Issue: Jail Growth

Issue Brief

Human Toll of Jail Interagency Collaboration Jail Populations September 21, 2016

Reducing Jail and Protecting Victims

The Center for Court Innovation

As part of the Safety and Justice Challenge, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Center for Court Innovation convened jail reduction and victim advocates for a facilitated roundtable discussion in January 2016. Roundtable participants grappled with strategies for inclusion of the voices of survivors of crime in implementing pretrial supervised release programs. This document highlights the far-reaching and complicated discussion.

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Report

Data Analysis Jail Costs Jail Populations December 15, 2015

In Our Own Backyard: Confronting Growth and Disparities in American Jails

The Vera Institute of Justice

Although jails are the “front door” to mass incarceration, there is not enough data for justice system stakeholders and others to understand how their jail is being used and how it compares with others. To address this issue, Vera researchers developed a data tool that includes the jail population and jail incarceration rate for every U.S. county that uses a local jail. Researchers merged jail data from two federal data collections—the Bureau of Justice Statistics Annual Survey of Jails and Census of Jails—and incorporated demographic data from the U.S. Census. The data revealed that, since 1970, the number of people held in jail has increased from 157,000 to 690,000 in 2014—a more than four-fold increase nationwide, with growth rates highest in the smallest counties. This data also reveals wide variation in incarceration rates and racial disparities among jurisdictions of similar size and thus underlines an essential point: The number of people in jail is largely the result of choices made by policymakers and others in the justice system. The Incarceration Trends tool provides any jurisdiction with the appetite for change the opportunity to better understand its history of jail use and measure its progress toward decarceration.

Additional Downloads

• Report Summary
• Data and Methods

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Implementation Guide

Data Analysis Interagency Collaboration Jail Populations August 10, 2015

Ten Steps to System Change

Justice System Partners

Change efforts in the criminal justice system often focus on interventions proven to reduce an individual’s likelihood of committing crime. But no intervention program exists in isolation, no agency operates alone, and relevant political, social, and financial forces are constantly shifting. To be truly effective, most intervention programs need to take place within a framework that supports ongoing excellence, even under varying circumstances. This report outlines ten steps that local leaders can take to achieve system improvement, including a breakdown of questions to address at each step.

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Report

Interagency Collaboration Jail Populations Pretrial and Bail May 14, 2015

Reducing Reliance on Local Jails

Urban Institute

The causes of jail population increases and crowding are numerous, but most experts cite a rising number of pretrial detainees, the increased use of jails for housing persons who would otherwise be in state facilities, and a greater number of probation and parole violators as the key contributors to crowding. This paper synthesizes The Urban Institute’s experiences and lessons learned while evaluating local criminal justice system-reform efforts, along with knowledge of the literature pertaining to the topic. It provides an overview of the promising strategies emerging from the field, a logic model illustrating the necessary inputs and activities that are designed to yield reduced reliance on jails, and a recommended implementation and evaluation strategy of such a model.

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Report

Interagency Collaboration Jail Populations Policing May 14, 2015

The Potential of Community Corrections to Improve Safety and Reduce Incarceration

The Vera Institute of Justice

As the size and cost of jails and prisons have grown, so too has the awareness that public investment in incarceration has not yielded the expected return in public safety. This creates an opportunity to reexamine the wisdom of our reliance on institutional corrections—incarceration in prisons or jails—and to reconsider the role of community-based corrections, which encompasses probation, parole, and pretrial supervision. This report provides an overview of the state of community corrections, the transformational practices emerging in the field and recommendations to policymakers on realizing the full value of community supervision to taxpayers and communities.

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Additional Downloads

• Report Summary

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