Prison Policy Initiative

🚨NEW: US prisons & jails are locking up MORE people after a decade of decline, growing the incarcerated population by 2% But why? We answer that & bust the biggest myths of the carceral system in 2025's edition of Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie👇 prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie202…

BREAKING HUGE WIN! 🚨 New York just announced that phone calls will soon be FREE in New York prisons, bringing around $13 million in relief annually to incarcerated people and their families. The new policy is expected to go into effect on August 1st. Spread the news!

🚨NEW: Everyone in Alaska is supposed to have an equal voice, but an outdated @uscensusbureau policy counts incarcerated people in the wrong place, giving a few residents a megaphone – aka prison gerrymandering The state can fix this. Here's how👇 prisonersofthecensus.org/news/2025/07/1…

The vast majority of people held in jail are legally innocent. Many of them are there simply because they are too poor to make bail. Does that look like a system built on justice?

Black people disproportionately experience police misconduct – including slurs, bias, and sexual harassment – during encounters with police Is this really what it means for police to serve & protect?

ICE's use of electronic monitoring has rapidly expanded. Now, more than 200,000 people on any given day are regularly surveilled & detained by ICE – over 4x as many as a decade ago.

Incarcerated people have more chronic medical conditions than ever Yet healthcare behind bars is blocked by expensive copays, limited resources, & understaffing – creating a situation in which each year spent in prison takes *2 years* off an individual’s life expectancy

Unhoused people are most commonly booked for a top charge of trespassing — a charge frequently used to criminalize people for having nowhere else to go. Guess what would likely solve that problem? Housing, not jail.

More than 1 in 5 people are jailed multiple times a year There is no "safe" way to jail a person – even a single day in jail has devastating effects. And people who are jailed multiple times a year inevitably face exacerbated consequences of incarceration:

In 2022, courts sent 11% more youth to incarceration – the first increase in youth confinement in over 2 decades. A particularly alarming stat given that 38% of people in state prisons were first arrested before age 16. prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie202…

Prisons cannot hold up against sweltering heat – most of these facilities lack AC & are basically concrete coffins that will only become more inhospitable for people who are locked up.

Among the 35 jail births identified in the news over 10 years, jail staff ignored repeated cries for help or medical assistance in at least 24 cases. The carceral system is no place for pregnant people. prisonpolicy.org/blog/2025/07/0…

People with disabilities are failed by the criminal legal system time & time again. After disproportionate contact with law enforcement, unaccommodating courts, and unequipped jails, thousands with disabilities are locked up in state prisons on a given day.