And how many have serious medical and economic needs?
Prison Policy Initiative updates for August 26, 2019 Showing how mass incarceration harms communities and our national welfare
New report, Arrest, Release, Repeat, reveals how many people go to jail each year and how many times they go [[link removed]] Our analysis reveals that at least 4.9 million people cycle through county jails each year - and most have serious medical and economic needs.
Police and jails are supposed to protect the public from serious public safety threats, but what do they actually do? Until now, attempts to answer this question have been missing the most basic data points: how many individuals cycle through local jails every year and who these individuals are.
In a new report released today, Arrest, Release, Repeat, [[link removed]] we fill this troubling gap in the data. Building on our popular annual snapshot [[link removed]] of the U.S. county jail population, we find that:
At least 4.9 million people are arrested and booked in jail every year. At least 1 in 4 people who go to jail in a given year will return to jail over the course of a year. At least 428,000 people will go to jail three or more times over the course of a year - the first national estimate of a population often referred to as "frequent utilizers."
"4.9 million people go to jail every year — that's a higher number than the populations of 24 U.S. states," said report author Alexi Jones. "But what's even more troubling is that people who are jailed have high rates of economic and health problems, problems that local governments should not be addressing through incarceration."
The report reveals that:
49% of people with multiple arrests in the past year had annual incomes below $10,000, compared to 36% of people arrested only once and 21% of people with no arrests. Despite making up only 13% of the general population, Black men and women account for 21% of people who were arrested just once and 28% of people arrested multiple times. People with multiple arrests are much more likely than the general public to suffer from substance use disorders and other illnesses, and much less likely to have access to health care. The vast majority of people with multiple arrests are jailed for nonviolent offenses such as drug possession, theft or trespassing.
In a series of policy recommendations, the report explains how counties can choose to stop continuously jailing their most vulnerable residents and instead solve the economic and public health problems that often lead to arrest. “Counties should stop using taxpayer dollars to repeatedly jail people,” said report co-author Wendy Sawyer, "and use the savings to fund public services that prevent justice involvement in the first place."
Read the full report at [[link removed]].
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Other news: Further reading: How counties can shrink their jail populations [[link removed]]
Crowded county jails are too often full of people suffering from serious health problems, too poor to make bail, unable to pay court-ordered fines and fees, or jailed for minor infractions that simply shouldn't be crimes. Our May report Does our county really need a bigger jail? [[link removed]] provides a roadmap for counties looking to tackle unnecessary incarceration — rather than building costly new jail space.
Read our full report from May. [[link removed]]
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Do you want to shape the future of the criminal justice reform movement? We're hiring a Development Director (or Development and Comms Associate, depending on experience) as well as a Policy Fellow and Equal Justice Works fellow. For more information, see our Jobs page. [[link removed]]
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 Ending prison gerrymandering ( archives [[link removed]]) Criminal justice research library ( archives) [[link removed]]
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