22 updates on mental health, race, recidivism, and more

Criminal Justice Research Library for March 28, 2024 Bringing you the latest in empirical research about mass incarceration

We've The Prison Policy Initiative has added 22 new reports to the Research Library [[link removed]]: Conditions of Confinement [[link removed]] Hazardous heat exposure among incarcerated people in the United States [[link removed]] by Cascade Tuholske, Victoria D. Lynch, Raenita Spriggs, Yoonjung Ahn, Colin Raymond, Anne E. Nigra, & Robbie M. Parks, March, 2024

"The number of hot days per year increased during 1982-2020 for 1,739 carceral facilities. State-run carceral facilities in TX and FL accounted for 52% of total exposure to potentially hazardous heat, despite holding 12% of all incarcerated people." Crisis in Corrections: The DOC Staff Shortage and the Inmate Experience [[link removed]] by Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition (CCJRC), January, 2024

"An overwhelming 93% of respondents incarcerated in Colorado say there is a staffing shortage at their facility, and 85% say that the shortage is either significant or moderate." Economics of Incarceration [[link removed]] Overcharged: Coerced labor, low pay, and high costs in Washington's prisons [[link removed]] by Columbia Legal Services, January, 2024

"People in Washington prisons are paid as little as 6% of the state minimum wage...Their wages are then deducted from between 5 to 100% for mandatory fees such as "the cost of incarceration," while basic goods...can cost a day's worth of earnings." The Business Case for Criminal Justice Reform: Second Chance Hiring [[link removed]] by U.S. Chamber of Commerce, January, 2021

"At the national level, economists estimate that the Gross Domestic Product (G.D.P.) is reduced between $78 billion and $87 billion due to excluding formerly incarcerated job seekers from the workforce." Health impact [[link removed]] Prison Buprenorphine Implementation and Postrelease Opioid Use Disorder Outcomes [[link removed]] by Benjamin J. Bovell-Ammon, Shapei Yan, Devon Dunn, Elizabeth A. Evans, Peter D. Friedmann, Alexander Y. Walley, Marc R. LaRochelle, March, 2024

"In a comparison between people released prior to and after making buprenorphine available in state prisons, postrelease buprenorphine increased from 11% of people released to 21% of people released and postrelease naltrexone receipt decreased." Structural Racism, Mass Incarceration, and Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Severe Maternal Morbidity [[link removed]] by Elleni M. Hailu, Corinne A. Riddell, Patrick T. Bradshaw, Jennifer Ahern, Suzan L. Carmichael, & Mahasin S. Mujahid, January, 2024

"In this study of 10 million live hospital births across California from 1997-2018, Black and Hispanic/Latinx birthing people residing in counties with high Black-White jail incarceration inequity had increased odds of severe maternal morbidity." Incarceration Status Among Individuals Obtaining Abortion in the United States, 2020 [[link removed]] by Marielle Kirstein, Liza Fuentes, and Carolyn Sufrin, November, 2023

"Sixty-seven clinics across 25 states and the District of Columbia provided more than 300 abortions to incarcerated patients in 2020. Eleven of these clinics are in states that now have total or near-total abortion bans." Recent Incarceration, Substance Use, Overdose, and Service Use Among People Who Use Drugs in Rural Communities [[link removed]] by Daniel B. Hoover, P. Todd Korthuis, Elizabeth Needham Waddell, et al., November, 2023

"Among people who use drugs in rural communities, 42% were recently incarcerated in the past 6 months, which was associated with overdose(s), substance use treatment, but not associated with MOUD treatment or carrying naloxone." Immigration [[link removed]] Electronic Monitoring of Migrants: Punitive not Prudent [[link removed]] by American Bar Association Commission on Immigration, February, 2024

"Electronic monitoring programs are not true alternatives to detention. They are an expansion of detention that imposes a significant financial cost on taxpayers and a considerable human toll on the participants and their family members." Carceral Carousel [[link removed]] by Immigrant Legal Resource Center and Detention Watch Network, May, 2023

"States have sought to reduce prison populations and close some jails. However, those closures have rarely, if ever, meant that the prison facilities would no longer operate as cages...these closures have paved the way for new expansions of ICE detention." LGBT [[link removed]] Advancing Transgender Justice: Illuminating Trans Lives Behind and Beyond Bars [[link removed]] by Vera Institute of Justice and Black and Pink National, February, 2024

"Nearly 90 percent of the [transgender] survey respondents had experienced extended solitary confinement at some point during their incarceration. More than half reported non-consensual sexual contact while incarcerated." Mental Health [[link removed]] Elements of State and Federal Prison Suicide Prevention and Response Policies [[link removed]] by Christine Tartaro & Emily Alas, February, 2024

"Results revealed that corrections department policies for suicide prevention and response contain about half of the recommended elements, and that most departments' suicide prevention policies are not included in departmental policy documents." Prevention Over Punishment: Finding the Right Balance of Civil and Forensic State Psychiatric Hospital Beds [[link removed]] by Treatment Advocacy Center, January, 2024

