by Peter Wagner, December 29, 2014
In this new video, our Board President, Eric Lotke talks about his new novel, Making Manna and the connection to the struggle for prison phone justice and the Prison Policy Initiative:
by Peter Wagner, December 29, 2014
2014 was a big year for ground-breaking data visualizations from the Prison Policy Initiative. These are our six favorites:
From: Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie.
Josh Begley made this graph as part of our collaboration for States of Incarceration: The Global Context.
Josh Begley made this interactive graphic of “World Incarceration Rates If Every U.S. State Were A Country” as part of our collaboration for States of Incarceration: The Global Context.
From Tracking State Prison Growth in 50 States. (Also see larger or as raw numbers.)
From: Breaking Down Mass Incarceration in the 2010 Census: State-by-State Incarceration Rates by Race/Ethnicity. This data, plus much more, is also available in 50 state profiles.
From Reaching too far: How Connecticut’s large sentencing enhancement zones miss the mark comes this map, showing that overlapping sentencing enhancement superzones blanket Bridgeport Connecticut, covering 92% of the city’s residents while more rural Bridgewater contains just one zone, covering 8% of the town’s residents.
by Peter Wagner, December 24, 2014
2014 was a year of big victories for the Prison Policy Initiative. We published some insightful new reports, reshaped the criminal justice reform debate through the press, and won a prestigious award, but most importantly our campaigns took some very big steps forward and in some cases we took those victories all the way to major policy changes.
Here are some of the biggest wins in our campaigns this year:
Thank you for helping us do all of this work. Here’s to an even more successful 2015!
For more on these and other victories, be sure to see our most recent annual report.
by Bernadette Rabuy and Peter Wagner, December 23, 2014
Yesterday, we published our list of the best investigative criminal justice journalism of 2014. For that list, we decided to exclude any story that we were featured in or involved with in any way. Today, we share the most important news stories of 2014 that we played a role in:
None of this is new information for the activists and scholars who’ve worked on prison and criminal-justice reform for years. But for the general public, a crucial first step is to denormalize the current system. This is not the way it has always been–and this is not the way it has to be.
This editorial about our public comment to the Federal Communications Commission about the need to regulate the video visitation industry put the issue of video visitation on the national agenda. Our connections in Dallas and much of the press work we did on video visitation grew out of this editorial.
(Stay tuned for a a big release from us on this topic in January 2015.)
The Prison Policy Initiative has, indeed, given us the “whole pie”–ipso facto altering the original question. Rather than asking “how many people are locked up,” the question has become “does it really make sense to be imprisoning this many people?”
by Peter Wagner and Bernadette Rabuy, December 22, 2014
As 2014 winds to a close, the Prison Policy Initiative wanted to recognize the eight sorely needed investigative news stories that did the most to bring public attention to criminal justice reform. In no particular order:
(Equally eloquent and a runner-up for this list of great investigative reporting was Oliver’s August segment on something Americans can’t get enough of: prisons. To Oliver, one of the key problems in our criminal justice system is the willful ignorance and indifference of the people running the system. As John Oliver points out, imprisonment is now so common that Sesame Street saw the need to create a puppet with an incarcerated parent; but the head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons doesn’t even know basic information like the size of the Bureau’s tortuous solitary confinement cells.)
Note: The purpose of this list is to highlight journalists who filled critical gaps in the public’s knowledge about criminal justice issues. To keep things fair, we excluded from consideration any articles that we are quoted in and articles that we consulted on in any way.
by Peter Wagner, December 22, 2014
This report has been updated with a new version for 2022.
With the 2015 legislative sessions about to start, it’s time to unveil our second annual list of under-discussed but winnable criminal justice reforms.
The list is published as a briefing with links to more information and model bills, and it was recently sent to reform minded state legislators across the country. The reform topics we think are ripe for legislative victory are:
Let us know what you think of this year’s list. We look forward to working together to make 2015 a year of great progress for justice reform!
by Leah Sakala, December 2, 2014
The national movement for fair prison and jail phone charges is making progress by leaps and bounds. The Federal Communications Commission’s first ruling is already lifting some of the burden of exorbitant phone bills, and the Commission just opened up a new comment period asking the public to weigh in on comprehensive reform that would protect ALL families with incarcerated loved ones from the predatory prison phone industry (more on that below!).
The Prison Policy Initiative has been at the forefront of these major historic victories, holding the billion dollar prison phone industry accountable with lots of hard work and the support of individual donors like you. This is so important that we are going to put every dime we raise through the end of the year towards this urgent campaign.
Please join us in fighting for fair phone charges for families on this Giving Tuesday by making a donation to the Prison Policy Initiative. Generous friends have agreed to match any donations to PPI through the end of the year, making your gift go twice as far. Then, please help to spread the word by forwarding this post to four friends, and/or Tweeting something like:
Thank you for your generosity!
by Peter Wagner, November 25, 2014
NCIC, one of the smaller companies in the prison and jail telephone industry, has made a two minute video that explains how some players in the industry cheat families, the jails, and state regulators by charging the families hidden fees and then quietly pocketing that money.
The perspective of the video is different than a lot of what we post on this blog; it comes from a more-ethical company speaking directly to jails about how the the current system isn’t as good for the jails as they have been led to believe.
For more on hidden fees and other nasty tricks that hurt families without bringing in a dime for the facilities (like Text-To-Collect and other “single-call” programs) see our 2013 report Please Deposit All of Your Money: Kickbacks, Rates and Hidden Fees in the Jail Phone Industry.
by Leah Sakala, November 21, 2014
If you’ve been looking for an opportunity to weigh in on federal regulation of the prison and jail telephone industry, the time has come.
Today the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published a Public Notice in the Federal Register announcing the Commission’s “Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking” to make calls home from prisons and jails more fairly priced. For a refresher on what the FCC is proposing to do, check out our play-by-play blog post.
This Federal Register publication kicks off a new FCC public comment period that will run until January 5, 2015*, followed by a reply comment period that will end on January 20, 2015*. You can make your voice heard by submitting a comment to the FCC. We’re working on a series of submissions here at PPI, and hope that you’ll join us in telling the FCC that it’s time to enact comprehensive regulation to ensure that ALL families can afford to stay in touch with incarcerated loved ones.
*December Update: The FCC has granted a one-week extension. Comments are now due January 12 and reply comments are due on January 27.
by Leah Sakala, November 14, 2014
It’s a good day for the University of Illinois: the University will continue to benefit from our colleague James Kilgore’s accomplished scholarship and acclaimed teaching.
The university had originally decided not to renew Mr. Kilgore’s contract after the local newspaper published a series of attack pieces about his decades-old criminal record from the 1970s. The University of Illinois was fully aware of Mr. Kilgore’s history during the hiring process, and Mr. Kilgore received overwhelmingly positive performance reviews throughout the years that he has been on faculty.
The university’s decision sparked a groundswell of support for Mr. Kilgore, both from the University of Illinois faculty, staff, and students, and from the national community of scholars and advocates who have benefited from his work. We submitted a letter back in May urging the university Chancellor to not allow journalistic fear-mongering to lead the university to dismiss an accomplished faculty member.
Today, the University of Illinois Trustees announced that they would follow a special committee’s recommendation to keep Mr. Kilgore on staff. We applaud the University for doing the right thing and retaining a valuable member of the academic community.
States fall far short of their duty to meet the health needs of incarcerated people.
The bail industry exploits cracks and loopholes in the legal system to avoid accountability, while growing its profits.
Criminal justice policy in every region of the United States is out of step with the rest of the world.
We are leading the movement to protect our democracy from the Census Bureau's prison miscount.
