis is specific to the California State Constitution, the court’s reasoning gives excellent examples of how to make these important arguments resonate with policymakers.

When prosecutors and judges use money bail to detain people, they are imposing their own judgements instead of following the law

“Courts cannot use artificially high or objectively unattainable bail as an end run to effectuate pretrial detention where such detention is not authorized under [the California Constitution].” — Majority opinion, p. 32

The debate around cash bail centers around a lesson from Civics 101: separation of powers. Legislatures decide what the law is. Judges then apply that law to individual cases. The Constitution separates these roles because legislatures are best suited to make policy decisions, like the decisions about what charges and situations should and should not make someone eligible for pretrial detention, and how those decisions should be made. Judges ensure that these legislative decisions are carried out in the cases before them.

California, like many states, has a list of offenses that are eligible for pretrial detention (a list that excludes misdemeanors and low-level felonies like the ones Mr. Kowalczyk was arrested for). The state constitution then imposes a series of due process protections to make sure that decisions are made fairly.

The opinion in Kowalczyk makes clear that when judges — often at the request of prosecutors — use unaffordable cash bail to detain people, they are ignoring these constitutional rules and imposing their own judgments instead. Before this decision, when a judge set an unaffordable bail to detain someone, they didn’t have to go through the due process steps set out by the state constitution, because technically, the person wasn’t being detained. In theory, they could pay money to get out. In practice, however, detaining an unhoused person on a $75,000 bail is the same as saying he can’t be released at all — and that’s exactly what the California Supreme Court recognized in this case.

The takeaway: Advocates throughout the country should look at what their laws and constitutions actually say about who can be detained pretrial, determine whether they think those laws are fair or need to be changed, and then close the loophole of allowing judges and prosecutors to use unaffordable cash bail to ignore the law.

Using money to determine who goes to jail is illogical and unsafe

“A system in which a person’s right to liberty turns on financial resources compromises public safety and raises equal protection and due process concerns.” — Groban concurrence, p. 8

Even if decisionmakers think that pretrial detention of some people is necessary to keep communities safe (more on that below), when judges set unaffordable money bails it produces a fundamentally unfair and illogical system.

First, money bail does nothing to guarantee that a rich person who poses a real threat to the public will actually stay in custody. Conversely, everyday people who do not pose a risk are stuck in jail simply because they can’t afford to pay.

Second, a money bail system provides no meaningful due process protections. There is no requirement that there be sufficient evidence that someone is guilty, no requirement that a prosecutor prove that the person poses a public safety risk, and no examination of whether alternatives other than jail would be appropriate. Instead, the judge simply sets a monetary amount and the person is detained if they can’t pay it. This heightens the risk that innocent or non-dangerous people spend time in jail and encourages hasty, unthinking judicial decision-making that can put communities at risk. Notably, when Illinois eliminated monetary bail in 2023, the length of detention hearings increased dramatically, and judges considered more factors when making their decisions.

The takeaway: Advocates throughout the country should remove money from playing any role in their pretrial release systems, since it doesn’t have any bearing on safety.

The overuse of pretrial detention is actively harmful and doesn’t keep communities safe

“Many people who are detained are never convicted of any crime; a substantial proportion of detainees is never even charged with one. Many others accept unfavorable plea offers, with potentially devastating repercussions for their employment, education, housing, access to public benefits, immigration status, and family stability. And some, forced to choose between remaining detained or pleading guilty to an offense they did not commit, choose to plead guilty to secure their release.” — Groban concurrence, p. 9

Pretrial release should always be the default in the justice system. When someone is first arrested, they have not been proven guilty of a crime, and many people later have their cases dismissed, plead guilty to less serious charges, or are found not guilty. Estimates in some jurisdictions suggest that more than 50% of arrests end without a conviction. Nonetheless, nationwide, over 75% of people in jail custody are pretrial. This huge number of unconvicted individuals in jails makes them less safe environments by contributing to overcrowding.

Pretrial jailing harms people in custody in a number of ways. People detained pretrial are more likely to:

• lose their jobs and experience housing instability;
• die by suicide or overdose after release;
• become ensnared in the criminal legal system again, as measured by long-term re-arrest rates;
• miss a scheduled court date;
• be convicted and be sentenced to longer jail and prison terms, worsening prison overcrowding and mass incarceration as a whole.

