Prison Policy Initiative

🚨Today, the FCC took a stand against the exploitation of incarcerated people & their families by lowering the cost of phone & video calling services in prisons and jails.

As required by the 2022 Martha Wright-Reed Fair and Just Communications Act, the FCC laid out new price caps that prisons, jails, and their telecom providers must abide by, significantly lowering the existing caps which were set in 2021.

The agency also made a number of long-sought reforms that will bring critical relief to families of incarcerated people and reduce incentives for bad policy in prisons and jails.

This is a major win for incarcerated people & their loved ones – but the fight for phone justice isn't over yet.

While the overall US incarceration rate is falling, the women’s rate remains at a historic high – the highest in the world, in fact.

The rapid growth of women’s incarceration, coupled with the longstanding focus on men, means that recent criminal justice reforms have not kept up with the number and needs of incarcerated women. Women often do not have the same access to diversion and other programs that can shorten incarceration.

Women can’t get left behind in the effort to end mass incarceration.

A 2016 study by Professor Christopher Wildeman offers us an explanation for the U.S. falling behind on measures of population health, like life expectancy: mass incarceration.

In comparison to other developed democracies, the study found that from 1981 to 2007, US life expectancy would have increased by more than five years if not for mass incarceration. With over 1.9 million people in the criminal legal system, it's clear that mass incarceration has become a public health crisis in the US.

If someone with felony convictions can run for president, wouldn’t it make sense that they could get ordinary jobs, like bartending or pest extermination?

Sadly, our current system does not think so. Millions of people across the US face discrimination because of a felony conviction – making it harder to secure stable employment, housing, healthcare, and care for children.

It's time to end employment discrimination against people with criminal records, and there are plenty of measures states can take to do so.

A grim reminder this 4th of July that the US has the highest incarceration rate of any independent democracy on Earth. Worse, *every single state* incarcerates more people per capita than most nations.

The data is clear: Incarceration in the "land of the free" is way out of step with the rest of the world.

Last week, the Supreme Court gave lawmakers the green light to criminalize homelessness. This is a shameful move that will hurt communities across the country.

If the US is serious about ending the housing crisis, it will dismantle the revolving door between incarceration and homelessness – putting housing first instead of criminalizing vulnerable people for not having access to safe, stable, and affordable housing.

🚨NEW Report: The US has the highest incarceration rate of any independent democracy on earth — worse, every single state incarcerates more people per capita than most nations.

The US' high incarceration rates are not(!!) a rational response to high crime rates. Instead, they represent the aftermath of racist policies like the “war on drugs,” as well as politically expedient responses to public fears and perceptions about crime and violence.

The data is clear: mass incarceration is deeply ingrained in the identity of the US.

It’s been 2 years since Americans were stripped of their right to abortion. Now, the number of patients who cross state lines for abortion care has nearly doubled. This is difficult for anyone, but it’s especially challenging—often impossible—for people on probation or parole. For most of them, the ability to receive abortion care depends solely on getting permission to travel out of state from an officer.

Access to basic health care should not be in the hands of officers.

This Juneteenth, it's important to remember that prisons rely on the labor of incarcerated people for food service, laundry, and other essential operations – all while they pay incarcerated workers unconscionably low wages.

It's been more than 50 years since the beginning of the War on Drugs. Despite its failure to curb drug use or distribution, officials continue to funnel billions of dollars toward anti-drug policies rather than invest funds into voluntary treatment programs and mental health services.

Drug offenses still account for the incarceration of over 360,000 people, and drug convictions remain a defining feature of the federal prison system.

Nevertheless, 4 out of 5 people in prison or jail are locked up for something other than a drug offense — either a more serious offense or an even less serious one. To end mass incarceration, we will have to change how our society and our criminal legal system respond to crimes more serious than drug possession. We must also stop incarcerating people for behaviors that are even more benign.

Father’s Day is stereotypically a happy occasion – but for far too many people, it's a grim reminder that mass incarceration affects entire families.

