Tracking how the Trump administration is making the criminal legal system worse

Last update: May 21, 2025   Tweet this

Sections
Eviscerating due process and the rule of law
Undermining proven solutions that reduce incarceration and make communities safer
Encouraging the use of extreme sentencing and harsh law enforcement tactics
Making prisons and jails even worse
Eliminating oversight and transparency
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The American criminal legal system has always been terrible, but what has happened in recent months is different. It is in a new kind of crisis. Since taking office, the Trump administration has taken actions to eviscerate due process and the rule of law, worsen prison and jail conditions, expand the use of harsh sentences and law enforcement tactics, eliminate oversight, undermine solutions that reduce incarceration and make communities safer, and much more.

Each action has been troubling, but the true nature of the crisis is only clear when these actions are viewed together in their entirety. On this page, we are tracking the Trump administration's efforts to make America's criminal legal system harsher, less effective, and even more unfair.

It is important to note that the federal government directly controls only a relatively small slice of the carceral system in America. However, while it can’t set explicit policy that impacts state prisons, local jails, and non-federal law enforcement agencies, the Trump administration is using its bully pulpit and control over federal spending to coerce state and local governments into expanding the size and brutality of their criminal legal systems.

Additionally, because we’re not experts on immigration and policing, we have intentionally chosen not to list all of the administration's actions in those areas. Instead, we have curated a list of organizations and information sources that we recommend you visit if you would like to learn more about immigration and policing.

It is impossible to list everything the administration has done in this regard, but if you believe we have overlooked something that should be included, please let us know at federaltracker@prisonpolicy.org.

Eviscerating due process and the rule of law

The rule of law and the right to due process are cornerstones of the American criminal legal system. While the country has never fully lived up to the promise of these principles, their imperfect existence is critical to creating a system that is fairer and less harsh. These principles have been under attack:

  • The Trump administration has sent hundreds of immigrants to be incarcerated in El Salvador without being afforded the due process rights they are guaranteed under the Constitution. The case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia received particular attention after the United States Supreme Court, in a unanimous ruling, ordered the administration to bring him back to the United States, but the Trump administration has ignored that ruling. And in a meeting with Salvadoran dictator Nayib Bukele, Trump indicated he planned to send U.S. citizens there next.
  • The FBI arrested a county judge in Wisconsin who it claims obstructed the federal government’s efforts to arrest an immigrant. The move is widely viewed as an attempt to intimidate judges who serve as a check on the actions of the president and his administration.
  • Presidential advisor Stephen Miller stated that the administration was “actively looking” at suspending the Writ of Habeas Corpus for undocumented people, claiming that the United States was under an “invasion”. Doing so would remove key due process protections guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, and allow imprisonment without any judicial review. Notably, suspending Habeas Corpus is a power vested in Congress, not the executive branch. Still, the comments signal a willingness to consider drastic measures to circumvent due process.

Undermining proven solutions that reduce incarceration and make communities safer

For too long, prisons and jails have been politicians' default approach to reducing crime and making communities safer, despite strong evidence that they do neither. In recent years, however, several innovative approaches have emerged that achieve these goals without relying on carceral facilities. The federal government is now actively undermining these efforts:

  • The Trump administration effectively shuttered the Interagency Council on Homelessness, the leading federal agency behind the Housing First model to address homelessness. This model provides people with housing and services on a no-strings-attached basis, serving as a first step in addressing homelessness. Housing First programs have proven successful at ending chronic homelessness, while also effectively reducing arrests and incarceration, particularly when tailored to justice-involved people.
  • The Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services cancelled or revoked $11.4 billion in grants designed to address substance use disorder and mental health issues, a move that will undoubtedly lead to increasing prison and jail populations.
  • Elon Musk’s DOGE massively cut funding and staffing at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and the administration has proposed merging the organization into a new agency in a way that medical providers warn could seriously jeopardize access to mental health and substance use treatment.
  • The Department of Justice rescinded approximately $5 million in funding to the Vera Institute of Justice, which was intended for programs to improve prison conditions and mental health crisis response, among other things.
  • The Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women has frozen funding for programs that provide support to victims of domestic violence.
  • The Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs cut at least 365 grants, totalling $811 million. These cuts include:
    • $6 million for diversion programs to keep people with drug convictions out of prison and provide them with substance use treatment.
    • $2 million for violence prevention programs in Massachusetts.
    • $4 million to reduce criminal legal system involvement for young people in Massachusetts.
    • $2 million for youth gun-violence prevention in Oklahoma City.
    • More than $1 million to reduce gun violence in Virginia.
    • More than $1 million from Youth Alive, an organization that works to prevent violence among young people in the San Francisco area.
    • About $6 million from a program that develops re-entry, crime prevention, and health programs.
    • $37 million for crime data analysis and other services for local governments.
    • Programs to reduce gun violence, inform victims of crimes of their rights, and address substance use disorders, among others.
    • $3.2 million for violence prevention in Baltimore.
    • Approximately $3 million from programs that provide counseling and support to victims of crime.
    • $750,000 to Survivors.org, which supports survivors of sexual and domestic violence.
    • $2.15 million from Activating Change, an organization that provides support to victims of crime who have disabilities.
    • $1.2 million from Center for Hope, an organization that supports children who were witnesses or victims of gun violence.
    • $4 million for opioid addiction and violence prevention programs in New Jersey, plus an additional $6 million from violence intervention and street outreach programs in Camden and Newark.
    • $48.9 million to support victims of child abuse and neglect.
    • $12.5 million to groups in California focused on preventing gun violence and providing housing for people in reentry.
    • A promise to cut grants authorized by the Digital Equity Act of 2021 which, among other things, funds programs that provide internet access to people incarcerated in prisons and jails.