"The number of state hospital beds for adults with serious mental illness (SMI) has been declining and reached a historic low of 10.8 beds per 100,000 people in 2023, with 52% of those beds occupied by people committed through the criminal legal system." Poverty and wealth [[link removed]] Resetting the Record: The Facts on Hiring People with Criminal Histories [[link removed]] by RAND Corporation, January, 2024

"More than 25% of workers in the active workforce have at least one prior conviction. The evidence is overwhelming: People with conviction records can be (and are) successful employees." Pretrial Detention [[link removed]] A Decade of Lives Lost: A report of in-custody deaths in California between 2011-2022 [[link removed]] by Care First California, February, 2024

"Of the 2,312 deaths that occurred in Sheriff's custody across California, the majority of people died after they were taken to jail but before the resolution of their case...Nearly a quarter of deaths occurred before individuals entered the jail." Evaluating the Impact of Desk Appearance Ticket Reform in New York State [[link removed]] by Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College, February, 2024

"Desk Appearance Tickets (DATs) in New York State led more people charged with low-level offenses to avoid pre-arraignment detention, but varied by region. Statewide DAT issuance increased from 38% in 2019 to 58% in 2021, then declined to 50% in 2022." Race and ethnicity [[link removed]] Structural Racism, Mass Incarceration, and Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Severe Maternal Morbidity [[link removed]] by Elleni M. Hailu et al, January, 2024

"We found that for Black and Hispanic or Latinx birthing people, residing in counties with greater jail incarceration inequity was associated with increased risk of... [severe maternal morbidity] compared with residing in low-inequity counties." Recidivism and Reentry [[link removed]] The problem with criminal records: Discrepancies between state reports and private-sector background checks [[link removed]] by Sarah Lageson & Robert Stewart, February, 2024

"Based on this analysis of criminal records, 60% and 50% of participants had at least one false-positive error on their regulated and unregulated private sector background checks, and nearly all had at least one false-negative error." Trials [[link removed]] Under-resourced and Ignored: Indigent Defense in Schuylkill County [[link removed]] by Wren Collective, January, 2024

"We found an underfunded indigent defense system that lacks the support for enough lawyers to represent clients, including at bail hearings, for immigration consultations, and adequate technology for attorneys to properly do their jobs." Restoring and Rebuilding: Indigent Defense in Gwinnett County [[link removed]] by Wren Collective, January, 2024

"In 2022, the county had 132 lawyers willing to take court appointments. Now, that number is 80. Those 80 lawyers are responsible for 13,000 cases/year. There are only 8 lawyers eligible to handle murder cases, which have a potential punishment of death..." Indigent Criminal Defense and Commonwealth's Attorneys [[link removed]] by Virginia's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission, November, 2023

"The number of attorneys serving as court-appointed defense attorneys in Virginia has declined since FY13, especially during the last few years. Participation has declined by more than half, from nearly 4,000 attorneys in FY13 to about 1,900 in FY23." Youth [[link removed]] Racial disparities in youth pretrial detention: a retrospective cohort study grounded in critical race theory [[link removed]] by Andy Wen, Noah R. Gubner, Michelle M. Garrison, & Sarah Cusworth Walker, March, 2023

"After factoring in gender, age, crime severity, previous offenses, and variation between counties, our analyses show that Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and American Indian/Alaskan Native youth are more likely to experience pretrial detention than white youth." Please support our work [[link removed]]

Our work is made possible by private donations. Can you help us keep going? We can accept tax-deductible gifts online [[link removed]] or via paper checks sent to PO Box 127 Northampton MA 01061. Thank you!

Other news: Federal judge’s ruling clears the way for Louisiana to end prison gerrymandering without waiting until 2030 [[link removed]]

Last month, a federal judge struck down Louisiana state legislative maps for unfairly diluting the political representation of Black residents.

In this new briefing [[link removed]], we explain how this judicial ruling provides the state with an opportunity to join the rapidly growing list of places that have ended prison gerrymandering.

Research spotlight: PrisonOversight.org equips the fight for accountability in jails and prisons [[link removed]]

For many corrections departments, meaningful and effective oversight is the exception, not the rule.

In this new blog post [[link removed]], we highlight a new resource that aims to fill this gap by providing data to increase accountability in prisons.

Welcome, Regan Huston! [[link removed]]

Regan Huston recently joined our team as our first-ever Digital Communications Strategist. In this position, she'll leverage her deep social media experience to use our platforms, like Instagram [[link removed]] and X [[link removed]], to expose the harms of mass incarceration. Welcome, Regan!

Please support our work [[link removed]]

Our work is made possible by private donations. Can you help us keep going? We can accept tax-deductible gifts online [[link removed]] or via paper checks sent to PO Box 127 Northampton MA 01061. Thank you!

Our other newsletters General Prison Policy Initiative newsletter ( archives [[link removed]]) Ending prison gerrymandering ( archives [[link removed]])

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