Danger in the water: Report exposes widespread water contamination in Texas prisons

Thousands incarcerated in Texas’ prisons may have been exposed to lead, arsenic, and other dangerous contaminants.

by Emmett Sanders, March 14, 2025

An organization in Texas has sparked concerns with a new report finding that the water in many of the state’s prisons is likely dangerous to drink. Texas Prisons Community Advocates (TPCA) is a grassroots advocacy organization whose work (like their 85 to Stay Alive campaign) focuses on exposing dangerous and inhumane prison conditions. Their new report examines the results of water samples taken from the state’s prisons by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), the state’s agency for environmental oversight. TPCA examined publicly available records of samples that were taken across 16 Texas prison water systems between 2019 and 2023. Overall, dangerous metallic and bacterial contaminants including lead, arsenic, e. coli, and more were detected in more than 90 samples. Thanks to this report, a bill (SB 1929) has already been introduced in the Texas legislature that would require more frequent and thorough water testing in Texas prisons.

The study was spurred by dozens of letters TPCA have received from incarcerated people detailing unaddressed concerns and suspicious illnesses. The major findings of the report include that:

• 38% of TDCJ water systems sampled tested positive for lead.
• Arsenic, which can cause skin, bladder, and lung cancer, as well as Copper, Coliform, and E. Coli were also found in multiple TDCJ water systems across the state.
• Of the 16 TDCJ water systems sampled, 15 received notes of violations from the TCEQ between 2019 and 2023.
• Overall, the study estimates more than 30,000 incarcerated people may have been affected by contaminated water in the 16 TDCJ water systems sampled alone.

The findings here echo those of other studies and reinforce what advocacy groups like Fight Toxic Prisons have long been saying: Prisons are built in ways that prioritize confinement over environmental safety for the people they confine. Water contamination in prisons is particularly problematic as incarcerated people rarely have the means to follow boil orders and are often given insufficient amounts of water during crises. Bottled water can be unavailable or cost-prohibitive. This can leave many with no choice but to drink, prepare food with, and bathe in water with contaminants that can cause cancer, kidney and liver failure, and death. Last year, in recognition of the right of people in prisons to be free from environmentally hazardous conditions, members of Congress introduced the Environmental Health in Prisons Act, a bill that would offer greater protections, increase oversight, and improve conditions for federal prisoners.

No prison sentence should include being forced to drink contaminated water, and neither incarcerated people nor their families should be forced to deal with long-lasting consequences that can not only undermine their physical and mental health, but can economically devastate families and communities as well. Access to clean water is a human right that must be honored for people behind bars.

Prison Policy Initiative’s Advocacy department is proud to have supported TPCA in their efforts to expose the prevalence of contaminated water in Texas prisons by helping to locate data, navigate data sources, review drafts, and provide graphics and other support like one-page fact sheets of the report’s findings. If you are a community-based advocate or legislator and would like to speak to the Advocacy department about helping with a criminal legal system reform project, please use our contact form and select the topic “Organizations and elected officials looking for advocacy assistance.”

For further information on environmental hazards in prisons, consider the following resources:

• Heat, floods, pests, disease, and death: What climate change means for people in prison
• Prisons are a daily environmental injustice

New report, Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2025, shows prisons and jails continuing to lock up more people after a decade of consistent declines

The newest iteration of the Prison Policy Initiative’s flagship report explains that the incarcerated population grew by about 2% overall, with significant spikes in the incarceration of immigrants and young people.

March 11, 2025

Easthampton, Mass. — Today, the Prison Policy Initiative released the 2025 edition of its flagship report, Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie. The report offers the most comprehensive view of the nearly 2 million people incarcerated in the U.S., showing what types of facilities they are in and why. It also serves as a primer on the size and scope of the criminal legal system and busts 10 of the most persistent myths about mass incarceration and crime.

For the first time ever, the report highlights important changes and trends in the criminal legal system, including:

• The overall incarcerated population has grown by roughly 2% since our last Whole Pie report, according to the most recent data, although the total confined population is still about 13% smaller than its pre-pandemic size;
• Recent growth in incarceration is largely driven by a handful of states, with nine states accounting for 77% of all state prison growth over 2022 and 2023. Conversely, 10 states have continued to reduce their prison population since 2021.
• Courts sent 11% more young people to incarceration in 2022 than in 2021, the first increase in youth confinement in over two decades.

“This data tells the story of states taking two divergent paths,” said Wendy Sawyer, Research Director of the Prison Policy Initiative. “The first path works to reduce the number of people behind bars, recognizing that every person who is locked up represents the failure of overly-punitive policies. The other path doubles down on the misguided policies that created the nation’s mass incarceration crisis by locking more people up, destroying lives, and making communities less safe.”

The report includes 32 visualizations that shine a light on the hidden realities of the criminal legal system in America, including:

• A pie “slice” showing the 655,000 people in local jails on any given day, including over 450,000 people awaiting trial, and over 100,000 people held by jails for other agencies.
• A graphic explaining that, contrary to a popular misconception, only 8% of incarcerated people are held in privately-run facilities.
• Graphics offering details about lesser-known parts of the criminal legal system, including involuntary commitment, civil commitment, and jails on tribal lands.

On Friday, March 14, at 1 p.m. Eastern time, Prison Policy Initiative will host an Instagram Live discussion about the key takeaways from the report and answer questions from viewers. Those interested in joining this event can use their mobile phone to set a reminder and watch here.

