by Emily Widra

Despite the common refrain that jails and prisons are “de facto treatment facilities,” most prioritize punitive mail scanning policies and strict visitation rules that fail to prevent drugs from entering facilities while providing little to no access to treatment and healthcare.

Jails and prisons are often described ...

Our updated analysis finds that the initial efforts to reduce jail populations have slowed, while the small drops in state prison populations are still too little to save lives.

by Emily Widra and Peter Wagner, Prison Policy Initiative, originally published August 5, 2020

Source Material

At a time when more ...

by Emily Widra and Peter Wagner, originally published April 10, 2020 at the Prison Policy Initiative website

Since the Prison Policy Initiative’s first coronavirus briefing at the beginning of March, the organization has been tracking how federal, state, and local officials have responded to the threat of COVID-19 in the criminal justice ...