Jurisdictions that have reduced the use of pretrial jailing have not seen any rise in crime. There is simply no evidence-based reason to continue the extremely high levels of pretrial detention that currently exist in the United States.

The takeaway: Advocates around the country should pursue laws that minimize the use of pretrial detention, seek to shrink jail populations, and provide robust due process protections to make sure that people are only behind bars if they truly pose a danger to others or are likely to willfully flee prosecution.

In re Kowalczyk has the potential to free tens of thousands of Californians each year as they are released on their own recognizance — or on money bail levels they can actually afford to pay — instead of being held in custody because they’re poor. The next step for California is implementation. Unfortunately, without rigorous efforts to require courts to follow a ruling like this, it could have little impact, as happened after the In re Humphrey decision. But the reasoning in this case can provide a roadmap for people in other states interested in creating just, fair, and rational pretrial systems.

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.

by Leah Wang, April 27, 2026

Here at the Prison Policy Initiative, almost everything we write is accompanied by clear and powerful visualizations that convey the harms of mass criminalization and incarceration. When new data are available, some of our most-referenced charts merit an update. We also occasionally pull together charts at the request of advocates working on specific projects, and share them when we think they may be of use to others. (Get in touch with us if you think our Advocacy department can be of help.)

Below, we are sharing some of these new and updated charts. Where applicable, we have updated the same data in downloadable spreadsheets in our Data Toolbox. Note that we also catalog our visualizations in a handy Visuals Database, where you can explore our charts by topic and link to each chart easily in your own work.

Seeing state, local and federal correctional populations all together

State prisons and local jails are where the majority of incarcerated people are locked up, and state and local policies are what keep so many behind bars. As these charts show, prison and jail populations have rebounded after the pandemic temporarily stalled admissions and accelerated releases — highlighting a serious need for policies that will permanently reduce prison populations. For high-impact state policy ideas, even in times of turmoil, see our guide to winnable criminal justice reforms.

The disproportionate growth in women’s incarceration

For almost fifty years, women’s prison populations have grown at a faster clip compared to men’s. The pandemic demonstrated that significant decarceration is possible, but a few years later, jail and prison population rebounds have again been faster for women. As we’ve explained elsewhere, the incarceration of women largely takes place in local jails, which offer fewer services than prisons and struggle to provide proper health care, and where most women have not even been convicted of a crime. Fortunately, advocates and lawmakers are paying increasing attention to the unique harms and burdens for women impacted by the criminal legal system. For more information and context, see our reports, Women’s Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie, and States of Women’s Incarceration: The Global Context.

Racial disparities persist behind bars

As updated data show, incarceration continues to harm Black and Native people at wildly disproportionate rates compared to other racial and ethnic groups. Of course, these disparities often begin at earlier stages of the criminal legal system, like policing, pretrial detention, and opportunities for diversion.

See our Racial Justice page for more reports, briefings, research, and visualizations focused on the intersection of race and incarceration.

The mass punishment system extends to probation and parole

Looking only at the 2 million people behind bars obscures the fact that millions more people are under the thumb of the correctional system, on probation or parole. As of 2023, there are about 3 million people on probation and 536,000 people on parole who live under these poorly-designed “alternatives” to incarceration.

People ensnared in the “mass punishment” system are in poorer overall health; as the second slide shows, those behind bars or under community supervision report much higher rates of serious psychological distress. Visit our Probation and Parole issue page to find out more about mass punishment at the national and state levels.

If you find our datasets and charts useful in your work, let us know about it.

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.

by Aleks Kajstura, April 10, 2026

Upon coming home from prison, people face the same — and rising — costs of living as the rest of us. But they have to bear additional costs imposed by the criminal legal system as well, all while navigating additional and unique barriers to employment. The resulting financial insecurity makes it harder to succeed at reentry. Cash assistance (often called “guaranteed income”) makes reentry easier by providing people with a monetary safety net, helping them get jobs, housing, and food, and fulfill any remaining court or parole obligations.

In this piece, we explain how guaranteed income reduces recidivism and results in taxpayer savings. We highlight the work of the Just Income program in Alachua County (Gainesville), Florida as a concrete example that demonstrates cash assistance with no strings attached is a smart policy choice for supporting people in reentry.