The full report is available at: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2025.html

New report reveals successes and limitations of medications for opioid use disorder in New York state prisons

A new report from a New York prison oversight agency offers insights about the need for, and challenges of, implementing medication-assisted treatment in prisons.

by Emily Widra, March 5, 2025

Substance use disorders are among the most pressing and least addressed medical conditions facing incarcerated people. While half of people in state prison have substance use disorders — far outpacing the national prevalence of 8% — only around 10% of people in state prison in 2019 had received clinical treatment in the form of a residential treatment program, professional counseling, detoxification unit, or medication-assisted treatment. In recent years, advocates in states like New York have won hard-fought reforms to expand access to treatment for those behind bars. However, while we have some information about substance use disorders and treatment among incarcerated people, it’s hard to get a good picture of how these reforms are being implemented without the insights and experiences of the people actually participating in these treatment programs.

In December 2024, the civilian oversight body of the New York state prison system — the Correctional Association of New York (CANY) — published their report on medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder in New York prisons.¹ The report, which found increasing numbers of people enrolling in the program each month since it was introduced, underscores the importance of expanding access to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). It also examines the inherent problems with providing healthcare under the supervision of correctional staff and the value of participant perspectives for evaluating program implementation.

Addicted to Punishment Learn about medication-assisted treatment in jails and prisons.

Medication-assisted treatment is an evidence-based treatment approach that provides professional counseling or therapy combined with prescribed medications to reduce dependence on opioids. It is widely considered the “gold standard” of treatment for opioid use disorder.² This treatment is overseen by medical providers and the medications prescribed are far less dangerous than using heroin or other non-prescribed opioids outside of the treatment context. The length of treatment varies by individual, but there is no requirement that people continue MOUD forever: many people may benefit from months or years of treatment, while others may participate indefinitely.

Despite its promise, MOUD was the least common form of substance use disorder treatment in prisons: in 2016, only 1% of people with substance use disorders in state and federal prisons reported receiving MOUD at any point since their admission.³ More recently, we found that less than half (21) of all state prison systems and the federal Bureau of Prisons will continue MOUD for those receiving treatment prior to their prison admission.⁴ Only 33 state prison systems will initiate MOUD, and 14 of those will only initiate treatment in the weeks prior to release.

Only 12 states and the federal Bureau of Prisons offer both continuation and initiation of medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) in every facility. Some state prison systems offer these opportunities at only some of their facilities, while others further restrict access to MOUD while incarcerated. For a handful of states, we were not able to find any evidence that they provide MOUD of any kind in state prisons.
Sourcing: Compiled by Prison Policy Initiative from the Jail & Prison Opioid Project (last updated 2022) and A Review of Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) in United States Jails and Prisons from the California Correctional Health Care Services (2023), updated with information collected from news coverage and individual state prison system websites. For the data underlying this map, see the Appendix Table.

In 2021, the New York state legislature passed a law requiring MOUD programming in all state prisons to include all three FDA-approved medications and an “appropriate level of counseling.” This is crucial, as research shows that medication-assisted treatment — which definitionally involves access to therapy or counseling — works best when accompanied by psychosocial support and when providers are not limited in the medications they can offer. Other key components of the legislation include:

• That the program is completely voluntary.
• Participation is not withheld from anyone who qualifies, and it cannot be denied because of a positive drug test or because of a past or present disciplinary infraction.
• People who qualify can participate in the program at any time during their incarceration.
• The program provides reentry planning and support including information on available treatment, assistance with medicaid enrollment prior to release, and a one-week supply of any necessary medications.

From 2022 to 2024, the Correctional Association conducted multiple visits to New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) facilities to evaluate the implementation of the medication-assisted treatment program in state prisons. The Correctional Association also published the Department of Corrections’ written response to their findings. While the Correctional Association’s monitoring reports should be interpreted as helpful feedback for program improvements and an opportunity to incorporate best practices into the healthcare offered in state prisons, the Department of Corrections took a defensive posture and often explicitly contradicted the experiences of directly impacted people; we have included some of these examples from the Department of Corrections response below.

Key findings from the Correctional Association of New York’s report

The Correctional Association report offers valuable qualitative and quantitative data regarding the New York prison system’s implementation of the MOUD policy and treatment program. Notably, the departmental policy is not publicly available online and is only accessible to incarcerated people in the prison law libraries or via public records request.⁵

“The Department’s policy regarding MAT is set forth in Health Services Policy Manual (HSPM) Number 1.08. Incarcerated individuals are able to access the Department’s MAT policy in the Law Libraries of all correctional facilities. Copies may be obtained through the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) process.” — New York State Department of Corrections response

To make matters worse, the statewide departmental policy does not include information about screening for participation, enrollment criteria, programming associated with MOUD, consequences and repercussions for misusing medications (i.e., “diversion”), or information about staff accepting, storing, and administering medications. When important information like enrollment criteria and consequences for a positive drug screening are not made explicit and accessible, potential participants can easily be discouraged from seeking necessary treatment.

Below, we discuss some of the key findings of the report, which are relevant to carceral facilities across the country.

Opioid use disorder and treatment availability in prisons

Substance use disorders are common throughout the criminal legal system.⁶ However, estimates of the prevalence of opioid use disorder specifically vary: researchers generally find that between 10% and 40% of people in prison meet the criteria for an opioid use disorder.⁷ Ten percent of all people in New York prisons (approximately 3,500 people) received MOUD in 2024, and since not everyone with an opioid use disorder receives treatment, the estimated prevalence of opioid use disorder in New York state prisons is likely greater than 10%.

The Department of Corrections is quick to point out in their response to the Correctional Association report that they have offered opioid use disorder treatment for years in the form of methadone for people who were returned to state custody from parole while receiving methadone or who entered prison while pregnant and receiving methadone. New York has indeed provided MOUD longer than many state prison systems. However, not nearly enough people in New York prisons had access to necessary care, as evidenced by the rapid increase of participation following the expansion of the treatment program to include all medications and operate at all facilities.⁸ From 2022 to 2023 alone, the Correctional Association found that the participation rate in the treatment program increased by a staggering 552%.

