Aside from our recent reports, we have several new additions to our website worth highlighting.
by Peter Wagner,
December 28, 2016
Aside from our recent reports, we have several new additions to our website worth highlighting:
Eleven ideas for criminal justice reforms that are ripe for legislative victory in 2017.
by Peter Wagner,
December 28, 2016
This report has been updated with a new version for 2022.
With the 2017 legislative sessions about to start, it’s time to unveil our fourth 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:
- Ending prison gerrymandering
- Lowering the cost of calls home from prison or jail
- Repealing or reforming ineffective and harmful sentencing enhancement zones
- Protecting in-person family visits from the video visitation industry
- Stopping automatic driver’s license suspensions for drug offenses unrelated to driving
- Protecting letters from home in local jails
- Requiring racial impact statements for criminal justice bills
- Repealing “Truth in Sentencing”
- Creating a safety valve for mandatory minimum sentences
- Immediately eliminating “pay only” probation and regulating privatized probation services
- Reducing pretrial detention
Let us know what you think of this year’s list. We look forward to working together to make 2017 a year of great progress for justice reform!
Jason Stanley's book -- the royalties of which support the Prison Policy Initiative -- is needed more now than ever.
by Peter Wagner,
December 27, 2016
There is a great review of the new paperback edition of board member Jason Stanley’s How Propaganda Works in today’s New York Times. Jason is generously donating the royalties from this book, his fourth, to the Prison Policy Initiative.
As Jason explains in his board interview on our blog, mass incarceration has become “embedded into the moral, political, and economic life of our country.” Today’s review points out that the book is even more timely now in light of the recent election:
In this volume (originally published in hardcover in 2015), Mr. Stanley does not grapple directly with Mr. Trump’s rhetoric, or the role that “fake news” played in the 2016 election. But his book does provide some useful insights into the dangers of propaganda — and its reliance upon mangled facts; false claims; and reductive, Manichaean storytelling. He observes that demagogic speech in democracies often uses language that purports to support liberal democratic ideals (liberty, equality and objective reason) in “the service of undermining these ideals.” He points out that propaganda frequently raises fears that are likely to curtail rational debate — for instance “linking Saddam Hussein to international terrorism” after Sept. 11 — and that it may play upon deeper prejudices toward ethnic or religious groups that rob “us of the capacity for empathy toward them.”
At this moment, when crime is at near-record lows but a President-elect who argues that crime is high and rising is about to be inaugurated, understanding how propaganda works will be key to both fixing our criminal justice system and preserving our democracy.
In 2016 we were honored to receive some great coverage of our work. Check out some of our favorites.
by Kim Cerullo,
December 27, 2016
One of our goals here at the Prison Policy Initiative is to engage the public in current criminal justice issues. Journalists who use our research in new, creative ways play a crucial role in that process. These were some of our favorite stories of 2016 featuring our work, starting with the most recent:
- Probation fees pose an undue burden
by The Boston Globe Editorial Board
The Boston Globe, December 13, 2016
The leading type of correctional control in the U.S. is not incarceration but rather probation. Probation may sound like a light punishment, but the substantial fines and fees burden families and make it harder for people to succeed. In Massachusetts, like many states, probation fees fall most heavily on those least able to afford them. This Globe editorial supports our report on probation fees and explains why we should not use “criminal justice as cash register.”
- New study critical of Virginia driver’s license suspensions for drug offenses
by Frank Green
The Richmond Times-Dispatch, December 10, 2016
Almost 39,000 safe drivers in Virginia lose their licenses each year. Why? Because Virginia is one of only 12 states in the country that still automatically suspend the driver’s license of anyone convicted of a drug offense, even if that offense had nothing to do with driving. Frank Green offers an in-depth analysis of our new report on the subject, which encourages states to opt out of this relic of the War on Drugs.
- In One N.H. Jail, Inmate Visits Don’t Look How You Might Think They Look
by Natasha Haverty
NHPR, December 5, 2016
If you have a loved one behind bars, there are more ways than ever to stay connected, including video visitation. But there’s a catch: when jails add video visitation, they often ban in-person visits. This New Hampshire Public Radio story puts a spotlight on Cheshire County Jail in New Hampshire, where these in-person visitation bans are tearing families apart.
- A Virtual Visit to a Relative in Jail
by Maya Schenwar
The New York Times, September 29, 2016
Video visitation can be a helpful way to keep families connected — as a supplement to in-person visits. What video visitation companies like Securus don’t advertise, however, is that in many places traditional visitation is banned. In this op-ed, Maya Schenwar builds on our report on video visitation with a description of her first video visit to her sister. With technical errors, glitchy screens, and a lack of eye contact, her experience makes it clear that video visitation doesn’t compare to the real thing.
