We've The Prison Policy Initiative has added 31 new reports to the Research Library:

COVID-19

• Neighborhood Racial and Economic Segregation and Disparities in Violence During the COVID-19 Pandemic Paywall :( by Julia P. Schleimer et al., December, 2021
  "In 2020, violence was higher in less-privileged neighborhoods than in the most privileged...The events of 2020 exacerbated disparities in several forms of violence."
• Since you asked: What information is available about COVID-19 and vaccinations in prison now? by Prison Policy Initiative, December, 2021
  "Only two states -- Maryland and South Carolina -- are publishing the number of incarcerated people who have refused the vaccine, while no prison systems are publishing the number of staff who have refused a vaccine."
• Data update: As the Delta variant ravages the country, correctional systems are dropping the ball (again) by Prison Policy Initiative, October, 2021
  "While some prison systems and local jails have maintained historically low populations, others have returned to pre-pandemic levels, despite the ongoing dangers of COVID-19."
• A Dose of Dignity: Equitable Vaccination Policies for Incarcerated People and Correctional Staff During the Covid-19 Pandemic by Itay Ravid, Jordan Hyatt, and Steven L. Chanenson, September, 2021
  "Governments--and the society they represent--have both a constitutional and a moral obligation to take care of people they choose to incarcerate. That includes providing vaccines...There are no constitutional exceptions for public health crises."

Community Impact

• Protective State Policies and the Employment of Fathers with Criminal Records Paywall :( by Allison Dwyer Emory, November, 2021
  "Consistent with research linking policies regulating access to records to racial discrimination, black men living in protective states reported this employment penalty even if they did not have criminal records themselves."

Crime and Crime Rates

• A Prosecutorial Solution to the Criminalization of Homelessness by Andrew I. Leaf, U. of Penn. Law Review, November, 2021
  "If prosecutors decline to prosecute, and offer a diversion program to, those who are in or looking to join the workforce, much of the harm antihomeless laws inflict would be alleviated."

Disability

• The 'Olympic Hurdles' of Obtaining Federal Benefits for Inmates with Disabilities: A Study of Two Massachusetts County JailsPaywall :( by Shahrzad Sajadi, November, 2019
  "Complicated application procedures [for governmental assistance] often result in the formerly jailed returning to prior lifestyles and rearrests. This study explores SSI/SSDI systems at two Massachusetts county jails."

Economics of Incarceration

• Methods of Calculating the Marginal Cost of Incarceration: A Scoping Review by Stuart John Wilson and Jocelyne Lemoine, December, 2021
  "There is a lack of, and need for, peer-reviewed literature on methods for calculating the marginal cost of incarceration, and marginal cost estimates of incarceration, to assist program evaluation, policy, and cost forecasting."
• The Golden Key: How State-Local Financial Incentives to Lock Up Kentuckians Are Perpetuating Mass Incarceration by Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, October, 2021
  "Some county jails rely on the economies of scale created by overcrowding including the extra revenue that comes from holding people in state and federal custody and from charging fees to those who are incarcerated."
• Blood from a stone: How New York prisons force people to pay for their own incarceration by Tommaso Bardelli, Zach Gillespie and Thuy Linh Tu, October, 2021
  "A study by members of the New York University Prison Education Program Research Collective gives important first-hand accounts of the damage done when prisons shift financial costs to incarcerated people."

Families

• Reducing Trauma from Behind Bars: Enhancing Parent-Child Attachment Through a Digitally Distributed Reading ProgramPaywall :( by David M. McLeod et al., November, 2021
  "The intervention [video reading to children] appeared to increase the frequency of correspondence between the parent and child, improved the sense of parent-child relationship, and increased a sense of involvement, attachment, and connectedness."

General

• Winnable criminal justice reforms in 2022 by Prison Policy Initiative, December, 2021
  "We've curated this list to offer policymakers and advocates straightforward solutions that would have the greatest impacts without further investments in the carceral system and point to policy reforms that have gained momentum in the past year."

Health impact

• New York State's New Death Penalty: The Death Toll of Mass Incarceration in a Post Execution Era by Columbia University Center for Justice, October, 2021
  "More people have died in NY State custody in the last decade than the total of number of people executed in the 364 years New York State had the death penalty."
• Unsupportive environments and limited policies: Pregnancy, postpartum, and birth during incarceration by Prison Policy Initiative, August, 2021
  "Jails, prisons, and youth facilities have yet to adequately recognize pregnancy and postpartum needs either in policy or in practice."