The prison system has also shifted away from methadone to buprenorphine as the program has expanded: in January 2023, 22% of people receiving MOUD were receiving methadone, but by March 2024 when the total participation numbers increased dramatically, only 12% of participants received methadone. Methadone treatment can be challenging to access inside and outside of prisons: by law, methadone must be dispensed as an oral medication at federally-certified opioid treatment programs. Frequently, people are required to attend these programs daily, as most people require daily doses of methadone, and the Department has 31 contracts with private medical providers for provision of these services at individual facilities.⁹

Feedback from incarcerated people receiving MOUD

In a recent Department of Corrections survey of incarcerated people receiving MOUD, 92% of people agreed or strongly agreed that the treatment has been beneficial. During the Correctional Association’s visits to facilities across the state, they encountered similarly strong support for the program:

“MAT has been a godsend. I was on [Office of Mental Health] but not anymore. MAT changed everything. It is an excellent program, and important for person’s transition home.”

“MAT program saved my life.”

“I started MAT, it has helped with mental health too — very beneficial.”

“Started MAT in February. First person at Hale Creek to get it. It is going great. I receive my medication as scheduled.”

Unfortunately, incarcerated people also report serious concerns about stigma and retaliation for participation in the treatment program.¹⁰ Many said they faced discrimination and instances where “staff call people crack heads and dope fiends” and “officers all believe we shouldn’t have the program, and they call us all drug addicts.” The Correctional Association also received multiple reports of staff assaulting people who they suspect are intoxicated or using drugs, regardless of treatment participation.

“It should be noted that the allegations of verbal, physical, and sexual abuse reported by some incarcerated individuals are not consistent with the experiences and sentiment of staff. There are thousands of daily interactions where staff maintain fairness, professionalism, and integrity when providing essential services, including the MAT program.” — New York State Department of Corrections response¹¹

Despite this defense, the Correctional Association observed skepticism regarding the utility of the program while meeting with health services teams, union representatives, and executive teams at numerous facilities. This included concerns about the “burden” on staff and resources required to implement the program. The Correctional Association reports staff endorsing “abstinence-only” approaches, and opposition to MOUD because staff perceive it as simply replacing one drug with another. This fundamental misrepresentation of medication-assisted treatment is pervasive — and deadly – outside of prisons as well: medication-assisted treatment requires more interventions than simply prescribing a new medication. The FDA-approved medications, which are far less dangerous than heroin, fentanyl, or other non-prescribed opioids, assist other forms of treatment, including behavioral therapy, case management, patient advocacy, and other supportive services.¹²

A crucial component of the law mandating medication-assisted treatment in New York prisons is that individuals cannot be barred from or removed from participation because of a positive drug screening or a disciplinary infraction, nor can they receive a disciplinary infraction for that positive screening. Despite these protections mandated by law, incarcerated people reported delays, denials,¹³ and interruptions to treatment after positive drug screenings, or for people with a history of misusing, selling, or distributing a prescribed medication (also known as medication diversion).

While the law specifically prohibits terminating or denying access to MOUD based on a positive drug screen,¹⁴ it is not clear that this information is provided to incarcerated people in any meaningful way. Instead, it is likely that people see the threat of a positive drug screen — which typically results in harsh, punitive sanctions with long-lasting consequences¹⁵ — as a significant barrier to pursuing treatment, as the medications used in treatment can and do show up on drug screenings. This would be unclear even for the few incarcerated people who access the Department’s policy via the law library or public record request, because the policy does not mention that the law prohibits the exclusion of anyone from treatment because of a positive drug screen. It is also just as unlikely that most people in prison have easy or direct access to the text of the law that mandates MOUD treatment in prison.

Operational challenges to providing effective and comprehensive substance use treatment

The Correctional Association reported that in January 2024, 25% of health services positions were unfilled across all prisons in New York, and incarcerated people said that access to timely healthcare is limited, regardless of opioid use disorder or treatment participation. At some facilities, half of people interviewed described waiting more than a month to see a medical provider after requesting medical care. MOUD recipients have an appointment with a provider every 90 days to review their treatment and, between these appointments, participants can access health services through the regular sick call process. Clearly, providing specialized substance use disorder treatment to thousands of incarcerated people inevitably places additional responsibilities on the already-strained prison healthcare system, requiring more clinicians and health support staff to adequately provide sustainable care. To meet this need, the Opioid Settlement Advisory Board allocated $11 million per year to the Department in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, and planned another $10 million in 2024. Still, the Department has struggled to properly staff facilities.

“Regarding staff vacancies, it is unclear what, if any, impact staff vacancies may have on MAT program participants. A review of the Department’s statistics provides no evidence that vacancy rates within Health Services have affected the MAT program participation and ongoing treatment. As of October 2024, statewide, the physician vacancy rate in DOCCS was 9% and the nursing vacancy rate was 41%, with vacancies supplemented with agency nursing staff.” — New York State Department of Corrections response

Providing MOUD in the prison context can be resource-intensive in other ways as well: for example, the Correctional Association reports that in several facilities, medical staff must travel to specific pharmacies to collect methadone.¹⁶ Not all facilities even have a pharmacy to store and access medication appropriately, which is particularly alarming given all the health needs of incarcerated people. In some facilities, staffing and space constraints also result in staff administering MOUD alongside regular sick calls or in the mess halls during meal time (a serious health privacy concern).¹⁷

Chronic Punishment The unmet health needs of people in state prisons.

Some incarcerated people report being encouraged to take the monthly injectable medication instead of the medications that are required daily. While this may be less resource-intensive, the medication an individual takes is a decision to be made between an individual and their medical provider based on their specific circumstances — not an opportunity to cut corners.

