NEW report: Jail populations have exploded over the last 4 decades while getting almost none of the attention prisons do.

It’s clear the US has a reliance on excessive jailing. But how did we get here? 🧵 Nearly 500,000 people are currently in jail while being legally innocent - a massive increase in pretrial detention since the '80s. Many of these people are simply jailed because they can’t afford money bail.

NEW REPORT: Today we released the 10th anniversary edition of Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie, once again providing the statistical big picture of incarceration in the U.S. and busting persistent myths about why this country locks up so many people. 🧵 1.9 million people are locked up in the U.S. In 2014, when we first published this report, it was 2.4 million. Almost all of the drop is due to changes that happened at the peak of Covid, when the gears of the justice system got jammed — changes that are now being reversed.

1.9 million people are incarcerated on any given day in the U.S. But that's only a glimpse of the devastation of mass incarceration.

Our new 50-state briefing shows more than 10.8 million people pass through the prison & jail gates each year: prisonpolicy.org/blog/2024/02/2…
As they are released, they face immense obstacles: reestablishing housing, employment, and social connections while also balancing the long list of arbitrary release restrictions that set them up to fail.

Crime is at its lowest point in 60 years. But that hasn’t stopped state legislatures from passing “tough” criminal justice laws that threaten to undo a lot of the progress of the last decade. Here are just some such laws we tallied in 2023. 🧵 At least 3 states created draconian new punishments for fentanyl/other drug offenses. Wisconsin raised its “reckless homicide” penalties, for drug distribution that results in a death - including for people who use drugs together - to 60 years.
wisconsinexaminer.com/2023/03/21/rep…

Investigative journalists this year broke crucial stories about prisons and the legal system - climate crises, exploitation, surveillance, and more. Here’s an incomplete list of excellent reporting we read in 2023 on prisons and criminalization: 🧵 For @typeinvestigate and @highcountrynews, @ChrisWBlackwell and @sarahl_sax exposed how Washington state prisons are using lockdowns to “manage” the effects of extreme heat, fires, and flooding, and why decarceration is a better solution:
typeinvestigations.org/investigation/…

Over its run, @shadowproofcom has been an indispensable source of stories about prisons and criminalization that have a clear moral vision and a “long shelf life.” Here are 5 worth reading today.

https://twitter.com/shadowproofcom/status/1735317675453112425

In 2018, Shadowproof broke the news that USDA had provided $277 million in funding for counties to build new or bigger jails. For those of us working to show how our government invests in punishment rather than care, this story was/is pivotal.
shadowproof.com/2018/06/06/277…

Want to know more about how mass incarceration is playing out in your city? Check out your public housing authority's policies and look for criteria that exclude people with criminal records. Ppl are often denied housing because of things that happened years ago... /1 ...or simply for drug use - a blatant extension of the war on drugs.

Denials of public housing/housing vouchers are a big part of why formerly incarcerated people are 10 times more likely to be homeless. /2

Don’t worry! If your Thanksgiving dinner conversation turns from pie to prisons, or from cranberries to crime, we’ve got you covered.

We pulled together some of the false claims you’re likely to hear at the dinner table and the data to help you push back. 🧵 Claim #1: “Crime is out of control.”

Response: The belief that crime is increasing is driven by self-serving politicians. The facts tell a different story.

NEW:
Earlier this year, Illinois made history by becoming the 1st state to abolish cash bail. But now, the IL office of Pretrial Services is enabling 70 counties to put people released pretrial on electronic ankle monitors. It's unnecessary & dangerous.🧵
prisonpolicy.org/blog/2023/10/3… Electronic monitoring has exploded nationwide recently, resulting in an increasing # of people on probation, parole, ICE supervision, and pretrial release being heavily surveilled. But - particularly when it comes to pretrial release - there is no clear reason to do it.

Want to know more about how mass incarceration is playing out in your city? Check out your public housing authority's policies and look for criteria that exclude people with criminal records. Ppl are often denied housing because of things that happened years ago... /1 or for drug use - a blatant extension of the war on drugs.

Denials of public housing/housing vouchers are likely a major part of why formerly incarcerated people are 10x more likely to be homeless. /2

We're rightly horrified at Southern/Midwestern states with extreme summer temperatures letting people cook alive in prisons. But the crisis in coastal states is real too. Heat waves have a drastically higher impact on mortality in NE and Western states... /1 ...possibly because heat-acclimated people fare better during extreme heat, or possibly bc prisons themselves are not equipped for heat waves.

