Our mission is to empower activists, journalists, and policymakers to shape effective criminal legal system policy, so we go beyond our original reports and analyses to curate a database of the best empirical research on the criminal legal system available online. This newsletter includes just the newest additions to this database.

Disability and the criminal legal system

Hello friends,

July is Disability Pride Month, but when it comes to how the criminal legal system treats people with disabilities, things are pretty shameful.

At this point, it is no secret that people with disabilities are overrepresented at all stages of the criminal legal system. So, this month, we’re taking a deep dive into some of the research that shines a light on how this system uniquely harms people with disabilities:

• Getting the big picture: If you want to know more about the experiences of people with disabilities in the criminal legal system, this 2016 report from the Center for American Progress remains a must-read.
• Exploitation of people with disabilities: This recent report from Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund examines how private equity firms profit from the criminalization of people with disabilities.
• The unique role of jails: We often discuss the overlooked role of jails in the criminal legal system. Two reports, one from Disability Rights North Carolina and the other from Disability Rights Oregon, explain that the inadequate screening of people with physical and mental disabilities in jails leads to senseless deaths in these facilities.

You can find more research about the prevalence of, and challenges faced by, people with disabilities in the criminal legal system in the Disability section of our Research Library.

Now, onto the rest of the updates to our Research Library. This month, we’ve added 25 new reports that examine the health consequences of incarceration, bust myths about the relationship between immigration and crime, take a closer look at the power of prosecutors, and more.

We hope these reports are useful and informative.

-Leah Wang, Senior Research Analyst

We've The Prison Policy Initiative has added 25 new reports to the Research Library:

Community impact

See 116 reports on the impact of the criminal legal system on housing, schools, employment, neighborhoods, and more.

• Estimating the impact: How many people are excluded from Fair Housing protections because of a past drug conviction? by Prison Policy Initiative, February, 2025
  "By our count, [the Thurmond Amendment] makes it more difficult for as many as 3 million people with these kinds of convictions to secure housing."
• Who Benefits from Automatic Record Relief in California? by California Policy Lab, October, 2024
  "We estimate nearly 70% of people with a conviction between 2010-2021 are eligible to have all convictions and non-convictions automatically relieved, leaving them with no remaining criminal record."

Conditions of confinement

See 278 reports on prison and jail conditions such as solitary confinement, labor, discipline, food, and more.

• Rolling back solitary confinement reforms won't make prisons safer by Prison Policy Initiative, April, 2025
  "The crisis in New York prisons is one of an ongoing commitment to brutality rather than a crisis of capacity, and it is not one that will be resolved by doubling down on state-sanctioned torture and abuse."

Courts and trials

See 169 reports on prosecutors, judges, public defense, court caseloads, and more.

• Timely justice: How case screening improves efficiency, effectiveness, and fairness by Justice Innovation Lab, June, 2025
  "On average, screened cases are resolved within 82 days compared to 106 days for the control cases."

Crime

See 287 reports on crime, crime rates, and victimization.

• Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Contentious Issue by Graham C. Ousey and Charis E. Kubrin, January, 2018
  "[These findings] call into question those theories that advance a strong positive association between immigration and crime, regardless of the mechanism suggested."

General

See 170 reports on the criminal legal system.

• Administrative Nullification and the Precarity of Carceral Reform by Riley Doyle Evans and Stefen R. Short, May, 2025
  "In a carceral reform context, administrative nullification disempowers incarcerated people and their advocates and thwarts the democratization of carceral power, retrenching that power in the prison system."

Health and healthcare

See 227 reports on access to healthcare, chronic and infectious disease, mortality, and more.

• Individual- and Area-Level Incarceration and Mortality by Utsha G. Khatri et al, June, 2025
  "Individuals who were incarcerated faced significantly higher risks of death, particularly from overdoses, and elevated county incarceration rates exacerbated individual-level mortality risks."
• Evaluation of the Federal Bureau of Prisons' Colorectal Cancer Screening Practices by Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, May, 2025
  "Only 10 of the BOP's 97 facilities met the BOP's National Performance Measures for sustained or demonstrated performance by completing screenings for 76 percent or more of their average-risk population."
• Linkages between incarceration and health for older adults by Meghan A. Novisky, Stephanie Grace Post, Benjamin Fleury-Steiner and Alexander Testa, April, 2025
  "Beyond poor physical, cognitive, and mental health, older adults are uniquely vulnerable to limitations imposed by the physical environment typical of modern correctional facilities."
• The Hidden Healthcare Crisis Behind Bars: A Randomized Trial to Accredit U.S. Jails by Marcella Alsan and Crystal Yang, January, 2025
  "Surveys of staff indicate that accreditation improves coordination between health and custody staff. We also find that accreditation improves quality standards and reduces mortality among the incarcerated."
• Monitoring MAT/ MOUD implementation in New York State Correctional Facilities by Correctional Association of New York, December, 2024
  "DOCCS reported a 552% increase in total active [medication assisted treatment] participants from July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023...[and CANY calculated] an additional 19% increase from July 1, 2023, to March 1, 2024."
• Vulnerable yet Unprotected: The Hidden Curriculum of the Care of the Incarcerated Patient by Michelle Ihn Suh and Marc David Robinson, December, 2022
  "Trainees routinely perform substandard history taking and physical examinations due to indiscriminate shackling and the presence of guards who are actually nonclinical observers outside of the care team."