Formerly incarcerated people face serious financial challenges upon release

There are nearly 2 million people incarcerated in the U.S. at any given time, but because of the enormous churn in and out of facilities, about 8 million people leave jail and prison every year. In other words, millions of people are faced with the daunting challenge of getting back on their feet after incarceration has upended their lives.

Formerly incarcerated people disproportionately experience joblessness and poverty before being incarcerated, and those issues only get worse after release. Not only is it harder to find employment after incarceration, but people also face hefty fees upon release. In Florida, for example, courts assessed over $315 million in fines and fees in Fiscal Year 2017-18 (the most recent year for which data are available).

For people in reentry, financial hardships have severe consequences: failing to meet the arduous requirements of post-release supervision can result in reincarceration. Unemployment is highest within the first two years of release, so financial assistance can make the biggest impact in the early part of reentry. Notably, these struggles are disproportionately imposed on Black Americans, who are overrepresented in the country’s correctional facilities; Black people make up just 14% of the U.S. population, but 42% of incarcerated people. Similarly, in Florida, Black residents make up 15% of the state population, but nearly half of the people in prisons and 41% of the people in jails. To make matters worse, Black people have the highest joblessness and unemployment rates among formerly incarcerated people.

The Just Income project puts theory into practice

One Florida organization is working to help people succeed in reentry — and with over 150,000 Florida residents behind bars and 687,000 returning home each year, there is a lot of need for support. In Alachua County, Community Spring is addressing those needs directly through a guaranteed income program for recently-released people, providing direct financial support that recipients could use to address their most pressing needs.

Community Spring’s Just Income program gives formerly incarcerated people who reside in Alachua County $800 per month for a year with no strings attached. This allows recipients to put the money where it’s needed most at any given time.

Recipients are randomly selected from among those who meet the broad eligibility criteria. To qualify, they must simply have been released from a prison or jail or have started probation in the previous year. To confirm that the program is indeed a good use of funds, the program started as a pilot where researchers conducted a study that compared outcomes for individuals who received the income and a control group of formerly incarcerated people who did not. The pilot participants who received assistance were given $1,000 in the first month and then $600 for the following 11 months. The results showed recidivism fell, and self-sufficiency and mental health improved, all resulting in net savings for taxpayers.

Providing guaranteed income to formerly incarcerated individuals shows great results

Just Income’s pilot study showed that guaranteed income improved probation compliance and reduced recidivism rates.

It’s not hard to see why the pilot produced these results when Florida law requires “probation fees of at least $40 per month, while eliminating exemptions from prosecution and public defense fees for indigent defendants,” according to Just Income’s study report. The findings were consistent with interviews conducted with the participants, who expressed that the guaranteed income program saved them from having to turn to crimes of survival or other criminalized activities to cover basic needs.

Guaranteed Income creates taxpayer savings and increased self-sufficiency

One common misconception about cash assistance in general, and guaranteed income in particular, is that it creates a disincentive to work. But guaranteed income programs actually help people find suitable and sustainable work that leads to more stable employment.

Results from the pilot showed that the guaranteed income payments actually improved participants’ self-sufficiency by strengthening their ability to obtain employment and cover their own basic living expenses.

This makes sense when one considers how guaranteed income programs make people less desperate for money to cover basic needs. Not only does that remove economic incentives that can lead to recidivism, but it also allows people in reentry to find work in a hostile job market. Not being desperate to take the very first job available may make it easier for people to find well-paid, sustainable employment.

The impact of the Just Income program extended beyond the single person receiving the payment. Recipients were able to pitch in for household expenses, cover food costs, and help others in need. This means that guaranteed income not only benefits people in reentry, but their larger communities as well. Even though the cash assistance doesn’t come close to covering all expenses, letting people choose to share some of that money with family and community gives formerly incarcerated people the ability to strengthen social ties through giving back.

The study’s participants also “credited the stability provided by the Just Income program for improving their mental well-being.” Participants who received assistance experienced reduced stress, felt like they mattered more, and had higher hopes for the future. They expressed that these improvements led to “an interruption in the downward spiral of poverty, stress, substance use, and recidivism.”