“Regarding the allegation that staff are encouraging or requiring participants to take monthly injectable formulations; inconsistencies with repercussions for diversion; wait times for medical care, and medication side effects, it is not possible to respond to general concerns as treatment is unique to each individual. Without identifying the individuals with a specific concern, or providing specific examples to investigate, we are not able to comment.” — New York State Department of Corrections response¹⁸

Concerns about coordinating treatment, mental health services, and other programming

New York state law requires that each person receiving MOUD works with an “authorized specialist to determine an individualized treatment plan, including an appropriate level of counseling.” Alarmingly, the Correctional Association found no mention of counseling services in the Department’s policy and found no targeted mental health, peer support, or counseling services specifically available for MOUD recipients at any of the facilities visited — in other words, they are ignoring an essential component of this treatment. The health services team that administers the treatment program is responsible for referring patients to the Office of Mental Health (OMH) if mental health treatment is required in conjunction with medications. However, there are no medication-assisted treatment-specific referral procedures, and some prisons do not have full-time mental health staff on site.

Many people receiving MOUD are also mandated to participate in the Department of Corrections’ Alcohol Substance Abuse Treatment (ASAT) program, which requires periodic drug testing (MOUD recipients are also subject to random drug screening). However, a positive drug screening results in discharge from the ASAT program.¹⁹ Health services staff reported concerns to the Correctional Association that people who might benefit most from MOUD are not open about their substance use because they fear discipline or expulsion from ASAT or the work release program (these programs are typically required prior to release).

No policies addressing medication diversion

Jails and prisons regularly cite medication diversion — when a medication is taken for use by someone other than whom it is prescribed or for an indication other than what is prescribed — as a reason to refuse to provide MOUD. In fact, research suggests that MOUD-related diversion occurs infrequently and that expanded access to treatment actually diminishes contraband medication use. Medication diversion is preventable, and researchers have identified a number of easy — and successful — interventions to limit diversion in carceral settings. However, the law requiring MOUD access in New York state prisons does not mention diversion at all, ultimately leaving questions about identifying and responding to diversion in the hands of the Department of Corrections, individual facilities, and correctional staff. The Department of Corrections policy states that “every effort” should be made to provide MOUD, but leaves room for providers to ultimately decide to “taper the patient off the medication” if an individual is “persistent in being uncooperative with the treatment plan or is demonstrating risky behavior.” Potential MOUD recipients may be understandably concerned about beginning treatment without any clear information about how diversion is identified, substantiated, and what the consequences can be for the individual.

Conclusion

The Correctional Association report highlights the positive impact that expanded access to MOUD behind bars can have on people’s lives, and offers opportunities for the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision to improve their treatment program to better meet the needs of incarcerated people. Research suggests that MOUD during incarceration can have profound positive impacts on the health and mortality of participants after their release from prison: it’s associated with increased community-based treatment participation and reduced opioid use and overdoses after release. Almost 4,000 people in New York state prisons receive MOUD, underscoring the need for comprehensive, supportive, and evidence-based substance use disorder treatment behind bars. These lessons are valuable beyond state borders: other jurisdictions can learn from New York’s experience implementing such a program and incorporate the Correctional Association’s recommendations from the start. Ensuring policies are publicly available to incarcerated people and the community, expanding substance use education for staff, reducing conflicts between MOUD programming and other programs, and guaranteeing access to appropriate counseling and peer support for medication-assisted treatment participants are all lessons that can help other states get off to a strong start and ensure incarcerated people have genuine access to the medical care they need.

Update on March 7, 2025: Following the publication of this briefing, we heard from Maryland officials that a statewide initiative began in September 2023 to extend MOUD access beyond the pretrial (jail) system. People receiving MOUD while in jail can continue receiving MOUD without interruption when transferred to the state prison system.

A New Billion Dollar Jail Will Leave Hawai’i Worse Off

At the request of the Hawai’i-based Reimagining Safety Coalition, the Prison Policy Initiative examined the state’s plans for a new jail and found serious issues.

by Regan Huston, February 27, 2025

On Thursday, the Hawai’i-based Reimagining Public Safety Coalition released a new analysis by the Prison Policy Initiative that closely examined plans to build a new correctional facility to replace the current O’ahu Community Correctional Center (OCCC). The memo found serious flaws with the proposed construction that would undermine public safety, exacerbate racial disparities, and worsen existing staffing problems.

The 17-page memo argues three key points:

1. Pretrial incarceration is overused in Hawai’i, causing harm to the public. A growing body of research shows that using jails to incarcerate people pretrial not only undermines the presumption of innocence, but also causes lasting harm to public safety and public health.
2. Jail expansion would exacerbate existing racial disparities in Hawaii’s criminal legal system. Hawaii’s criminal legal system disproportionately affects Native Hawaiians and other non-white minority groups. Building a new, nearly billion-dollar jail not only risks entrenching existing harmful criminal legal system practices, but also uses money that is desperately needed to improve the lives of Native Hawaiians and others in the community.
3. Building a new jail is unlikely to decrease the harms caused by pretrial incarceration, and is likely to make existing staffing problems worse.When new facilities are built without a change in the personnel delivering services inside, existing harms persist. Moreover, many of the harms caused by jailing are a result of the very fact of being removed from family and community, regardless of the conditions inside.

The memo also points out that the current plan for the jail ignores straightforward measures that could be used to reduce Hawaii’s jail population, many of which are actually cited in the Forecast Report, including:

• Changing how it deals with technical violations of probation. In January 2025, 21% of OCCC’s population were there for technical violations, such as missing appointments or not notifying a probation officer of a change of address — things that are not crimes in any other context. This is a huge percentage in comparison to other municipalities.
• Decreasing the pretrial population of its jails by implementing bail reform. As of July 2024, 61.7% of the people detained at OCCC were pretrial detainees who have not been convicted of a crime. Many of these people are there simply because they’re too poor to pay their bail.

The memo explains that with ample opportunities to lower its jail population, Hawai’i is in a strong position to decrease the number of jail beds it needs. Decarceration is the solution that is most likely to promote public health and well-being, manage staffing problems, and provide a better justice system for Hawai’i residents.

