Reducing the Use of Jails
Conversations about mass incarceration tend to focus on prison, but local jails admit 20 times more people annually. The long-term trend is shocking: In 1982, for every 100 arrests, 51 people were booked into jail. By 2012, even after crime rates plummeted, that ratio had swelled to 95 out of 100, reflecting a knee-jerk use of jail out of step with threats to public safety. Today, jails log a staggering 12 million admissions a year—mostly poor people arrested for minor offenses who can’t post bail, and for whom even a few days behind bars exact a high toll.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Through the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge, our own office in New Orleans, and direct partnerships with jurisdictions nationwide, we’re helping officials use jails as they were intended: to protect communities from dangerous people. There’s no simple fix, so the work includes using alternatives to arrest and prosecution for minor offenses, recalibrating the use of bail, and addressing fines and fees that also trap people in jail.
Featured
Paid in Full
A Plan to End Money Injustice in New Orleans
The role that money—in the form of bail, fines and fees—plays in criminal justice systems has come under increased focus. These practices have long plagued New Orleans, driving jail incarceration and costing struggling families—most of them black—millions. Two federal courts recently ruled that judges cannot lawfully impose money bail or enforce co...
In Our Backyards
Ending Mass Incarceration Where It Begins
Paid in Full
12 New Orleans Neighbors on Ending Money Injustice
Related Work
In Our Backyards
The geography of mass incarceration has shifted dramatically. Small counties across the country now account for more than half of America's jail population. This untold story calls for ending mass incarceration where it begins–in all our backyards.
Annual Report 2019
A Vision for Change
Series: Target 2020
Time for a New Federal Commitment on Rural Jail Incarceration
Decades of disinvestment from health, education, and other services have coincided with higher incarceration rates, resulting in additional public resources devoted to law enforcement and incarceration. This has created a vicious cycle, with the increased need to fund carceral systems seemingly self-evident. Then, when local jails fill their beds, ...
Blog Post
Micah Haskell-Hoehl
A Means to an End
Assessing the Ability to Pay Bail
Research shows that money bail is unfair, ineffective, and disproportionately burdens people of color and those with low incomes; jurisdictions that no longer rely on money bail have excellent court appearance rates, fewer people in jail, and strong public safety outcomes. In April 2018, the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) developed and launched t...
People in Jail in 2019
Researchers from the Vera Institute of Justice, with support from Google.org Fellows, collected data on the number of people in local jails at midyear in both 2018 and 2019 to provide timely information on how incarceration is changing in the United States. This report fills a gap until the Bureau of Justice Statistics releases its report on jail p...
Bail Assessment Pilot
A primary goal of the bail reform movement is to eliminate money bail—a practice that is fundamentally unfair and disproportionately burdens people of color and those with low incomes. But before this goal is reached—and while the vast majority of courts across the country still use money bail—what can be done to mitigate the harm it causes? In ...
Project
Insha Rahman
Incarceration in Local Jails and State Prisons
Broken Ground
Why America Keeps Building More Jails and What It Can Do Instead
Jail construction has vastly expanded America’s capacity to incarcerate people. In 1970, there were 243,000 jail beds in the United States, but by 2017, there were 915,100. This report explores the persistence of jail expansion by examining a convenience sample of 77 counties in 31 states that considered or pursued jail expansion between 2000 and 2...
We Need More Data to Understand the Impact of Mass Incarceration on Latinx Communities
Because of the lack of data, the disparities described may be even greater than the estimates we see. This is why it’s important for states to properly update their criminal justice data sets to include Latinx people. According to an Urban Institute report, even states with the biggest Latinx populations do not necessarily report accurate data on e...
Blog Post
Colin Hernandez
Closing Rikers Island
In support of a yes vote on October 17
These five commitments, along with a vote to move forward with new construction, give us a fighting chance to seize the opportunity to end mass incarceration in New York City. This is not a moment to be squandered or to be taken for granted. New York City has tried to close Rikers Island twice before—once in the late 1970s, and once again in the mi...
Blog Post
Insha Rahman
Improving the Health and Wellbeing of Incarcerated Mothers
Women coming into jail often are already experiencing high-risk pregnancies. But, like Williams, many expectant mothers receive limited to no medical care while behind bars, according to a Bureau of Justice Statistics report. They may be shackled during their pregnancies, and even while giving birth. They may also be separated from their children s...
Blog Post
Nissa Rhee
Gatekeepers
The Role of Police in Ending Mass Incarceration
Police in America arrest millions of people each year, and the likelihood that arrest will lead to jail incarceration has increased steadily. Ending mass incarceration and repairing its extensive collateral consequences thus must begin by focusing on the front end of the system: police work. Recognizing the roughly 18,000 police agencies around the...