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.

Extreme heat isn’t the only weather risk behind bars

Friends,

Wherever you are today, I hope you’re able to bundle up, crank up the heat, and stay warm. Considering the cold temperatures that have hit some of the states with the highest incarceration rates, in this month’s newsletter we’re taking a look at some of the research showing how extreme weather harms people behind bars and those who are most likely to be entangled in the criminal legal system.

Only recently have researchers looked into the deadly impacts of extreme temperatures on incarcerated people, and most studies examine heat rather than cold. But last month, a group of researchers published a groundbreaking analysis, finding that extreme cold is linked to mortality in state prisons, particularly deaths from heart disease and suicides.

It is worth mentioning that unhoused people — a group that is disproportionately likely to have been incarcerated — are being hit hardest by extreme cold right now. Unhoused and housing-insecure people are exposed to climatic events like extreme heat and cold at a much higher rate, and are at higher risk of death due to this exposure.

As cold weather blankets the country for the foreseeable future, it is important to remember it is not just extreme heat that puts peoples’ lives at risk in prisons and jails.

With that in mind, the newest additions to our Research Library include studies on other interconnected parts of the criminal legal system, like immigration, the death penalty, youth justice, and more.

—Leah Wang, Senior Research Analyst

We've The Prison Policy Initiative has added 22 new reports to the Research Library:

Conditions of confinement

See 266 reports on prison and jail conditions such as solitary confinement, labor, discipline, food, and more.

• Cold-related mortality in U.S. state and private prisons: a case-crossover analysisPaywall :( by Julianne Skarha et al, December, 2024
  "A 10degF decrease in temperature averaged over 6 days was associated with a 5.1% increase in total mortality...the greatest increase in total mortality [was found] for prisons built before 1980, [or] located in the South or West..."
• Food and Nutrition in New York State Correctional Facilities by Correctional Association of New York, November, 2024
  "Among those who expressed concerns about the quality of the food served at the mess hall, many raised concerns about food safety or food preparation. Individuals also often characterized the food as unpalatable and expressed a strong aversion to it."
• Deaths by Suicide An Investigation of the Deaths of Three Individuals in Nebraska Department of Correctional Services Custody by Office of Inspector General of the Nebraska Correctional System, August, 2024
  "The OIG death investigations focus on the circumstances of the death ...and events or actions of NDCS leading up to the death, as well as the NDCS response to the death, and to make recommendations for improvement."

Crime

See 282 reports on crime, crime rates, and victimization.

• Air Pollution and Criminal Activity: Microgeographic Evidence from ChicagoPaywall :( by Evan Herrnstadt et al, October, 2021
  "We compare crime upwind and downwind of major highways on days when wind blows orthogonally to the road...we find that air pollution increases violent crime on the downwind sides of interstates."

Death penalty

See 153 reports on capital punishment and executions.

• The Death Row Phenomenon: A Prohibition Against Torture, Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment by Nkem Adeleye, March, 2022
  "This Article explores the possibility of the death row phenomenon, as a legal concept, becoming widely accepted and ultimately preventing the execution of another category of offenders."

Education

See 134 reports on education programs in prisons and the school-to-prison pipeline.

• Education Levels of Federally Sentenced Individuals by United States Sentencing Commission, December, 2023
  "For those with less than a high school degree, drug trafficking (42.0%) was the most common offense, followed by firearms (25.2%), immigration (11.5%), robbery (4.2%), and fraud (4.1%)."

Families

See 151 reports on the criminal legal system’s impacts on families.

• Ensuring Access to Quality Communications for Incarcerated People: Options for Advocates and State Legislators by United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry, August, 2024
  "As rates have come down or are not burdensome to callers, the rate of usage has appropriately gone up...At the same time, call quality has gone down in some correctional facilities, marring the success of these efforts."

Gun control

See 44 reports on gun violence, firearms, and gun control policy.

• Predicting and Preventing Gun Violence: An Experimental Evaluation of READI Chicago by Monica P. Bhatt et al, January, 2023
  "There is no statistically significant change in an index combining three measures of serious violence, the study's primary outcome. But one component, shooting and homicide arrests, shows a suggestive decline of 64 percent."
• Sentences Imposed on Those Convicted of Felony Illegal Possession of a Firearm in Illinois by Loyola University Chicago Center for Criminal Justice Research, Policy, and Practice, July, 2021
  "As a result of increased arrests, and mandatory prison sentences for most firearm possession offenses, prison admissions for these crimes increased 27% between 2014 and 2019, while admissions for all other crimes fell 38%"

Health and healthcare

See 195 reports on access to healthcare, chronic and infectious disease, mortality, and more.

