What’s New
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The Cost We No Longer Pay:
How Fines and Fees Reform Delivered Billions in Relief for Families by Fines and Fees Justice Center
May 22: Research Library: Policing
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New “Key Statistics” on our website put the most requested numbers about mass incarceration at your fingertips
We’ve made it easier to access the topline statistics about the criminal legal system.
May 18: Prison Policy Initiative Blog
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Updated data and charts: Women’s incarceration, national prison population counts, psychological distress behind bars, and more
Updated data visualizations illustrate the scale of — and disparities within — mass incarceration.
April 27: Briefings
Featured report
Hiding in Plain Sight: How local jails obscure and facilitate mass deportation under Trump
Local jails, even in some sanctuary cities and states, are playing an essential role in President Trump’s mass detention and deportation plan. This report breaks down the complicated overlap between local criminal legal systems and immigration, and offers detailed data tables showing the level of involvement in every state and in specific jails. It also reveals that the Trump administration is circumventing city and county sanctuary policies by referring more immigrants for federal prosecution, meaning they go unnoticed both in local jails and in statistics about detention.
Mass incarceration, state by state
Learn about the national prison crisis and how we can begin to turn the tide on mass incarceration. Then, drill down to your state. Be sure to also check out our pages focused on D.C., and the incarceration of Native people.
If our work is new to you, you might want to check out our 2024-2025 annual report.
Recommended Reading:
50 state incarceration profiles
All of our recent reports about prison/jail growth, racial disparities, and more, re-organized by state.
The rapid & unregulated growth of e-messaging in prisons
It can strengthen connections, but instead has been used to sap money from incarcerated people.
Incarceration and supervision by states
Probation and parole are the leading forms of mass punishment in America.
Prison Gerrymandering Project
We are leading the movement to protect our democracy from the Census Bureau's prison miscount.