Is your community seeking to build a new jail or expand the capacity of its existing facility? We’re happy to help you push back on their arguments (drop us a line to tell us about your fight). There is no need to wait, though. We have created a how-to-guide with tips for pushing back on “jail needs assessments” that local leaders put together to justify the construction and provide strategies for pushing back on false or misleading arguments they’re making.

Federal prison rules push for “financial responsibility” while impoverishing people

Proposed changes to the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program by the Bureau of Prisons risk pushing incarcerated people and their families further into poverty

by Danielle Squillante, February 20, 2025

This week, along with the National Consumer Law Center and expert Stephen Raher, we submitted comments on the federal Bureau of Prisons’ updated proposed rules for its Inmate Financial Responsibility Program (IFRP). These rules, which we first wrote about when they were proposed in 2023, are purported to be aimed at ultra-wealthy people in federal prisons who amassed unusually large amounts of money in their commissary accounts while failing to pay legal fees and restitution. However, they’re written so broadly that they’d make the lives of the vast majority of incarcerated people and their loved ones, who are generally poorer and from disadvantaged backgrounds, much more difficult and threaten their success after their release from prison.

The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has adjusted the rules since they were first introduced to make them slightly less punishing, but they still would have a devastating effect on incarcerated people and their families. Under these rules, the BOP would:

• Garnish 10% of wages earned by incarcerated people, which can be as low as $0.12 per hour.
• Take half of the money in an incarcerated person’s commissary account that is in excess of $250 as a one-time seizure of funds at their initial classification meeting.
• Through a series of complex and legally dubious formulas, seize a portion of the money that incarcerated people receive from their families and friends, making it even more difficult for incarcerated people to meet their basic needs behind bars.

Although the Bureau addressed some of the more egregious elements of the rules as initially drafted, the proposed changes to the IFRP are a misguided response to the false concerns that incarcerated people are hoarding money in their commissary accounts while refusing to pay legal debts. The Bureau reviewed data on commissary accounts and found that as of December 2024, only 2% of commissary accounts had balances greater than $5,000 while approximately 77% of commissary account balances were $249.99 or less. The overwhelming majority of people incarcerated in federal prisons are struggling to afford basic necessities — not living a life of luxury behind bars.

Proposed changes to the IFRP further burden incarcerated people and their families

People incarcerated in state and federal prisons were, before they went to prison, some of the poorest people in the country — and incarceration only pushes them further into poverty. In federal prisons, incarcerated people who are working earn between $0.12-$1.15 per hour. These meager wages don’t begin to cover the range of costs associated with being incarcerated, which include commissary, communication costs, and medical co-pays, to name a few. Most people, whether they have a work assignment or not, rely on outside support to meet their basic needs.

The rules ignore how frequently incarcerated people rely on items purchased from commissary to meet a range of needs throughout the entirety of their sentence. Almost everything in prison has a price tag, even for people who are considered indigent, and products are often marked up to prices far above what someone outside of the prison walls pays. Additionally, because prison meals are typically poorly portioned and of low quality, incarcerated people often rely on commissary to supplement their diet. They also rely on it for basic writing materials, basic hygiene items, clothing and shoes, religious items, and electronic devices such as fans. These additional expenses were not factored into the Bureau’s thinking on these rules but constitute a considerable cost to incarcerated people.

The proposed changes to the IFRP are particularly concerning now that the Bureau of Prisons has ended its pandemic-related phone policy of providing 500 minutes of free phone calls to incarcerated people. As of January, phone calls cost $0.06 per minute, while video calls usually cost $0.16 per minute. Although some people are eligible for free phone calls up to 300 minutes if participating in First Step Act-related programming, other families of incarcerated people will have to manage this added expense to remain connected to their loved ones.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 57% of people incarcerated in federal prisons have one or more dependent children. The incarceration of a parent or caregiver results in the potential loss of family income while creating additional costs for the family to manage — often making it difficult for families to meet their basic needs. Numerous family members of incarcerated people submitted public comments stating how difficult it would be for them to shoulder additional costs as they are already struggling financially. The proposed rules will further burden incarcerated people and their families — but they don’t have to.

An alternative approach that meets the Bureau’s goals

Rather than adopting these new rules, in our letter, we recommend an alternative approach that accomplishes the goals of the program without further burdening incarcerated people and their families. Key provisions of our recommendations include:

• Protect incarcerated people who have commissary account balances that are less than the federal poverty level from having their money seized.
• Shield incarcerated workers from having their wages garnished unless and until they earn at least the federal minimum wage.
• Exempt incarcerated people from IFRP participation for at least two years prior to reentry, given the numerous costs associated with transitioning back into the community.

The overwhelming majority of people in federal prisons and their support systems on the outside are struggling to meet their basic needs. The updated proposed changes to the IFRP are less severe than the slash-and-burn approach to debt collection they initially took, but they would still push incarcerated people and their families deeper into poverty. We urge the Bureau of Prisons to consider our alternatives to their proposal.

New Prison Policy Initiative report explains notoriously bad correctional healthcare

February 19, 2025

Why are terrible prison and jail healthcare systems so resilient against lawsuits and government oversight? How do healthcare providers cut corners with patient care to keep costs down? When and why did corrections agencies start to swing towards contracting out healthcare to companies?

In a new report, Cut-Rate Care, the Prison Policy Initiative answers these questions and others, providing a sweeping explainer of correctional healthcare. We focus on the incentives behind notoriously bad care found in prisons, and explain the major changes — in particular, a shift away from control of healthcare by departments of corrections — that would be necessary to reorient these systems toward a public health approach to care.