600,000+ fathers will be behind bars, separated from their children and loved ones. This affects 1.3 million children across the US. Keeping parents out of jail & prison is critical to protect children from the known harms of parental incarceration.

People lose health insurance coverage while in jail or prison and their lack of coverage continues post-release, leaving many without access to adequate, timely, and appropriate health care in those critical first weeks of reentry.

The gap in healthcare coverage following incarceration leads to high rates of death just after release, with disproportionately high rates of deaths from drug overdose and illness.

Millions of families and children throughout the country are punished emotionally and financially by a loved one’s incarceration. The stress of having a loved one inside cannot be understated, particularly given the poor conditions in prisons and jails and the difficulty of holding administration accountable for the neglect and violence behind the wall.

In addition to the emotional toll, families have to shoulder the cost of supporting a loved one inside—from fines and fees associated with their case to phone calls and commissary—on top of their household expenses.

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This Pride Month, it's important to raise awareness about the over-incarceration of LGBTQ+ folks – from high rates of juvenile justice involvement to the long sentences they often receive as adults.

While lawmakers across the US flood your feed with "Happy Pride" messages, here's a reminder for them that the LGBTQ+ community is overrepresented throughout the entire criminal legal system – and it's time to decarcerate.

In collaboration with Black & Pink National

Donald Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies. While he could still be president, there are plenty of other jobs he is now barred from across the country.

He'll probably never really feel the effects of this type of job discrimination, but it does hurt millions of other people in the US who have felony convictions. Anyone who believes that a felony conviction shouldn’t disqualify someone from the most powerful office on the planet must also agree that it makes no sense to prohibit others with felony convictions from serving in more ordinary roles like pest control workers & bartenders.

Unfortunately, clear data on how incarceration affects Native people is hard to come by. Even when data on incarceration are disaggregated by race, the way that Native incarcerated people are counted is inconsistent and often underreports their numbers, because people reporting two or more races are lumped into various categories depending on who is publishing the data. But the data that is available paints a clear picture: Native people are vastly overrepresented in the US criminal legal system.

Here's a visual guide on how mass incarceration affects Indigineous people across the country.

There are more than 1 million people incarcerated in state prisons across the US. What may be even more shocking is that nearly 40% of them were arrested before their 16th birthday – thousands of youth were never even given a fair chance. The carceral system clearly does not care about "reforming" children. If it did, why are so many people who were arrested at 15 or younger stuck in the system?

It's the unofficial start of summer – which means soaring temperatures and extreme heat waves will be on the way.

These deadly events are becoming increasingly common as the effects of climate change become more apparent. They affect us all in a grave way – yet incarcerated people are rarely included in the conversation.

Prisons are not equipped to handle environmental emergencies and will only become more inhospitable for people who are locked up.

It’s been 4 years since the murder of George Floyd. In the years since, more Americans have questioned the role & practices of police in society.

What does the state of policing look like now?

Earlier this month, Oklahoma signed a law empowering state and local law enforcement to arrest migrants who are suspected of being in the US illegally. Across the country, 65,000 people are already confined for immigration reasons. The vast majority of them are accused of nothing more than crossing the border without permission.

In Oklahoma specifically, 75% of people in jail have not been convicted of a crime – meaning they're legally innocent. And as the election year ramps up and politicians try to politicize immigration, throwing more people in jail & prison is not the answer.

This week is National Police Week.

A reminder: every single year, policing takes more than $60 billion away from taxpayers. That represents a huge public investment – and it's really only half of the total cost. The other half, which brings the grand total per year to $126.4 billion, is spent on things unrelated to criminal law violations, like traffic control, responding to civil disputes, and administration.

As many Americans are questioning the role of police in society, they should know just how much money is available to redirect to more humane community-based responses to social problems.

Learn more: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/06/05/policingfacts/

This Mother's Day, nearly 125,000 mothers will be separated from their children because of incarceration. Most are primary caretakers, meaning that punishing them with incarceration tears their children away from a vital source of support. When women are put in jail, potentially irreparable damage is inflicted on their families. Most women who are incarcerated would be better served through alternatives in their communities.

