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Databases
Beyond producing original research, the Prison Policy Initiative edits several databases to empower activists, journalists and policy makers to make effective criminal justice policy.
Research Clearinghouse and Legal Resources
Research Clearinghouse: virtually all of the empirical criminal justice research available on the internet catalogued right here. (We also offer an email newsletter (at right) for the Research Clearinghouse updates.) 
Legal resources for incarcerated people: law firms and organizations that provide free legal assistance to incarcerated people on civil (non-criminal) matters. We automatically remove entries that have not been re-confirmed by the organization within the last 12 months.
Geographic prison data
Our prison gerrymandering project addresses how the Census Bureau's prison count distorts democracy and the redistricting process. The data we've collected and the tools we've built are critical to redistricting advocates and are useful in some other contexts as well:
Our 2010 Census Correctional Facility Locator contains our annotations of the Census blocks that contain correctional facilities. (The 2000 version is still available).- Tips, guides, and alternative formats (tabular, ESRI shapefile, Maptitude layer, GoogleEarth) for the Census Bureau's Advance Group Quarters Summary File.
- Historical correctional facility counts for state, federal and local facilities (2005, 2006 and 2010), and for state, federal and private prisons (June 30, 2000), federal prisons on (June 2, 2000), and local jails on (June 30, 1999). We also have a memo about correctional facilities built or expanded between the 2000 and 2010 Censuses.
Cataloguing the corrections industry
Some of the most powerful exposés of the prison industry have come from individual journalists, and we're maximixing the impact of some of these stories by grouping them together in one place:
Bibliography of exposés of the American Correctional Association
Bibliography of exposés of Corizon (formerly called Correctional Medical Services)
We aren't journalists, but if you are interested in the prison telephone industry, our report The Price to Call Home: State-Sanctioned Monopolization in the Prison Phone Industry is the place to start.
Recommended Reading:
The unmet health needs of people in prison
States fall far short of their duty to meet the health needs of incarcerated people.
All profit, no risk
The bail industry exploits cracks and loopholes in the legal system to avoid accountability, while growing its profits.
Compare your state's use of the prison to the world at large
Criminal justice policy in every region of the United States is out of step with the rest of the world.
Prison Gerrymandering Project
We are leading the movement to protect our democracy from the Census Bureau's prison miscount.