People in prison have unique health needs, suffering disproportionately from illnesses like Hepatitis C, HIV, and substance use disorder. As we’ve shown before, these needs routinely go unmet in prisons. Our new report explains why: Correctional healthcare systems are services for corrections departments, not incarcerated people, and are therefore focused less on patient care and more on avoiding lawsuits.

The explainer covers:

• The ways prisons protect themselves against legal consequences for poor medical care, from contracts that offload responsibility onto private companies to federal and state laws that stymie legal action.
• The history of privatization in prison healthcare, including a table showing the three main business models of healthcare contracts in effect in prisons today.
• The few quality control measures for prison healthcare — government oversight, accreditation, and litigation — and why these have all ultimately failed to meaningfully improve the quality of care.

“With prison healthcare, you regularly see that incarcerated people’s complaints get ignored, their requests for exams get denied, and their care gets slow-walked,” said author Brian Nam-Sonenstein. “That’s because prison healthcare systems are really more like liability management systems, and what’s bad for patient care can actually be good for limiting liability.”

Beyond offering an overview of correctional healthcare, the explainer also includes:

• Policy recommendations for decision-makers at all levels of government, but particularly for state and federal lawmakers — whom we urge to remove the provision of prison healthcare from departments of corrections and transfer it to public health agencies, breaking down the “wall” that currently exists between correctional healthcare and public health.
• An appendix with a thumbnail history of the evolution of correctional healthcare, centered around the pivot to privatization since the turn of the millennium.
• Anecdotes from six incarcerated people (in six different prison systems) whom we asked about their experiences with correctional healthcare.

“Private or public, the goal of prison healthcare providers is to provide the minimum amount of care possible in order to avoid claims of negligence,” said Nam-Sonenstein. “These are medical systems caught up not just culturally, but systemically, with the handing out of punishment. That won’t change until we take correctional healthcare out of the hands of departments of corrections and give it to professionals who are solely focused on public health.”

The full report is available at: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/healthcare.html.

New guide and upcoming webinar: Challenging myths about recidivism

by Wanda Bertram, February 13, 2025

Decision-makers often cite worries about recidivism as a primary reason to oppose criminal legal system reforms. These worries are caused by both the concept of the “revolving door” of incarceration and by politicians’ fears that a single violent recidivism event will hurt them politically. The realities of recidivism, though, are complex, and the more advocates know about the facts of how many people return to prison and what those numbers mean, the better equipped they can be to help politicians make informed decisions about policy.

Earlier this month, we released a new guide to recidivism statistics and their history, and how advocates for decarceration can challenge the way these flawed statistics are used to undermine their efforts. The new guide covers:

• The history of the “Willie Horton Effect,” why the power of political backlash against reform is overhyped, and how advocates should respond when lawmakers are swayed by isolated stories of recidivism.
• The different types of recidivism metrics and what they mean, how and why to be cautious about commonly-cited statistics, and the role of “technical” probation and parole violations and minor offenses in driving recidivism.
• Recidivism statistics related to people convicted of violent/sexual offenses, in the context of common arguments for “carving out” these individuals from criminal legal reforms.
• How advocates can push lawmakers to consider other metrics of post-release success besides recidivism, focusing on a person’s quality of life and contributions to their community.

We’ll also be hosting a webinar at 1 PM EST on Wednesday, March 19, where our policy and advocacy team, Sarah Staudt and Emmett Sanders, will discuss pushing back against unproductive and inaccurate uses of recidivism stories and statistics. Advocates, journalists, and members of the public are invited to attend.

Register here

This guide is part of our ever-expanding Advocacy Toolkit, a series of resources for criminal legal reform advocates based on our own research and advocacy.

Jailing the homeless: New data shed light on unhoused people in local jails

Our analysis of Jail Data Initiative data confirms the troubling practice of shuffling unhoused people into jails, at enormous moral and fiscal cost.

by Leah Wang, February 11, 2025

Local jails, which hold one out of every three people behind bars, have become America’s misguided answer to problems faced by the most vulnerable people, like poverty and homelessness. Despite jails’ central role in mass incarceration, comprehensive national data about the 5.6 million people who cycle through them each year is collected infrequently, leaving even basic questions about jails unanswerable.¹ Fortunately for researchers, advocates, journalists and many others, the Jail Data Initiative is collecting present-day data from roughly 900 jails to provide a better understanding of those who are criminalized and locked up, including the approximately 205,000 unhoused people who are booked into jails each year.

In this briefing, we present what we know about unhoused people who are booked into jails, using the best available dataset, collected from jail rosters² by the Jail Data Initiative (JDI). (Last year we published our first analysis of JDI data, focused on repeat bookings; we intend to publish additional analyses this year.) We find that people booked into jail who were marked as unhoused at intake are held for longer than average, while being handed some of the lowest-level charges like trespassing or petty theft.

As we’ll explain, the data have limitations, and some jails are simply not collecting important demographic data such as housing status. But we know that jurisdictions have grown increasingly hostile toward people with nowhere to call home: Instead of extending a helping hand to people simply trying to rest, eat, or otherwise survive, local law enforcement is handing them a criminal record and further destabilizing their lives.

Key findings

Only 20% of the jail rosters in the full dataset (175 of 889) contained one or more entries indicating an unhoused person, but the data from those jails suggest that cities and counties are turning to their jails to address behaviors that unhoused people often engage in because they are unhoused and/or poor.

Note: When referring to “unhoused people,” we mean those who are known to us to be unhoused, based on the jail roster data; everyone else may or may not have housing, but it’s unknown. As such, we also don’t know about people entering jails who are facing housing insecurity. For more information on our process, see our methodology section.

