Reducing the Use of Jails
Conversations about mass incarceration tend to focus on prison, but local jails admit almost 20 times more people annually. The long-term trend is shocking: Twenty-five years ago, for every 100 arrests, 70 people were booked into jail. By 2016, even after crime rates plummeted, that ratio had swelled to 99 out of 100, reflecting a knee-jerk use of jail out of step with public safety. Today, jails log a staggering 10.7 million admissions a year—mostly poor people arrested on minor charges who can’t post bail and for whom even a few days behind bars exact a high and harmful toll.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Through the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge, Vera’s offices in New Orleans and Los Angeles, and direct partnerships with jurisdictions nationwide, we’re helping officials rethink their use of jails as a means to keep communities safe. There’s no simple fix, so the work includes using alternatives to arrest and prosecution for minor charges, ending the use of money bail, eliminating fines and fees that trap people in jail and, most importantly, investing in resources and partnerships that build healthier and safer communities.
Issue
Spotlights
Featured
Empire State of Incarceration
February 18, 2021
Coronavirus Guidance for the Criminal and Immigration Legal Systems
The coronavirus, or COVID-19, has been declared by the World Health Organization to be a global pandemic. As the number of people infected in the United States grows exponentially, we must focus on prevention and containment in the criminal and immigration legal systems. Vera and Community Oriented Correctional Health Services have created a series ...
People in Jail and Prison in 2020
Vera Institute of Justice researchers collected data on the number of people in local jails and state and federal prisons at both midyear and fall 2020 to provide timely information on how incarceration is changing in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. Researchers estimated the national jail population using a sample of 1,558 jail juri ...
Related Work
Empire State of Incarceration
For decades, thousands of New Yorkers, primarily people of color, were held in jail pretrial—sometimes for years—simply because they could not afford to pay bail. Bail reform ushered in a period of considerable decarceration across New York State, and the number of people in jail dropped even further as authorities responded to the COVID-19 pandemi ...
Vera California
After decades of laws, policies, and funding that have fueled mass incarceration across the state, millions of Californians and many government officials have signaled a readiness for change. Vera California works with community and government stakeholders to spark momentum for decarceration and investments in the long-underfunded community-based s ...
Project
Michelle Parris
What Happened When Boston Stopped Prosecuting Nonviolent Crimes
Although her victory was hailed by progressives, critics expressed concern that the policy shift could lead to increased crime. Yet, Rollins made her intentions clear: the misdemeanor charges on the decline-to-prosecute list are often driven by poverty, mental health issues, substance use, and social issues more appropriately addressed outside the ...
Blog Post
Jamila Hodge
Seleeke Flingai
City Jail Populations Are Falling, So Why Are Their Budgets Increasing?
Jail populations in big cities have declined nearly 30 percent in the last decade, fueled by a growing recognition of the brutal realities of jail. Its injustices are crystallized in the stories of people like Kalief Browder—who, at 16, spent three years in jail awaiting trial for allegedly stealing a backpack and died by suicide after his release. ...
Blog Post
Christian Henrichson
Nazish Dholakia
Close the Atlanta City Detention Center and Deliver Long-term Public Safety
In September 2020, the City of Atlanta engaged the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) to chart a path to close the Atlanta City Detention Center (ACDC). Vera met with key justice system stakeholders, service providers, and community advocates; analyzed data; and brought to bear evidence and examples from across the country to develop a strategy to re ...
The Impact of New York Bail Reform on Statewide Jail Populations
A First Look
New York’s recent bail reform law, which was passed in April 2019 and amended on July 2, 2020, was expected to reduce the footprint of jail incarceration by limiting the use of money bail. The new law mandated pretrial release for the vast majority of nonviolent charges and required that judges consider a person’s ability to pay bail. A comprehensi ...
Coalition to End Money Bond with the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice
Black and Grassroots Advocates Help Illinois Make History with Bill to End Money Bail
Images Courtesy of the Coalition to End Money Bond with the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice.
Blog Post
Insha Rahman
Alison Shih
Closing Rikers Island
For generations, New York City has maintained a notoriously violent and inhumane jail complex on Rikers Island. Activists, elected officials, legal aid organizations, and formerly incarcerated New Yorkers and their families fought for decades to shutter the island's jails and invest in communities most harmed by mass incarceration. In 2019, the New ...
Project
Jullian Harris-Calvin
New York State Bail Reform Evaluation Study
Since it was passed in April 2019, New York State’s bail reform law has received enormous attention from both its supporters and critics. Vera’s 3.5-year NYBRE study will provide comprehensive impact evaluations of the reform utilizing multiple research methods including administrative data analysis, court observations, interviews with system actor ...
Project
Jaeok Kim
Criminal Justice Reform and the Biden-Harris Administration
The Cost of Incarceration in New York State
How Counties Outside New York City Can Reduce Jail Spending and Invest in Communities
Jail populations have fallen significantly across New York State, and crime has dropped as well. But spending on jails continues to climb. In 2019, the 57 counties outside New York City collectively spent more than $1.3 billion to staff and run their jails. Counties must cut jail spending and reinvest those savings in communities most impacted by ...
People Need Relief from Court Fines and Fees—Even Beyond the Current Recession
Vera’s new research briefs show that in Florida and New York, the typical cost of fines and fees on a misdemeanor charge can easily surpass a month’s pay for someone making minimum wage. Yet these revenues are relatively modest to the governments that collect them, typically accounting for 1 percent or less of city and county budgets. We know that ...
Blog Post
Chris Mai