Encouraging the use of extreme sentencing and harsh law enforcement tactics

Rather than relying on strategies to keep people out of the criminal legal system, the Trump administration has instead followed the path that created the nation’s mass incarceration crisis in the first place: extreme sentences and harsh law enforcement tactics that have ballooned prison and jail populations, and destroyed communities.

  • On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order that ended the moratorium on the federal death penalty. While former President Biden commuted the sentences of all but three individuals on federal death row to life without parole shortly before leaving office, Attorney General Pam Bondi has already begun seeking new death sentences.
  • Attorney General Bondi issued a memorandum directing federal prosecutors to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offenses.” The memo defines “serious” offenses as those punishable by death or long mandatory minimum sentences, making this an explicit move to increase incarceration as much as possible. While this new federal guidance was issued under the guise of attacking drug cartels, it applies to all charging decisions by federal prosecutors. This move reverses former Attorney General Merrick Garland’s direction to federal prosecutors to reduce their use of mandatory minimums. The Brennan Center notes the Trump administration's decision will likely swell the nation's prison population without improving public safety.
  • In April, President Trump signed an executive order that could dramatically expand policing and hinder some of the few existing mechanisms to hold law enforcement accountable for misconduct. Specifically, the order:
    • Directs the Attorney General to expand its work to shield law enforcement officers accused of abuse.
    • Directs the Attorney General to invest more money in policing, expand the capacity of prisons, and review and potentially terminate all consent decrees law enforcement agencies have entered into with the federal government, among other things.
    • Directs the Attorney General and Secretary of Defense to work together to develop a plan to use military personnel and equipment for law enforcement.
    • Threatens state and local government officials with prosecution for failing to cooperate with federal law enforcement.
  • In May, President Trump said that he had directed federal agencies to work to substantially enlarge and reopen Alcatraz prison, claiming that the United States was being “held hostage” by “criminals, thugs, and Judges who are afraid to do their job”. While the actual reopening of the notorious prison may not be a realistic proposal, the rhetoric surrounding the announcement echoes the “tough-on-crime” policies that led to mass incarceration.

Making prisons and jails even worse

Prisons and jails in the United States are brutal places. They make people die sooner, expose them to violence, and exploit them whenever possible. Actions by the Trump administration will make them even worse:

  • On his first day in office, President Trump signed executive orders that targeted transgender people incarcerated in federal prisons. The orders end gender-affirming care for people behind bars, mandate that trans women be held in men’s prisons, and eliminate protections for transgender people under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).
  • After the Maine Department of Corrections refused to move a transgender woman to a men’s prison, the Department of Justice rescinded $1.5 million in grants to the state that, among other things, expanded drug treatment for people recently released from incarceration and fostered engagement between incarcerated parents and their children.
  • Trump’s Department of Justice eliminated all funding to the Prison Rape Elimination Act Resource Center, which works to help prisons and jails prevent and address sexual assault behind bars, and supports incarcerated victims of sexual violence.
  • On his first day in office, President Trump rescinded an order from the Biden administration that prohibited the Federal Bureau of Prisons from entering into new contracts for the operation of private prison facilities.

Eliminating oversight and transparency

The criminal legal system is a black box built to stop information from getting in or out. There were some opportunities, through federal data collection, for the public to get a glimpse at what was happening inside the walls of prisons and jails, or to better understand how federal policies are driving racial disparities. Recent changes have further limited already paltry access to this information.

Help us update this page

If you know of other actions by the federal government that should be listed here, let us know at federaltracker@prisonpolicy.org. We can’t list everything, but we appreciate any information you can send.



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