• About 4.5% of jail bookings in our sample are of unhoused people: Across the 175 jail rosters in our dataset, there were 22,839 bookings of people known to be unhoused, out of 503,571 total bookings over the course of one year. These bookings represent over 15,000 unique unhoused individuals (and about 406,000 people whose housing status was unknown, or who were housed, before their admission to jail.) This translates to about 205,000 different unhoused people going to jails each year nationwide — nearly one-third of the number of people experiencing homelessness on a single night in 2023.³

• Unhoused people are more likely to be booked multiple times: More than one out of every five jailed people are booked again within a year. Unhoused people made up a disproportionate share of those rebooked, representing 4% of all unique jail bookings but 8% of those rebooked. Said another way, over 40% of unhoused people booked into jail were booked multiple times, while only 20% of people who were housed or had an unknown housing status were booked multiple times. This finding affirms many observations of ineffective targeting and sweeps of homeless populations.
• Unhoused people are held in jails for longer than average: The overall average stay in jails whose rosters included at least one unhoused person was 21 days, but for unhoused individuals was 32 days — almost 50% longer. We also looked at median length of stay, because the average could be skewed by very long or very short jail stays. The median length of stay for all bookings in this sample was 4 days, but for unhoused individuals was 14 days — which is 2.5 times longer. Our analysis didn’t include bond (bail) amounts, but it’s safe to assume that unaffordable cash bail is keeping many unhoused people in jails longer than those who can afford it.
• People aged 55 and older make up a disproportionate share of bookings of unhoused people: About 10% of all jail bookings in our sample were older people (those age 55 or older), but 15% of bookings of unhoused people were older people. It’s important to note that older adults are more likely to spend 50% or more of their income on rent compared to people in other age groups, making them severely housing-cost-burdened and closer to housing insecurity or homelessness.

• The mass jailing of unhoused people overburdens Black people: While Black people accounted for 31% of all bookings, they accounted for 40% of all bookings of unhoused people. Meanwhile, white people made up 62% of all bookings but only 55% of all bookings of unhoused people. Similarly, people of color are overrepresented in the unhoused and severely housing-cost-burdened populations.
• Unhoused people face a litany of unfair criminal charges simply because they’re unhoused: In general, most people are jailed on public order, property, or drug charges, but bookings of unhoused people made up a disproportionately large share (8%) of bookings where the most serious charge was a property charge, and a slightly greater-than-expected portion (4.8%) of bookings for which the most serious charge was a drug charge. Unhoused people were most commonly booked for a top charge of trespassing — a charge frequently used to criminalize people for having nowhere else to go. They were also more commonly booked for possession of amphetamines, disorderly conduct/drunkenness, and petty theft (of less than $500) compared to all jail bookings in our sample. In contrast, bookings of unhoused people made up disproportionately small shares of bookings where the top charge was “violent” (3%), or related to DUI (<1%) or criminal traffic (2.1%) offenses.

Inconsistent data collection in jails leaves gaps in understanding

Although the data suggest that U.S. cities and counties are unnecessarily and excessively jailing unhoused people, 4% of jail bookings is a significant underestimate of unhoused people in local jails. Our methodology relies on positively identifying people as unhoused, but many more unhoused people may have chosen to list a shelter address, a family member’s address, or another location as their address when they were booked into jail.

And clearly, housing and other demographic data are not consistently collected by jail jurisdictions. While jail rosters are by no means a traditional source of data, it’s telling that only 20% of the nearly 900 rosters in the Jail Data Initiative’s sample recorded even a single person as unhoused during the yearlong study period. Smaller jails, in particular, were underrepresented in our dataset and may be less likely to record housing status information: Jails with an average daily population of less than 100 people made up 26% of our dataset, but make up 54% of jails across the U.S.

Criminalization will never solve homelessness

While not the complete picture of jails that we all wish for, the Jail Data Initiative data provide the best and most recent look at our national reliance on jails for addressing the ongoing crisis of homelessness. Our analysis reveals that unhoused people in jails are kept there for longer, are more likely to be booked multiple times, and are disproportionately Black. In total, over 200,000 unhoused people are coming in contact each year with law enforcement agents who are supposed to be keeping them safe, but the thinly veiled case for bringing them to jail only exacerbates their homelessness⁴ and despair.

There may be reports of unhoused people “choosing” to go to jail over sleeping in the streets, suggesting that jail is an acceptable solution. But it’s been shown time and time again that providing housing, services, and treatment instead of jail incarceration is more sustainable, a huge relief for taxpayers, and much less harmful to individuals. This is where diversion programs and permanent supportive housing can be utilized, before someone is arrested — better yet, before any police encounter.

Prison Policy Initiative testifies in support of creating a right to visitation for people in Colorado’s prisons

by Sarah Staudt, February 6, 2025

Yesterday, Prison Policy Initiative’s Advocacy Director, Sarah Staudt, testified in the House Judiciary Committee in the Colorado Legislature to support a bill that would guarantee visitation rights to people in Colorado prisons.

HB25-1013, sponsored by Representatives Regina English and Jennifer Bacon, would make visitation a right, not a privilege, for people in Colorado prisons. While the Department of Corrections would maintain the ability to restrict visitation for safety reasons, visitation would no longer be able to be taken away for disciplinary reasons, like as punishment for refusing work within the prison.

At the request of Together Colorado, we provided testimony about the wealth of research that shows that visitation is vital for helping incarcerated people maintain their mental health, reintegrate into society, and avoid returning to the criminal legal system.

Visitation has numerous benefits for incarcerated people, including decreasing recidivism; people who experience visitation were 25% less likely to be rearrested within two years of release from prison. Visitation also improves the likelihood of employment after release. Incarcerated people who had family visitation had odds of finding employment almost 2 times higher than those who were not visited by family. Lastly, visitation helps incarcerated people cope with the inherent stressors of incarceration, decreasing mental health issues.

Visitation is also a key tool in decreasing the harm that incarceration causes to children and families beyond prison walls. Nationwide, half of people in prison are parents to minor children, including 80% of all incarcerated women. Incarceration of a parent is a stressor for children that affects overall wellbeing, family dynamics, poor school performance, and a heightened risk of eventual involvement in the criminal legal system. Visitation with family has been shown to lessen these negative outcomes.