Investigative journalists in these states should ask:
1. Have prisons become more deadly in recent years with more intense heat waves?

"The Republican-controlled [Texas state] House this year proposed spending $545 million to install air-conditioning in the majority of state prisons that do not have it...The bill died in the State Senate."
nytimes.com/2023/06/29/us/… It's not just prisons in the South that are cooking people alive inside. @ellabakercenter data shows that conditions in California prisons are bad, too.

https://twitter.com/PrisonPolicy/status/1671631309029138433?s=20

NEW:
Almost all major criminal legal reforms since 2000 have excluded people convicted of crimes labeled "violent," restricting the benefits of reform to "non-serious offenders." While these carveouts make reforms easier in the short run, there are many reasons to oppose them. /1 Carveouts reinforce everything that is wrong about the logic of mass incarceration:
- The notion that people can be reduced to "offenders"/"victims" and that "offenders" can be ranked objectively based on dangerousness
- The shaping of criminal justice law in the absence of...

NEW REPORT:
The # of people in prison & jail doesn’t even begin to capture the reach of the criminal justice system in the US. We provide a more complete picture by including the # of people under probation/parole - systems that often replicate prison conditions in the community. Ppl supervised on probation/parole live under a harsh set of rules that others do not. Paying steep monthly fees, maintaining employment, passing regular drug tests, and doing court-mandated programs are common conditions. 230k ppl went to prison last year for failing to comply.

This #MayDay, a reminder that maintaining employment is a common condition of parole release, meaning that mass incarceration has created a class of people who are pressured to say yes to jobs with bad wages, benefits & protections. /1 Formerly incarcerated people earn $.84 for every $1 the average worker earns, or ~$29k/yr. /2

Big news this week on the campaign to end prison gerrymandering. Today, @RepDeborahRoss, @RepMarkPocan, @repclever & @RepEmiliaSykes introduced legislation that would direct the @uscensusbureau to finally count incarcerated people at their true homes.

https://twitter.com/RepDeborahRoss/status/1651226695288995847

Prison gerrymandering is a problem created because the Census counts incarcerated people in the wrong place: a prison cell rather than their true home. prisonersofthecensus.org/impact.html

Massachusetts, here is a brief update on the fight to make prison and jail phone calls free: 🧵

The governor has proposed to include free calls for prisons in her state budget. Bafflingly, people in jails are excluded in her proposal. Jails have the highest phone rates of all correctional facilities in Massachusetts. Families can easily spend hundreds of dollars *every month* on phone calls with a single loved one. Private companies are taking home millions (est. $14 million/year from prisons and jails).

🧵We've pulled together some of the false claims about crime and incarceration you're most likely to hear at the Thanksgiving dinner table, and the data and facts to help you push back: Claim #1: "Crime is up because of bail reform!"

Response:
Very few places have actually eliminated or reduced their dependence on money bail.

In those places that have reined in their money bail system, most saw decreases or negligible increases in crime after reforms...

NEW: In the last 5 years, prisons in 13 states have replaced physical mail sent to incarcerated people with scans. There's no evidence that this policy - which has a chilling effect on the mail while benefiting private companies - does anything to make prisons safer. Many county jails are implementing mail scanning, too. parents trying to stay in touch with their kids, journalists, lawyers, even nonprofits and educational organizations all report long delays and problems with their recipients trying to read scanned letters and photos.

When counties release "jail assessment" analyses (or commission companies to produce analyses) purporting to prove the need for a bigger jail, their reports often distort the facts. 🧵 The reports typically project that the # of people in jail will stay the same or grow, thus justifying the need for a bigger jail. But their projections often ignore criminal justice reforms that are likely to pass - or already have passed! - that will lower the jail population.

Money bail doesn't keep communities safe; it enriches big bail and insurance companies. And we found that in at least 28 states, including NY, California, Hawaii, and Texas, these companies have been avoiding paying $$ that they owe the criminal justice system. /1 We scoured decades of state audits and local news reports for our recent report "All Profit, No Risk: How the bail industry exploits the legal system":
prisonpolicy.org/reports/bail.h…