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:

Thursday, March 21 2024:

  • Crisis in Corrections: The DOC Staff Shortage and the Inmate Experience, Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition (CCJRC). January, 2024. "An overwhelming 93% of respondents incarcerated in Colorado say there is a staffing shortage at their facility, and 85% say that the shortage is either significant or moderate."
  • Structural Racism, Mass Incarceration, and Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Severe Maternal Morbidity Elleni M. Hailu, Corinne A. Riddell, Patrick T. Bradshaw, Jennifer Ahern, Suzan L. Carmichael, & Mahasin S. Mujahid. January, 2024. "In this study of 10 million live hospital births across California from 1997-2018, Black and Hispanic/Latinx birthing people residing in counties with high Black-White jail incarceration inequity had increased odds of severe maternal morbidity."
  • Prison Buprenorphine Implementation and Postrelease Opioid Use Disorder Outcomes Benjamin J. Bovell-Ammon, Shapei Yan, Devon Dunn, Elizabeth A. Evans, Peter D. Friedmann, Alexander Y. Walley, Marc R. LaRochelle. March, 2024. "In a comparison between people released prior to and after making buprenorphine available in state prisons, postrelease buprenorphine increased from 11% of people released to 21% of people released and postrelease naltrexon receipt decreased from 6% of pe"
  • Recent Incarceration, Substance Use, Overdose, and Service Use Among People Who Use Drugs in Rural Communities Daniel B. Hoover, P. Todd Korthuis, Elizabeth Needham Waddell, et al.. November, 2023. "Among people who use drugs in rural communities, 42% were recently incarcerated in the past 6 months, which was associated with overdose(s), substance use treatment, but not associated with MOUD treatment or carrying naloxone."
  • Prevention Over Punishment: Finding the Right Balance of Civil and Forensic State Psychiatric Hospital Beds, Treatment Advocacy Center. January, 2024. "The number of state hospital beds for adults with serious mental illness (SMI) has been declining and reached a historic low of 10.8 beds per 100,000 people in 2023, with 52% of those beds occupied by people committed through the criminal legal system."
  • Elements of State and Federal Prison Suicide Prevention and Response Policies Christine Tartaro & Emily Alas. February, 2024. "Results revealed that, on average, corrections department policies for suicide prevention and response contain about half of the recommended elements, and that most departments' suicide prevention policies are not included in departmental policy documents"
  • The problem with criminal records: Discrepancies between state reports and private-sector background checks, Sarah Lageson & Robert Stewart. February, 2024. "Based on this analysis of criminal records, 60% and 50% of participants had at least one false-positive error on their regulated and unregulated private sector background checks, and nearly all had at least one false-negative error."
  • Restoring and Rebuilding: Indigent Defense in Gwinnett County, Wren Collective. January, 2024. "In 2022, the county had 132 lawyers willing to take court appointments. Now, that number is 80. Those 80 lawyers are responsible for 13,000 cases/year. There are only 8 lawyers eligible to handle murder cases, which have a potential punishment of death..."


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