Incarceration punishes more than just individuals; entire families suffer the effects long after a sentence ends. Mother’s Day reminds us again that people behind bars are not nameless “offenders,” but beloved family members and friends whose presence — and absence — matters.

Learn more: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2022/05/04/mothers_day/

🚨NEW 50-state report: Mass incarceration is stealing from the poor and giving to the prisons through the misuse of “Inmate Welfare Funds.”

Prisons and jails generate billions each year by charging incarcerated people and their communities steep prices for calls, e-messaging, money transfers, and commissary purchases.

A lot of that money flows into special accounts called “Inmate Welfare Funds.”

These funds are meant to benefit incarcerated populations, but that's not the reality of how they're being spent. Prison systems across the US are taking money from the most vulnerable people in society and spending it on gift cards for ham, gun range memberships, and staff salaries.

Shadow Budgets: How mass incarceration steals from the poor to give to the prison Inmate welfare funds are supposed to help incarcerated people, but are often used to fund prison operations or staff perks.

Today is World Press Freedom Day, and incarcerated journalists deserve to be uplifted and celebrated. Prison journalism is essential work. For as long as there have been prisons, the public has benefited greatly from the work of incarcerated journalists and sources. Much of what we know about incarceration comes from people inside who have risked a great deal to tell their stories.

This Mental Health Awareness Month, it's important to keep incarcerated people in mind and call for justice. There is no such thing as self-care in prison. Incarceration is often thought of as something people live through and from which they can ultimately be released. But the reality is that time spent in prisons and jails can create a host of collateral consequences that haunt individuals even after release. As the research shows, incarceration can trigger and worsen symptoms of mental illness — and those effects can last long after someone leaves the prison gates.

For nearly three decades, the Prison Litigation Reform Act has created a double standard that limits incarcerated people’s access to the courts at all stages.

The PLRA makes it almost impossible for them to seek justice, even after suffering abuse or medical neglect. It essentially slammed the courthouse door on incarcerated people trying to file civil cases – making them harder to bring, harder to win, and harder to settle.

It's time for Congress to repeal the Prison Litigation Reform Act. Incarcerated people do not lose all of their rights at the prison or jail door. Yet all too often, their basic freedoms are violated inside these massive and expensive public institutions.

Read more: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/PLRA_25.html

Jails have a perverse incentive to continue keeping these people locked up: the millions of dollars state agencies pay them for boarding people serving sentences.

State and federal agencies pay local jails a per-day fee for each person held on their behalf. These fees can rack up quickly: in fiscal year 2021, the U.S. Marshals Service paid North Carolina counties more than $31 million for jail holds, while the Louisiana Department of Corrections spent more than $123 million on their “local housing of adult offenders” program.

This practice both skews the data and gives local jail officials a powerful financial incentive to endorse policies that contribute to unnecessary jail expansion. Local sheriffs — who operate jails that are rarely filled to anywhere near their total capacity with people held for local authorities — can pad their budgets by contracting out extra bed space to federal and state governments.

Today, President Biden's crackdown on "junk fees" is back in the spotlight during an FTC hearing. The proposed rule aims to provide consumers with more transparency behind extra, often hidden charges. While that surely is a win for people on the outside, it does not do nearly enough to protect incarcerated people and their families, who fall victim to insidious fees through money transfers, release cards, and even e-messaging.

We're calling on the US to put an end to the harm that junk fees cause incarcerated people and their families.

Proposed Biden junk fees rule provides lots of transparency but little protection for incarcerated people We called on the Federal Trade Commission to strengthen its proposed rule to explicitly prohibit some of the most abusive junk fees.

On Earth Day, many people contemplate past and future demands for clean air, clean water, and protected landscapes. But incarcerated people experience environmental injustice on a daily basis, which will only get worse with climate change.

Want to help formerly incarcerated people thrive after they leave prison? Help them put a roof over their heads.

It is hard to focus on anything else when you don't know where you'll sleep at night.