Immigration

See 76 reports on the incarceration and detainment of immigrants.

• Rethinking Immigration Enforcement by Charis Elizabeth Kubrin, June, 2025
  "Local involvement in immigration enforcement...[is] often justified by the claim that immigrants pose a significant threat to public safety--a claim not supported by evidence."
• ICE Detention at Plymouth County Correctional Facility by Boston University School of Law's Immigrants' Rights and Human Trafficking Program and Prisoners' Legal Services of Massachusetts, September, 2024
  "Consistent complaints over the last twenty-five years reveal a disturbing pattern of systemic abuse and mistreatment of ICE detainees at Plymouth County Correctional Facility."
• Immigration E-Carceration: A Faustian Bargain by Mary Holper, March, 2022
  "Scholars...have raised concerns that ICE's alternatives to detention has become an "alternatives to release" program, given that it has operated to detain many people who did not present either a danger or flight risk."

Jails

See 296 reports on jail populations, jail conditions, jail construction, and more.

• If They Build It: Organizing Lessons and Strategies Against Carceral Infrastructure by Community Justice Exchange, May, 2025
  "This resource documents the convening of the No New Jails Network (NNJN), a project that brought together 10 campaigns and organizations from around the US between 2020-2023 to share strategies and knowledge from their respective campaigns..."
• New national data help fill 20-year data gap: Offense data for people in local jails by Prison Policy Initiative, April, 2025
  "The Jail Data Initiative data reveal that misdemeanor charges accounted for more than 2.7 million jail admissions (35%) in 2023."
• New research finds higher county jail rates have deadly consequences for entire communities by Prison Policy Initiative, January, 2025
  "A recent study from a researcher at University of Pennsylvania finds that higher jail rates are associated with higher death rates, especially for Black people and women."

Policing

See 275 reports on arrests, traffic stops, law enforcement interactions, and more.

• Despite fewer people experiencing police contact, racial disparities in arrests, police misconduct, and police use of force continue by Prison Policy Initiative, December, 2024
  "New Bureau of Justice Statistics data reveal that concerning trends in policing persisted in 2022, even while fewer people interacted with police than in prior years."
• Prosecutors in the Passing Lane: Racial Disparities, Public Safety, and Prosecutorial Declinations of Pretextual Stops by Donald Braman et al, March, 2024
  "We find that reduced stops [in Ramsey County, Minn.] have led to decreased racial disparities without affecting crime rates."

Pretrial detention

See 135 reports on the costs and outcomes of detaining people before trial.

• "Justice by Geography": Improving Pretrial Electronic Monitoring in Maryland by Justice Policy Institute, April, 2025
  "In 2023, 91% of people on pretrial supervision in Prince George's County and 84% in St. Mary's County were on [electronic monitoring], compared to only 21% in Montgomery County and 17% in Baltimore County."

Probation and parole

See 129 reports on community supervision policies, conditions, violations, and more.

• Report of the New York State Bar Association Task Force on the Parole System by New York State Bar Association, November, 2019
  "There is little or no evidence that the current revocation process for persons accused of technical parole violations in New York actually enhances public safety or reduces recidivism as intended."

Reentry and recidivism

See 257 reports on the challenges and outcomes for people released from incarceration, including collateral consequences.

• Beyond Recidivism: A Systematic Review Exploring Comprehensive Criteria for Successful Reintegration After Prison Release by Ana Mourao et al, May, 2025
  "Reintegration is a complex and multifaceted process influenced by factors at different levels--individual, interpersonal, community, organizational, and political."
• The American Guaranteed Income Studies: Gainesville, Florida by Lucius Couloute et al, February, 2025
  "Survey results demonstrate that resilience to a financial shock improved over time for the treatment group [receiving monthly cash payments]."

Women and gender

See 146 reports on gender disparities in the criminal legal system.

• Treatment and Care of Incarcerated Females by Louisiana Legislative Auditor, May, 2025
  "We found that none of Louisiana's local jails, which house 87.2% of incarcerated women in Louisiana, have sufficient, written procedures encompassing all requirements in state law regarding female incarceration."