These benefits not only help individuals directly impacted by incarceration and their immediate communities, but all Florida residents through significant tax savings. Florida spends over $41,000 annually to incarcerate a single person. During the study period, participants received $7,600 over 12 months. For every 100 people in the study, those payments led to 12 fewer people being reincarcerated. By conservative estimate, that averages out to a net gain for taxpayers of over $13,000 per person in the program.

Guaranteed income is a proven tool that should be used across the country

Community Spring’s Just Income program should be replicated across the country. Guaranteed income for people in reentry is a smart policy move, and Community Spring even provides consulting to those who want to start their own program for people in reentry. A key factor of their program’s success is that the payments are completely unrestricted, which enables them to maximize efficiency by allowing people to pick new uses for the funds as new challenges crop up.

There have only been a handful of other guaranteed income programs focusing on justice-involved people so far. Just Income is unique among them because it was accompanied by a rigorous academic study. Even though the other programs weren’t subject to the same level of scrutiny, they did gather some data and (of course) anecdotes, which showed the same general benefits of guaranteed income for people in reentry.

These early pilots of guaranteed income programs show promise in helping people succeed in reentry. In fact, Just Income has kept going beyond their first pilot, turning into a recurring program providing people with unconditional payments of $800 a month for one year. They are now helping other organizations to replicate this type of program.

More organizations and governments should copy these programs; guaranteed income is an efficient way to help people succeed in reentry, reducing recidivism and quickly paying for itself. Everyone deserves a fair shot at reintegrating into society, securing high-quality employment, and contributing to their communities. Just a little money every month can be the first step in achieving that goal.

In federal prisons, the grievance system is designed to reject nearly all complaints about medical care

We analyzed data about formal complaints made by incarcerated people regarding medical care in federal prisons and can only conclude that grievance systems are designed to thwart nearly every one.

by Brian Nam-Sonenstein, March 24, 2026

When incarcerated people face abuse and mistreatment, they can typically file a formal complaint with jail or prison administrators. In federal prisons, the system for resolving these complaints is known as the “Administrative Remedy Program,” but it’s more commonly referred to as a “grievance system” in state prisons and local jails. Grievance systems are supposed to provide incarcerated people with a way to challenge issues they face behind bars — such as inadequate medical care, harassment by corrections officers, or unsanitary living conditions — and (hopefully) receive some kind of relief. In practice, however, incarcerated people who turn to grievance systems are forced to run a gauntlet of rules and regulations just to be heard, and very rarely succeed. This is especially true when it comes to medical complaints: our analysis of a decade of data from the Data Liberation Project finds that, between 2014 and 2024, a startling 98% of medical grievances were rejected for reasons ranging from the bureaucratic (such as using the wrong size sheet of paper) to the substantive (actually being denied on the merits of the complaint). Less than 1% of medical cases ended in a grant of relief.

A functioning grievance system is an important lifeline for incarcerated people, who have very little leverage to affect their circumstances. It’s especially important for health-related matters, given that incarcerated people suffer from illness and disease at rates far exceeding that of the general public, and their access to medical care is highly constrained and notoriously awful. But in the end, a system does what it is designed to do, not what it is intended to do, and the federal grievance system rejects nearly every medical complaint filed by incarcerated people, often for vague or trivial reasons.

In this briefing, we examine the statuses of nearly 66,000 medical grievances from across the Bureau of Prisons to determine what kinds of medical complaints are most common in the federal system and how incarcerated people fare in their pursuit of relief.

The federal prison grievance system is designed to shut down complaints

Major segments of the U.S. population struggle to obtain basic medical care, but incarcerated people face especially challenging barriers and limitations such as the inability to choose doctors, get second opinions, or continue treatments prescribed prior to their incarceration. Conditions are so bad on the inside that since 2000, roughly half of all state prison systems have been court-ordered to improve mental and medical healthcare.

Our analysis of a decade of data from the Data Liberation Project finds that, between 2014 and 2024, a startling 98% of medical grievances were rejected for reasons ranging from the bureaucratic (such as using the wrong size sheet of paper) to the substantive (actually being denied on the merits of the complaint). Less than 1% of medical cases ended in a grant of relief. See Appendix A for more information.

The sheer volume of correctional healthcare lawsuits reflects how ineffective prison grievance systems are for incarcerated people. After all, grievance systems should help people address their concerns so that neither side has to engage in costly, time-consuming litigation. Instead, grievance systems gatekeep actual opportunities for accountability in the courts.

