Research Library:

Our mission is to empower activists, journalists, and policymakers to shape effective criminal justice policy, so we go beyond our original reports and analyses to curate a database of virtually all the empirical criminal justice research available online.

Tips: If you know what you are looking for, you may also search the database. We also have an email newsletter (at right)(at bottom) for new research library updates.


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Some of the most recently added reports are:

Friday, September 1 2023:

Thursday, August 31 2023:

  • The Cost of Doing Business: Why Criminal Justice Reform Is the Right Investment to Strengthen Mississippi's Economy and Workforce, FWD.us. June, 2023. "Each year, Mississippi's economy -- especially its small businesses -- lose an estimated $2.7 billion in earnings due to criminal convictions."
  • SMH: The rapid & unregulated growth of e-messaging in prisons, Prison Policy Initiative. March, 2023. "Per-minute pricing [on tablet use] acts as a literacy tax, making it far more expensive for people who struggle to read and respond to messages."
  • Reducing Multigenerational Poverty in New York Through Sentencing Reform Jared Trujillo. November, 2023. "New York led the national charge in enacting harsh sentencing laws, while simultaneously shrinking its social safety net."
  • Pretrial Detention, Release, and Bail Practice in Oregon Oregon Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. June, 2021. "There is a lack of data collected by Oregon's county and municipal jails...there are 16 different jail management systems across the state."
  • High stakes mistakes: How courts respond to "failure to appear", Prison Policy Initiative. August, 2023. "We find that, on balance, "failure to appear" policies are about punishment, not improving appearance rates."

Tuesday, August 29 2023:

  • COVID-19 amplified racial disparities in the US criminal legal system Brennan Klein, C. Brandon Ogbunugafor, Benjamin J. Schafer et al. April, 2023. "States with fewer short-term prison sentences (Maine, Maryland, Missouri, Oregon and Wyoming) did not show the same racial disparity we found nationally."
  • Systemic Failures: Conditions in California State Prisons During the Covid-19 Pandemic, Prison Accountability Project at UCLA School of Law. June, 2023. "According to respondents, the [California Dept. of Corrections and Rehabilitation] ignored over 80 percent of incarcerated people's requests for medical care and failed to protect people with pre-existing conditions from COVID-19."
  • Moving Justice Forward: A Blueprint for the Connecticut Division of Criminal Justice, Center for Justice Innovation. January, 2023. "Stakeholders expressed great interest in piloting and eventually expanding the use of restorative justice practices in local courts."
  • Digital inequalities in time of pandemic: COVID-19 exposure risk profiles and new forms of vulnerability, Laura Robinson, Jeremy Schulz, Aneka Khilnani et al. June, 2020. "...Restrictions imposed in the name of security already sharply curtail communication beyond prison walls, yet...fresh provision for digital communication might deliver outsized benefits." (This article covers digital and social inequalities for many groups, including older adults, gig workers, and incarcerated people.)
  • Office of the Public Defender Parole Project: Revised Report, New Jersey Office of the Public Defender. September, 2021. "From January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2019, 445 people who were sentenced to life in prison appeared before the Parole Board...39 applicants (8.76%) were paroled."
  • Collaborating Across the Walls: A Community Approach to Parole Justice, Michelle Lewin and Nora Carroll. October, 2017. "Many applicants appear before the Board numerous times, often on nine or ten occasions, before they are granted release, forcing them to languish in prison for many years longer than their minimum sentence."
  • Only Young Once: The Urgent Need for Reform of Louisiana's Youth Justice System, Southern Poverty Law Center. July, 2023. "Incarcerating a young person in Louisiana for one year ($156,570) is more expensive than the annual costs of enrollment in Louisiana public schools, Tulane University, and Louisiana State University combined ($118,571)."

Friday, August 25 2023:

  • The Criminalization of Poverty in Kentucky: How Economic Crises and Flawed Reforms Fueled an Incarceration Boom, Vera Institute of Justice. August, 2023. "By turning to criminal legal fines and fees to fund court and jail operations, jurisdictions across Kentucky create a vicious cycle that traps people in poverty and makes it more difficult for people to lead stable lives after incarceration."


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