• Healthcare in Carceral Settings: Alternatives for the Medically Vulnerable Incarcerated Person by Sydney Manning, June, 2024
  "Requesting medication or an assistive device that has not been pre-approved requires an approval process wherein health professionals consider not only the benefit to the patient but factors such as facility security and cost."

Immigration

See 70 reports on the incarceration and detainment of immigrants.

• Immigration Detention As An Obstacle To Decarceration by Pedro Gerson, October, 2021
  "There is empirical evidence showing a causal connection between empty jail bed space and rising immigration detention at the local level."

Mental health

See 85 reports on the prevalence and treatment of mental illness in the criminal legal system.

• The State of Solitary: Restrictive Housing and Treatment of Incarcerated Delawareans with Mental Illness by Delaware Community Legal Aid Society, Inc. Disabilities Law Program, September, 2024
  "Two of the correctional facilities monitored had a separate Residential Treatment Unit (RTU) with mental health staff, services, and programming for individuals requiring that level of care for a mental health condition, while two did not."
• Hidden Behind Bars The Public Health Implications of Incompetency to Stand TrialPaywall :( by Nathaniel P. Morris, MD, and Jacob M. Izenberg, MD, December, 2023
  "People with mental illness are often arrested for low-level offenses...in many such cases, it's difficult to justify the involvement of forensic experts, months of waiting in jail for competency evaluation and restoration..." By creating a free account, you can access this NEJM article.

Poverty and wealth

See 151 reports on fines, fees, debt, and the criminalization of poor people.

• Monetary Sanctions: Legal Financial Obligations in US Systems of Justice by Karin D. Martin et al, January, 2018
  "A review of federally collected data on monetary sanctions reveals that a lack of consistent and exhaustive measures of monetary sanctions presents a unique problem for tracking both the prevalence and amount of legal financial obligations (LFOs) over time"

Probation and parole

See 122 reports on community supervision policies, conditions, violations, and more.

• Guilty by association: When parole and probation rules disrupt support systems by Prison Policy Initiative, November, 2023
  "Association restrictions prohibit interactions between people on supervision and large swaths of the population, such as those with felony convictions or others on probation or parole. As a result, people must steer clear of certain places altogether."

Sentencing policy

See 141 reports on the rise and impact of excessive criminal sentences.

• How Long is Long Enough? Task Force on Long Sentences Final Report by Council on Criminal Justice, March, 2023
  "While Task Force members expressed a diversity of opinions on second looks, they agreed that many people serving long sentences may not longer present a danger to public safety."

Women and gender

See 136 reports on gender disparities in the criminal legal system.

• State Violence and the Far-Reaching Impact of Dobbs by Repro Legal Helpline, June, 2024
  "We receive the most calls...about abortion pills, self-managed abortion, judicial bypass, and...general questions, like whether people can legally travel to another state for an abortion or what the gestational limit is in their state."

Youth and juvenile justice

See 399 reports on youth in the criminal legal system.

• Only Young Once: Alabama's Overreliance on School Pushout and For-Profit Youth Incarceration by Southern Poverty Law Center, December, 2024
  "Despite the inconsistency of local district policies, one thing that is consistent across the state is that Black students are disproportionately suspended from public schools."
• An examination of conditions of confinement: Incarcerated/detained youth in the custody of the Connecticut Department of Corrections by Connecticut Office of the Child Advocate, November, 2024
  "Between January 1, 2024 and September 30, 2024, there were 192 placements in RAMP (disciplinary confinement), involving 66 youth. This represents a significant increase over 2023."
• Only Young Once: The Systemic Harm of Florida's School-to-Prison Pipeline and Youth Legal System, by Southern Poverty Law Center, September, 2024
  "Florida is the national leader in the total number of incarcerated children in both adult prisons and jail facilities combined as of the most recent data available."
• Only Young Once: The Case for Mississippi's Investment in Youth Decarceration by Southern Poverty Law Center, October, 2023
  "Mississippi's approach to youth justice is built on debunked notions of Black criminality, inadequate funding for community resources, and a school system that suspends a Black student every 15 minutes."
• Only Young Once: The Urgent Need for Reform of Louisiana's Youth Justice System by Southern Poverty Law Center, July, 2023
  "From 2017-2018, Louisiana had the third-highest out-of-school suspension rate (8.98%) and second-highest expulsion rate (0.81%) in the country."