The federal Bureau of Prisons’ grievance system, in the simplest terms, works like this:

1. Informal resolution: An incarcerated person must first attempt to resolve their complaint informally by speaking directly to the person with whom they have an issue. As one might imagine, this first hurdle can easily dissuade people from pursuing their complaint for fear of retaliation — especially when that person works for the prison.
2. Formal resolution: If they can’t informally resolve the issue, an incarcerated person can file a formal complaint with the warden, who is supposed to investigate and respond. To do this, the incarcerated person must overcome tedious administrative hurdles for their complaint to even be considered, including adhering to short deadlines¹ and specific requirements like using the correct paper size, attaching the right number of copies, or using the right form (of which there are many).
3. Appeals: If the warden denies the grievance or fails to resolve it, the incarcerated person can first appeal to the regional office and, if denied or unresolved again, can appeal to the central office.
4. Lawsuits: Due to restrictions imposed under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, this administrative system must be completely exhausted before an incarcerated person can file a lawsuit in court to compel relief.

So, how far do complaints about medical care make it through this system? Our analysis of federal medical grievance data ² provides a snapshot (as of May 2024) of the statuses of nearly 66,000 complaints filed between January 2014 and January 2024. ³ At the time the data were exported, nearly one-third (32%) of all medical complaints had been rejected because they were “improperly filed” according to one administrative rule or another; another 51% had been closed upon appeal for administrative reasons. In particular, the dental and mental health grievance categories had the highest rates of these rejections: 78% of dental and 83% of mental health grievances were tossed out for administrative reasons, including cases that had reached the appeals stage.

Cut-rate careThe broken system of “healthcare” behind bars

The data snapshot reveals that just 14% of all medical grievances over the decade made it past these administrative tests only to be denied on the actual merits of the complaint. Here, again, mental health and dental-related categories had the highest percentage (20%) of cases denied relief. Remarkably and disturbingly, zero grievances pertaining to pregnancy, abortion, or childcare in this decade-long dataset were granted relief. Meanwhile, the categories of “other forced medical treatment” and “forced psychotropic medication” had zero cases that were even accepted for consideration.

Contrast this with the victories: Only 1% of cases over the decade had a status indicating they were granted relief. This amounts to a grand total of just 940 cases out of 65,712. While the dataset doesn’t include details on those outcomes, relief is typically specific to the grievance. For example, if a person files a grievance because they were denied a particular medication, they might seek relief in the form of access to that medication.

As one might expect, the most common grievance subjects match what we know about common structural issues with prison healthcare. In terms of raw numbers, the following grievance subjects had the highest numbers of complaints and subsequent denials of relief:

Grievance subjects with the highest number of cases
in which the prison denied relief

Alternatively, we can look at grievance subjects that had the highest proportion of cases in which the prison denied relief. Here, again, we see subjects that match some of the most notorious problems in prison healthcare:

Grievance subjects with the highest proportion of cases
in which the prison denied relief

Tedious paperwork issues are a leading reason for rejected grievances

As the data show, federal prisons don’t reject most grievances on the merits. Instead, most are rejected because incarcerated people fail to navigate administrative rules for submitting complaints, so their grievances are never actually judged on their merits.

Why are so many complaints rejected on technicalities? Put simply, many of the rules and requirements that govern the grievance process are difficult for incarcerated people to meet. Prison officials control the time and movement of incarcerated people, which can hinder their ability to access the necessary forms and submit complaints to the right person in a timely manner. They also restrict the type and amount of property people can keep in their cells, including writing tools and materials they would need to fill out grievance forms. Add to this the typically lower levels of educational attainment and literacy among incarcerated people compared to the general population, and it becomes obvious that the various confusingly-named forms, rules about single-subject complaints, prohibitions on third-party assistance,⁴ and other highly specific rules work to thwart most grievances before they’re ever considered on their merits. Other requirements, like requiring attempted informal resolutions as a first step, may sound reasonable in the abstract but can quickly dissuade incarcerated people who might fear retaliation for speaking up, especially in abusive situations. On top of all of this, those filing medical grievances are dealing with unresolved medical issues as they fight to receive basic dignified care.

