Tiana Herring and Emily Widra | May 18, 2021

Just over half of incarcerated people are vaccinated, despite being locked in COVID-19 epicenters

Most states did not prioritize incarcerated people in their vaccination plans. As a result, seven months since the first vaccines were distributed, just 55% of people in prison have been vaccinated, leaving them vulnerable to infection.

Katie Rose Quandt and Alexi Jones | May 13, 2021

Research Roundup: Incarceration can cause lasting damage to mental health

Incarceration can trigger and worsen symptoms of mental illness — and those effects can last long after someone leaves the prison gates.

Wanda Bertram and Wendy Sawyer | May 5, 2021

Prisons and jails will separate millions of mothers from their children in 2021

The most important statistics about the incarceration of mothers and pregnant women.

Tiana Herring | May 4, 2021

Jail incarceration rates vary widely, but inexplicably, across U.S. cities

Cities jail people at rates that have little to no correlation to their violent crime rates, police budgets, or jail budgets.

Emily Widra | April 27, 2021

New data gives a detailed picture of how COVID-19 increased death rates in Florida prisons

A new publication from the UCLA COVID-19 Behind Bars team reveals that COVID-19 reduced the life expectancy of people in Florida prisons by 4 years.

Wanda Bertram and Wendy Sawyer | April 22, 2021

With the majority of corrections officers declining the COVID-19 vaccine, incarcerated people are still at serious risk

Low rates of vaccine uptake among correctional staff make it clear that withholding the vaccine from people who are locked up -- or offering it only to a small fraction of the prison population -- is senseless.

Katie Rose Quandt and Andrea Fenster | March 23, 2021

It’s all about the incentives: Why a call home from a jail in New York State can cost 7 times more than the same call from the state’s prisons

Katie Rose Quandt and Alexi Jones | March 18, 2021

Research roundup: Violent crimes against Black and Latinx people receive less coverage and less justice

We explain the research showing that violent crimes against Black Americans - especially those in poverty - are less likely to be cleared by police and less likely to receive news coverage than similar crimes against white people.

Alexi Jones and Wendy Sawyer | March 17, 2021

New data on jail populations: The good, the bad, and the ugly

A new BJS report shows that U.S. jails reduced their populations by 25% in the first few months of the pandemic. But even then, the U.S. was still putting more people in local jails than most countries incarcerate in total.

Alexi Jones | March 2, 2021

Visualizing the unequal treatment of LGBTQ people in the criminal justice system

LGBTQ people are overrepresented at every stage of our criminal justice system, from juvenile justice to parole.