HELP US END MASS INCARCERATION
The Prison Policy Initiative uses research, advocacy, and organizing to dismantle mass incarceration. We’ve been in this movement for 23 years, thanks to individual donors like you.
Can you help us sustain this work?
Thank you,
Peter Wagner, Executive Director Donate
Can you help us sustain this work?
Thank you,
Peter Wagner, Executive Director Donate
Healthcare
The health needs and outcomes of incarcerated people
- Access to the "gold standard" treatment for opioid use disorder depends on where you are incarcerated (Created: 2025)
- Participation in medication-assisted treatment more than doubled over 15 months in New York prisons (Created: 2025)
- Since 2000, over half of all U.S. states have been court-ordered to improve prison medical care (Created: 2025)
- Probation disproportionately impacts people facing health and financial challenges (Created: 2024)
- The most vulnerable people in prison often do not receive the medical care they need (Created: 2024)
- People in state prisons with higher medical copays are less likely to receive the healthcare they need (Created: 2024)
- Policy map: Where parole and probation travel restrictions make abortion bans even more oppressive for women on supervision (Created: 2024)
- 582,000 women on probation live in states with abortion bans and probation conditions that restrict interstate travel (Created: 2024)
- 53,000 women on parole or post-release supervision live in states with abortion bans and parole conditions that restrict interstate travel (Created: 2024)
- Currently, 41 states have some kind of abortion ban in place, forcing women to cross state borders for care (Created: 2024)
- There are far fewer HIV-positive people in prison that in the past, but the HIV rate in prison is still triple the total U.S. rate (Created: 2023)
- While HIV prevalence has dropped in most states, some Southern states have actually seen rates go up (Created: 2023)
- Most states still have laws criminalizing HIV on the books in 2023 (Created: 2023)
- People under community supervision face a constellation of health concerns and report more disabilities (Created: 2023)
- What would a minimum wage worker in each state have to pay for a doctor's visit if they were charged like incarcerated people? (Created: 2022)
- Changes in county-level arrest rates following statewide Medicaid expansion (Created: 2022)
- People in state prisons were disproportionately uninsured or receiving Medicaid before their incarceration (Created: 2022)
- People in state prisons suffer disproportionately from various medical conditions compared to the overall U.S. population (Created: 2022)
- Black, Native, and multiracial people in state prisons are more likely than white people to have asthma, diabetes, and hypertension (Created: 2022)
- Hepatitis C is highly treatable, yet 4 out of 5 people in state prisons who have ever had hepatitis C, still have it (Created: 2022)
- Half of people in state prisons had a substance use disorder in the year before they went to prison, but only 1 in 10 has received treatment (Created: 2022)
- Rates of several chronic conditions have increased in state prisons since the last survey in 2004 (Created: 2022)
- Older people in state prisons are plagued with chronic health conditions (Created: 2022)
- Disabilities are much more common among people in state prisons than they are among non-incarcerated adults in the U.S. (Created: 2022)
- People in state prisons disproportionately report having disabilities (Created: 2022)
- About four percent of women in state prisons were pregnant when admitted, but not all of them have received the basic care you'd expect (Created: 2022)
- Underlying problems: Past drug use and substance use disorders are extremely common among people in state prisons (Created: 2022)
- Many prisons are still charging medical copays during COVID-19 (Created: 2022)
- State abortion policies range from hostile to supportive, which can affect abortion access in prisons and jails (Created: 2021)
- What does it really mean when a jail allows abortion? (Created: 2021)
- What does it really mean when a state prison allows abortion? (Created: 2021)
- Many prison systems prioritized vaccinations for incarcerated people, but others still lag behind (Created: 2021)
- Many prisons and jails offer pregnant women medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD), but narrow policies restrict who receives it (Created: 2021)
- Why are so few incarcerated postpartum women expressing breast milk, even in prisons and jails that allow it? (Created: 2021)
- People with incarcerated immediate family members have reduced life expectancy (Created: 2021)
- About half of people in state and federal prisons are vaccinated (Created: 2021)
- The NYC jail population decline has halted, despite the ongoing pandemic (Created: 2020)
- The jail population is the highest it's been since April (Created: 2020)
- Less than one-third of all states require incarcerated people to wear face masks (Created: 2020)
- Only about half of all states require correctional staff to wear masks (Created: 2020)
- The number of people in large jails has leveled off since the major population reduction efforts of March and April (Created: 2020)
- The number of people in jails has leveled off since the major population reduction efforts of March and April (Created: 2020)
- Jail populations in smaller jails have been creeping back up since June, reversing the population drops of March and April (Created: 2020)
- Evaluating state efforts to prevent COVID-19 deaths behind bars (Created: 2020)
- High imprisonment communities have higher youth asthma rates (Created: 2020)
- Women in prisons and jails in 2017 who were pregnant when admitted (Created: 2019)
- Jail "frequent utilizers" often lack access to regular healthcare (Created: 2019)
- Rates of mental illness and substance use disorder are much higher among "frequent utilizers" of jails (Created: 2019)
- People with multiple arrests have serious health needs (Created: 2019)
- Certain medical conditions make people especially vulnerable to high temperatures. They are especially common in prisons. (Created: 2019)
- Some medical conditions make people especially vulnerable to high temperatures. They are especially common in prison. (Created: 2019)
- Recently incarcerated people are over 40 times more likely to die from an opioid overdose (Created: 2018)
- Incarceration and HIV infection disparities for Black men (Created: 2017)
- Relationship between high incarceration rate of Black men and rate of HIV infections among Black women (Created: 2017)
- Making health care unaffordable has many hidden costs (Created: 2017)
- Most suicides in jail occur within the first week (Created: 2016)
Events
- April 30, 2025:
On Wednesday, April 30th, at noon Eastern, Communications Strategist Wanda Bertram will take part in a panel discussion with The Center for Just Journalism on the 100th day of the second Trump administration. They’ll discuss the impacts the administration has had on criminal legal policy and issues that have flown under the radar. Register here.
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