{"id":9593,"date":"2020-03-24T11:24:54","date_gmt":"2020-03-24T15:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=9593"},"modified":"2021-03-11T15:33:23","modified_gmt":"2021-03-11T20:33:23","slug":"whole-pie-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/24\/whole-pie-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"As pandemic threatens to devastate prison population, new report provides updated \u201cbig picture\u201d view of incarceration in the U.S."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As advocates urge prisons and jails to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/06\/pandemic\/\">slow the spread of COVID-19<\/a> by releasing as many incarcerated people as possible, it&#8217;s more important than ever to understand how many people are locked up across the country, where, and why. The Prison Policy Initiative&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/reports\/pie2020.html\">new edition of <i>Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie<\/i>,<\/a> released today, answers these essential questions with the most recent data.<\/p>\n<p class=\"featureimage\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.prisonpolicy.org\/images\/pie2020.png?v=1\" alt=\"Pie chart showing how many people are locked up in the United States, for what offenses, and in what facilities.\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" class=\"\"  \/> <\/p>\n<p>The data and 24 visuals in the report contain significant implications for how the criminal justice system should respond to the pandemic:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"list\">\n<li>Local jails hold 631,000 people on any given day, including <b>470,000 people still awaiting trial.<\/b> Jail overcrowding poses a serious public health risk in light of COVID-19, making it essential that courts, police, and prosecutors <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/virusresponse.html#releases\">reduce jail populations<\/a> to slow the spread of the virus.<\/li>\n<li><b>Low-level infractions<\/b> like misdemeanor charges, technical violations of probation and parole, and failure to appear in court account for millions of jail and prison admissions each year &#8211; admissions that should be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/virusresponse.html#admissions\">put on hold immediately<\/a> to improve public health outcomes.<\/li>\n<li><b>39,000 immigrants<\/b> are currently being held by ICE for no reason other than their undocumented status. Unless they are released, their incarceration will put them at a heightened risk of contracting COVID-19.<\/li>\n<li>While the majority of people in state prisons are convicted of violent crimes, federal and state officials can still take measures such as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/reports\/longsentences.html\">expanding parole and compassionate release<\/a> to allow these individuals &#8211; many of whom are <b>elderly or medically vulnerable<\/b> &#8211; to go home.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8220;Now that COVID-19 is entering prisons and jails, <b>our failure to end mass incarceration<\/b> is making itself known as a public health crisis,&#8221; said Executive Director Peter Wagner. &#8220;If policymakers want to prevent a human tragedy from taking place in prisons and jails, they need to do what they&#8217;ve been refusing to do since we published our first <i>Whole Pie<\/i> report: shrink the incarcerated population to a fraction of what it is today.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Even under normal circumstances, the lack of available data about the criminal justice system poses a significant obstacle to policymakers and advocates seeking to reform that system. In the face of the current crisis, <b>clear facts are essential<\/b> to quickly and safely downsizing prison and jail populations. This year&#8217;s <i>Whole Pie<\/i> report answers that need, providing the comprehensive view of mass incarceration necessary to make sound decisions today and, when this crisis passes, to plot a long-term path forward.<\/p>\n<p>The Prison Policy Initiative also recently published <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2020\/03\/06\/pandemic\/\">policy recommendations for criminal justice systems<\/a> to slow the spread of COVID-19. Its recommendations include releasing medically vulnerable adults from jails and prisons, reducing jail admissions, and ending parole and probation revocations for technical violations. The organization is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/virusresponse.html\">tracking<\/a> jails, prisons, and other agencies that take these essential steps.<\/p>\n<p>The full report and graphics are available at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/reports\/pie2020.html\">https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/reports\/pie2020.html.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Prison Policy Initiative&#8217;s new &#8220;Whole Pie&#8221; report reveals what&#8217;s at stake if prisons and jails do not take immediate steps to decarcerate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"coauthors":[46],"class_list":["post-9593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9593"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11686,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9593\/revisions\/11686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9593"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=9593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}