- The Wrong Way to Count Prisoners
by The New York Times Editorial Board
The New York Times, July 16, 2016
When the Census counts people where they are incarcerated, rather than where they live, they inflate the populations of areas surrounding large prisons. The population boost leads to “prison gerrymandering” — giving undue influence to the political districts in those areas. Based on our analysis, this editorial explains why some states may be unable to prevent prison gerrymandering on their own and calls on the Census Bureau to take a stand for equality and fairness in the electoral process.
- The grotesque criminalization of poverty in America
by Ryan Cooper
The Week, May 16, 2016
At any given moment, 646,000 people are in American jails, with millions churning in and out of the system each year. Ryan Cooper builds on our report, Detaining the Poor, to make the case that forcing millions of people each year to spend unnecessary hours, days or months in behind bars just because they are too poor to make bail is “nothing less than a moral abomination.”
- The Prison-Commercial Complex
by Chandra Bozelko
The New York Times, March 21, 2016
A fee to create a calling account. A fee to add funds. A fee to get a refund. Those are just some of the ways that private companies put their hands into the meager pockets of incarcerated people and their families. Chandra Bozelko reviews our research on the prison telephone industry, the release card industry and the money transfer industry to bring attention to the hidden beneficiaries of mass incarceration.
In 2016, we saw some incredible data visualizations in criminal justice reporting. Here are our five favorites.
by Wendy Sawyer,
December 23, 2016
Every year, researchers find new ways to make criminal justice information more accessible and compelling. In 2016, we saw some incredible data visualizations in criminal justice reporting. Here are our five favorite data visualizations from this year, in no particular order:
- Criminal Charges
Article by Colin Lecher. Interactive by Frank Bi, designer and developer. Michael Zelenko, editor.
Verge
When people are incarcerated, phone calls home are a vital connection to friends, family, and the community. However, those calls come at an exorbitant price. This article uses an innovative time-based data visualization to put that price into a very personal perspective. A timer calculates how much a call from a state prison in your state would cost you if the call was as long as the time it took you to read the accompanying article about the predatory prison telephone industry.
- Bail, Fines, and Fees
Vera Institute of Justice
When you are arrested and booked into jail, you face an expensive choice before you even go to trial. Few people understand the hidden fines and fees that individuals face pre-trial: How much do fees cost? Where do they go? Who pays them?
This 90 second video explains the hidden costs of court-ordered fines, fees, and financial bail in New Orleans, framing bail reform as a common sense choice that benefits everyone.
- Crime in Context
By Gabriel Dance and Tom Meagher. Additional reporting by Emily Hopkins and Mark Hansen. Additional production and design by Andy Rossback.
The Marshall Project
Is crime in America rising or falling? This year saw upticks in violent crime in some U.S. cities, but the uproar about the “rise in crime” had more to do with how news sources present crime data than dramatic changes in criminal offending. At a time when people can’t agree on facts, this interactive chart of violent crime over time in 68 major cities illustrates how our perceptions of crime change depending on how we look at the numbers.
- Police have shot and killed at least 2,195 people since Ferguson
Article by German Lopez and Soo Oh. Interactive map by Soo Oh.
Vox
After the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014, some people were quick to call his death an isolated incident. To counteract this narrative and shed light on use of force by the police, the nonprofit Fatal Encounters tracked all available reports — over 2,000 reported deaths — of fatal shootings by law enforcement since Brown’s death. Vox created an interactive map of this data with information about each victim and incident to make it clear that fatal police shootings are not isolated incidents.
- Sandra Bland Died One Year Ago & Since Sandra
Story by Dana Liebelson & Ryan J. Reilly. Data and reporting by Shane Shifflett, with support from a large team of researchers and reporters. Database graphics by Hilary Fung and Alissa Scheller.
Huffington Post
Deaths inside American jails frequently go unnoticed. So after Sandra Bland’s death, the Huffington Post aimed to expose exactly how many people die in jail. After a year-long crowd-sourced investigation of jail deaths, its team of researchers created a powerful infographic detailing the most troubling findings. The article links to the full database of all 815 cases of jail deaths (that’s an average of more than two per day) from July 2015-July 2016.
2016 was a year of big victories for the Prison Policy Initiative. Read about some of the biggest wins in our campaigns this year.
by Kim Cerullo,
December 23, 2016
2016 was a year of big victories for the Prison Policy Initiative. Our campaigns took some big steps forward and, in some cases, those victories culminated in major policy changes.
Here are some of the biggest wins in our campaigns this year:
Prison Gerrymandering
- A federal Judge declared prison gerrymandering in rural Jefferson County, Florida to be an unconstitutional violation of the principle of “one person one vote.” Our staff were expert witnesses in the case.