Prison Policy Initiative is proud to support HB25-1013, and hopes that it can serve as a model for legislatures around the country to improve access to visitation for incarcerated people.

Estimating the impact: How many people are excluded from Fair Housing protections because of a past drug conviction?

A little-known 1988 law called the Thurmond Amendment stripped people with drug distribution convictions of federal protections under the Fair Housing Act, making it even more difficult for many people with criminal records to secure housing - even when they are qualified in every other way, and even when the conviction is decades old. By our count, this law makes it more difficult for as many as 3 million people with these kinds of convictions to secure housing.

by Wendy Sawyer, February 5, 2025

You’ve probably never heard of the Thurmond Amendment, but for almost 40 years, it has been quietly enabling landlords to deny housing to people based solely on a past conviction for selling drugs — no matter how qualified they are as tenants, no matter what drugs or quantities were involved, and no matter how long ago they were convicted. This lifelong collateral consequence, tied to this one specific type of conviction, makes it even more difficult for people with criminal records to find housing at a time when it’s already a near-impossible task given the highly competitive rental markets in the U.S. As we and many other researchers have explained before, safe and stable housing is a critical factor in reentry success, while homelessness puts people directly in the crosshairs of law enforcement. These facts put the Thurmond Amendment directly at odds with correctional and public safety interests.

A coalition of advocates is working to repeal the law, led by a real estate investor who was directly impacted by the Thurmond Amendment. Their first step: gathering the available data about its impact and raising awareness of this overlooked relic of the failed “war on drugs.” That’s where we at the Prison Policy Initiative come in. One form of support we offer advocates — particularly through our Policy & Advocacy team — is to bring to light the relevant data that exists about an issue, and to find ways to fill in the gaps where the necessary information simply isn’t available. When the coalition came to us with the question of how many people are potentially impacted by the Thurmond Amendment, we combed through the available historical data to come up with an estimate, ultimately finding that over 3 million people in the U.S. have received drug distribution convictions since 1986 (which is as far back as the available data go).

Understanding the Fair Housing Act and the Thurmond Amendment

The Fair Housing Act of 1968, a key piece of civil rights legislation, declared discrimination by housing providers on the basis of race, religion, sex, national origin, familial status, or disability illegal. The 1988 Fair Housing Amendments Act strengthened the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s (HUD’s) power to enforce the Act, creating a new avenue of legal recourse for tenants and homebuyers who experience discrimination when applying to rent an apartment, buy a home, or take out a mortgage.

Enacted at the height of the failed “war on drugs,” however, the 1988 law includes an amendment named for its sponsor, the segregationist Strom Thurmond, which explicitly denies fair housing protections to people who have been convicted of drug manufacturing or distribution. While this amendment may seem like an odd thing to tack onto civil rights legislation that does not explicitly protect people from discrimination based on criminal history, it creates a carveout that allows landlords to deny housing to this specific population. Because drug distribution convictions — and criminal records more broadly — disproportionately impact Black and Brown people, discrimination against all individuals with criminal records is effectively a form of racial discrimination.⁶ On this basis, when housing providers discriminate against people with criminal records, individuals can make “discriminatory effect” claims under the Fair Housing Act. However, when landlords discriminate against people with drug distribution convictions specifically, the Thurmond Amendment makes these claims impossible. No other category of criminal conviction is excluded in the same way.

Importantly, repealing the Thurmond Amendment would do nothing to diminish the autonomy of landlords and other housing providers. The Fair Housing Act doesn’t require anyone to provide housing to people with drug distribution convictions, or any other kind of conviction for that matter. It just encourages them to consider applications more fully instead of automatically disqualifying people on the basis of a criminal record alone.

We know better now: Lessons learned about drugs, crime, and housing

The Thurmond Amendment was an expression of “tough on crime” 1980s politics, which were rationalized by false beliefs about drugs, crime, and punishment. For instance, in a recent op-ed, Yusef Dahl, who has been leading the effort to repeal the Amendment, points to the misconception that people who sell drugs are different from people who use drugs, which was central to how Thurmond sold the amendment to the rest of Congress: “drug dealers,” he argued, don’t deserve federal protection. In reality, distributors and users are often the same people: the most recent national data show that 78% of people in state prisons whose most serious offense was drug-related ⁷ reported using any drug in the month before their arrest. More than half (55%) were using at the time of the offense itself. ⁸ Among people sentenced to local jails for drug-related offenses (i.e., those serving shorter sentences than people in prison), the most recent data show 74% met the criteria for a substance use disorder. While it may be rhetorically convenient for politicians to vilify people who sell drugs, doing so necessarily casts a wide net around drug users who are often coping with poverty and illness.

Nowhere to goHomelessness among formerly incarcerated people

Second, the Thurmond Amendment’s complete exclusion of people convicted of drug distribution, no matter how long ago, implies a belief that people don’t change.⁹ Decades of criminological research on desistance (the individual process of shifting away from lawbreaking behavior) prove otherwise. In fact, among the recommendations of experts Shawn Bushway and Christopher Uggen, authors of the chapter linked above, is “eliminat[ing] most collateral consequences of criminal justice involvement,” such as barriers to housing. Putting a finer point on it, they write: “Policies that continue to center a criminal act years after that act was committed directly contradict everything we know about desistance.”

Ultimately, this is the problem with the Thurmond Amendment: while it was added ostensibly so landlords could “protect other tenants,” it actually works directly against public safety interests. Securing safe, stable housing is one of the greatest challenges for people during reentry, and it makes a difference in reentry success, as previous research has shown. Creating additional barriers to housing for people with criminal records is simply bad policy.

To learn more about the effort to repeal the Thurmond Amendment, go to https://www.thurmondamendment.org.