In the dataset,⁵ each case can have up to five reasons explaining why it was rejected and/or closed. We tabulated the most common reasons for rejection given across cases to find that:

• 2 in 5 reasons for rejection pertained to various paperwork issues (such as failing to provide a copy of a particular form, using the wrong size paper, illegible writing or different wordings across forms, failing to write separate appeals for each incident report, or the grievance was filed to the wrong place/person).
• 1 in 10 reasons claimed the complainant failed to first exhaust all other, informal avenues for resolution.
• 1 in 12 (8%) reasons pointed to a failure to adhere to time limits for initial complaints and appeals.

The remaining reasons were a mix of withdrawn complaints, repetitive filings, rejections for subjects that are not appealable or “not sensitive issues,” or because the complaint allegedly contained “obscene language.”

Are grievance systems designed to solve problems, or deter lawsuits?

In theory, grievance procedures are an important tool for incarcerated people to pursue fair treatment and defend themselves in a system designed to disempower them. This power is particularly important in the context of medical care, where needs are widespread and urgent, and where failure to meet them can lead to injury, illness, and death. In practice, however, the grievance system is a black hole, a time-waster, and a deterrent to complaining at all. It’s a long and winding maze of rules and technicalities that must be cleared before an incarcerated person can get their complaint to a setting that might actually force a change: the courts.

As we explain in our report, Cut-rate Care, prison healthcare often functions in a similar way, denying and delaying care until the incarcerated person either (1) becomes so frustrated that they give up, (2) pursues their complaint all the way to an improbable success in the courts, or (3) is released or dies. With nearly 100% of medical grievances rejected or denied, it’s hard not to see the federal grievance system as a process designed to block or discourage complaints and lawsuits rather than a meaningful path for relief, protection, or accountability.

At minimum, prison grievance systems should be operated independently, not run by prison administrators,⁶ and incarcerated individuals’ complaints should carry more weight, be easier to file, and lead to more meaningful and rapidly-delivered relief than they currently do.

Appendices

The following data were obtained by the Data Liberation Project following a Freedom of Information Act request for grievance records from the Bureau of Prisons. See their data documentation resources for details and access to the full dataset.

The Prison Policy Initiative submits testimony in favor of SB503 to improve young adult sentencing in Connecticut

SB 503 would include people in their early 20s in important sentencing and parole provisions that consider age and maturity.

by Sarah Staudt, March 24, 2026

On March 18, 2026, the Prison Policy Initiative submitted written testimony in the Connecticut Legislature in support of SB 503, “An Act concerning the sentencing of and parole eligibility for individuals whose offense was committed when such individual was under the age of twenty-six years.”

This bill extends important parole eligibility and sentencing provisions that apply to people who were under 21 at the time of their offense to people who were under 26, reflecting scientific research that shows that brain development continues during people’s early 20s.

If you are a criminal legal system reform advocate or legislator who would like to talk to our Advocacy department about providing testimony for a bill, please reach out to us using our contact form.

Welcome to our first Creator-in-Residence, Alpha Jalloh!

Alpha will work with the Prison Policy Initiative team to create social videos that expose the harms of mass incarceration in America.

by Regan Huston, March 18, 2026

Prison Policy Initiative is excited to announce that Alpha Jalloh will join us as our first Creator-in-Residence.

With more Americans turning to social video content for their news and information, the Prison Policy Initiative created this residency to empower and support creators producing videos that expose the harms of the carceral system. For the next four months, Alpha will produce videos that break down complex problems in the U.S. criminal legal system, with the Prison Policy Initiative providing data and research support.

Alpha is a filmmaker, educator, and policy-focused storyteller whose work explores incarceration, surveillance, and structural inequality. Formerly incarcerated, he is an alumnus of the Yale Prison Education Initiative and now a double major in Political Science and American Studies at Yale University, Class of 2029, while serving as president of the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project. Previously, he was a Justice Through Code Fellow at Columbia University and an Education Fellow with the Bard Prison Initiative, and he worked as a career specialist at a New Haven nonprofit supporting people navigating reentry and employment.

Videos will be published as collaborative posts on both his and the Prison Policy Initiative social media accounts. Be sure to follow Alpha on Instagram and TikTok. And also follow Prison Policy Initiative on Instagram and TikTok.

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We hope this residency uplifts and grows the ranks of creators producing content about the harms of mass incarceration in the U.S.