- In April, Tennessee passed legislation to allow rural counties to avoid prison gerrymandering.
- We organized 100,000 people to submit comments to the Census Bureau demanding an end to prison gerrymandering. This movement was also supported by a letter from 13 U.S. Senators. We are awaiting a decision from the Census Bureau about where incarcerated people will be counted in the 2020 Census.
Driver’s License Suspensions
Protecting Letters from Home
- We followed up on our previous report on postcard-only mail policies in jails this year with Protecting Written Family Communication in Jails, A 50-State Survey.
- Supported by our reports, the movement to end letter bans grew this year. Sheriffs in Macomb County, Michigan and Flagler County, Florida agreed to lift postcard-only policies, and lawsuits are underway to challenge postcard-only policies in Knox County, Tennessee and Wilson County, Kansas.
Other research
We also published a record number of ground-breaking reports to push the national conversation about mass incarceration and over-criminalization. Our most notable reports include:
- Correctional Control: Incarceration and supervision by state
Prison is just one piece of the correctional pie, and we often overlook the leading type of correctional control: probation. This report is the first of its kind and aggregates data on all of the types of correctional control: federal prisons, state prisons, local jails, juvenile incarceration, civil commitment, Indian Country jails, parole, and probation.
- States of Incarceration: The Global Context 2016
Our report and infographic directly situate individual U.S. states in the global context. This updated version reveals that the use of incarceration in every state – even those with relatively progressive policies – is out of step with the international community.
- Detaining the Poor: How money bail perpetuates an endless cycle of poverty and jail time
Detaining people because they are poor is an offensive idea, but until this year it was difficult to prove that this is exactly what the American system of cash bail does. This report uses an obscure and underutilized government dataset to show that the typical bail amount in the U.S. is equivalent to eight months of income for the typical defendant. Our report not only proved the obvious, but we helped reframe the debate to show why modest changes in bail amounts won’t be enough to reverse the tremendous rise in the population of people detained before trial.
- Punishing Poverty: The high cost of probation fees in Massachusetts
In Massachusetts, probation is a much bigger part of the correctional control pie than incarceration. Our new report reveals that being on probation comes at a price: probation service fees in the state cost probationers more than $20 million every year, a cost that largely falls on those who are too poor to pay.
New Jersey bill aims to protect in-person jail visits from video visitation
by Bernadette Rabuy,
December 22, 2016
As our research has shown, local jails are increasingly replacing in-person visitation with glitchy, expensive video visits. Fortunately, New Jersey Assemblyman Gordon Johnson has introduced legislation that would protect in-person visitation from being eliminated in New Jersey jails. Check out the press release from the New Jersey Phone Justice Campaign below:
Legislation Introduced to Restore Face to Face Family Visits in New Jersey Jails
Advocates Applaud Legislators Call for Reduced Cost for those Incarcerated and their Families
For Immediate Release, December 8, 2016
Contact: Karina Wilkinson, KarinaWilkinson@gmail.com
Trenton, NJ – Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Bergen) introduced legislation this week to guarantee face to face family visits for individuals incarcerated in New Jersey. The bill, A4389, would cap costs at 11 cents per minute, ban commissions, require refunds for poor quality and ban fees on professional visits from lawyers and clergy. Similar legislation governing phone rates in prisons and jails was signed into law in August, 2016.
“We applaud Assemblyman Johnson for taking the lead on ensuring that people incarcerated in New Jersey and their families are not taken advantage of by an unregulated industry that is only interested in profits and counties that are looking to gain revenue off of those who can least afford it,” said Karina Wilkinson of the New Jersey Phone Justice Campaign (NJPhoneJustice.org). “We also welcome Congresswoman Duckworth’s efforts at the federal level to require the FCC to regulate video visitation.”
Also this week, Congresswoman Duckworth (IL-8) introduced federal legislation, the Video Visitation in Prisons Act of 2016, that would require the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to regulate video visitation services, including capping rates, ensuring quality and banning the elimination of in-person visits.
Read more here.
For more on video visitation nationally, check out our video visitation page.
New BJS data shows suicide is still the leading cause of death in local jails. And most suicides occur shortly after jail admission.
by Bernadette Rabuy,
December 22, 2016
As we wrote last year, suicide in jails is an overlooked national crisis. The rate of suicide in local jails — which generally hold people detained pretrial or convicted of low-level offenses — is far greater than that of state prisons or the American population in general.
According to Bureau of Justice Statistics data released last week, the rates of suicide for 2014 were the highest rates of suicide in either prisons and jails in the fifteen years since the Bureau of Justice Statistics started collecting mortality data. Distressingly, suicide continues to be the leading cause of death in local jails.
In comparison to prisons, local jails experience far higher proportions of unnatural deaths, which include suicides, drug/alcohol intoxication, homicides, and accidents. For example, in 2014, 11% of deaths in state and federal prisons were due to unnatural causes while almost half (49%) of deaths in jails were unnatural. There are a number of reasons for why this could be true such as the disproportionate number of people in jails suffering from mental health challenges or substance abuse or because people are sometimes being booked into jails in their most desperate state.
One positive consequence of Sandra Bland’s tragic 2015 death in a Texas jail has been increased attention on jail deaths. For example, the Huffington Post began a groundbreaking project gathering names, cause of death, dates of arrest and death, and other key details for more than 800 people who died in jails and police lockups in the year following Bland’s death. The Huffington Post’s jail deaths database builds on the Bureau of Justice Statistics annual reports to provide more in-depth information on this national crisis. The data shines light on the particular jails in the U.S. with above average numbers of deaths and tells the stories of the people whose deaths might have been initially missing from the mainstream media.
While the Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that 41% of jail deaths occurred within the first week of a person’s jail stay, the Huffington Post’s data goes further, to show that even a few days in jail can be life threatening. The Huffington Post found that 26% of jail suicides occurred within just three days.
Studying the datasets raises urgent questions about the way that jails function such as whether jails are adequately evaluating mental health during intake, how jail staff communicates with family members of the incarcerated during periods of incarceration and when a death occurs, and whether there is appropriate oversight of the thousands of local jails in the U.S.
The data also raises broader, but just as pressing, questions about the dehumanizing experience of incarceration. The high rate of jail suicide should prompt our country to consider whether increasingly popular jail visitation policies that replace in-person visits with video will only increase the isolation of incarceration. The data also supports the idea that mental health services could be more effectively delivered in the community and renews the call for more programs that divert people with mental illness from going to jail in the first place. Further, the high number of suicides that occur within the first few days since jail admission emphasizes why the detention of those awaiting trial, even for a few days, should be treated as a human rights crisis.
Jail suicides are yet another example of how interactions with our criminal justice system can become questions of life or death.
After decades of exponential growth, any news that the population under correctional control is decreasing is good news. But this progress is too slow.
by Wendy Sawyer,
December 21, 2016
Today, the Bureau of Justice Statistics announced that the number of adults on probation fell again in 2015, marking the eighth year we have seen these numbers decline. This trend represents progress in the movement away from over criminalization.
But don’t get too excited about these probation numbers. 3.8 million people are on probation – still almost twice as many people as are incarcerated. And at the current sluggish rate of decline, it will take 20 years just to undo the increase in probation from the Reagan administration alone. (During that period of record growth, the number of people on probation more than doubled.)
As we have shown, probation is not always the alternative to incarceration it is made out to be. People are often sentenced to probation for minor offenses, but for those who can’t afford fees or make it to every appointment, this seemingly “light” sentence too often leads to incarceration.
After decades of exponential growth, any news that the population under correctional control is decreasing is good news. But this progress is too slow. To make a real dent in the country’s bloated correctional population, policy makers need to advance criminal justice and social policies aimed at reducing the number of people on probation.
Note: The graphic charting the growth of probation, parole, and incarceration over time was updated in December 2018 to include yearend 2016 data (the most recent data available).
Our report on probation fees in Massachusetts is receiving some great press coverage.
by Wendy Sawyer,
December 13, 2016
In case you missed it: Last week, the Prison Policy Initiative released a new report showing that people in Massachusetts’ poorest communities are disproportionately charged probation supervision fees. Our report, which comes on the heels of reports from the state Senate and Trial Court, adds to the mounting evidence that court fines and fees are overdue for a structural overhaul.
Our report is receiving some great press coverage:
Probation fees pose an undue burden
A Boston Globe editorial cites our report to argue that the Legislature should eliminate probation fees.
Probation fees hit poor the hardest, says report
Michael Jonas at CommonWealth magazine puts our report into the context of two recent reports on court fines and fees from the state Senate and Trial Court.
Editorial: State probation fees need reform
The Daily Hampshire Gazette cites our “eye opening” report in an editorial calling for reform.
Report: Probation costs fall disproportionately on the poorest
The Daily Hampshire Gazette’s Emily Cutts provides thorough coverage of our findings and Sen. Mike Barrett’s response.
Poverty, Punishment, and Probation: A Toxic Brew
WGBH’s Daniel Medwed gives some context to the issue of court fines and fees, relating the report to the practices uncovered in Ferguson, Missouri.
Nonprofit encourages elimination of probation fees
Shira Shoenberg provides another overview of the report’s findings and connections to the recommendations of the Trial Court’s report.
Report: Probation fees Hit Poor MA Communities the Hardest
Mike Clifford covers the report for the Public News Service, using one of our graphs.