Immigration

• Is It Dangerous to Live in Neighborhoods with More Immigrants? Assessing the Effects of Immigrant Concentration on Crime PatternsPaywall :( by Sungil Han and Alex R. Piquero, April, 2021
  "Results show that immigrant concentration is negatively associated with crime counts and, most importantly, that immigrant concentration moderates the effect of structural conditions on crime."

Jails

• Jail and Overdose: Assessing the Community Impact of Incarceration on Overdose by Grant Victor et al., July, 2021
  "Each prior booking increased the hazard of mortality by approximately 20%, while the presence of a syringe charge at most recent booking prior to release more than tripled the hazard of mortality."

Police and Policing

• Racial Disparities in Law Enforcement Stops by Public Policy Institute of California, October, 2021
  "We analyze data for almost 4 million stops by California's 15 largest law enforcement agencies in 2019, examining the extent to which people of color experience searches, enforcement, intrusiveness, and use of force differently from white people."
• Automating Banishment by Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, October, 2021
  "Over the past decade, we have been working to build power to abolish LAPD surveillance. This report grew out of that organizing and examines the relationships of policing and surveillance to displacement, gentrification, and real estate development."
• Police Violence Reduces Civilian Cooperation and Engagement with Law Enforcement by Desmond Ang et al., September, 2021
  "We find evidence that high-profile acts of police violence may severely impair civilian trust and crime-reporting...[In] eight major cities, we show a sharp drop in the ratio of 911 calls to ShotSpotter shots immediately after George Floyd's death."

Poverty and wealth

• Show me the money: Tracking the companies that have a lock on sending funds to incarcerated people by Prison Policy Initiative, November, 2021
  "We looked at all fifty state departments of corrections to figure out which companies hold the contracts to provide money-transfer services and what the fees are to use these services."
• For the poorest people in prison, it's a struggle to access even basic necessities by Prison Policy Initiative, November, 2021
  "Most prison systems claim to provide assistance to people who are extremely poor (or, in correctional policy terms, "indigent"). Our survey reveals that these "indigence policies" are extremely limited."

Pretrial Detention

• Enhanced Public Defense Improves Pretrial Outcomes and Reduces Racial Disparities by Paul Heaton, May, 2021
  "Bail advocates did not reduce detention rates (at least on average) but did substantially reduce clients' likelihood of bail violation (-64%) and future arrest (- 26%)."

Probation and parole

• Compassionate Release Data Report: Calendar Years 2020 to 2021 by United States Sentencing Commission, September, 2021
  This report contains charts and tables describing the 20,565 motions for compassionate release decided upon by the courts in 2020 and the first half of 2021; of those, just over 3,600 or 17.5% were granted.

Race and ethnicity

• The U.S. criminal justice system disproportionately hurts Native people: The data, visualized by Prison Policy Initiative, October, 2021
  "We're lucky when criminal justice data is broken down by race and ethnicity enough to see how Native populations are criminalized and incarcerated. Here's a roundup of what we know."
• Untangling Eviction, Disadvantage, Race, and Social Processes: Neighborhood Factors Influencing CrimePaywall :( by Eileen M. Kirk, April, 2021
  "Eviction is likely concentrated in neighborhoods vulnerable to crime, but the connection between eviction and neighborhood violent crime has not yet been examined...this Boston-based study is a first step in filling this knowledge gap."

Recidivism and Reentry

• Custodial Sanctions and Reoffending: A Meta-Analytic Review by Petrich, Damon et al., September, 2021
  "Compared with noncustodial sanctions, custodial sanctions, including imprisonment, have no appreciable effect on reducing reoffending. The studies tend to show that placing offenders in custody has a slight criminogenic effect."

Sentencing Policy and Practices

• Sentencing Enhancements and Incarceration: San Francisco, 2005-2017 by Stanford Computational Policy Lab, October, 2019
  "One could substantially reduce incarceration by focusing on a relatively small number of enhancements: Prop. 8 priors, Three Strikes, and the 10-20-life gun enhancement."

Women

• Recent studies shed light on what reproductive "choice" looks like in prisons and jails by Prison Policy Initiative, December, 2021
  "Two recent studies reveal that abortion and contraception access varies greatly between states -- and that abortion access for incarcerated people is related to broader state policies."

Youth

• Youth in Adult and Juvenile Correctional Facilities: Comparison of Services and Behavioral ManagementPaywall :( by Park, Insun and Christopher J. Sullivan, May, 2021
  "Youth in adult facilities had similar or more access to institutional programs but also exhibited relatively higher involvement in misconduct based on official reports [compared to youth in juvenile residential facilities]."
• Prevalence, Comorbidity, and Continuity of Psychiatric Disorders in a 15-Year Longitudinal Study of Youths Involved in the Juvenile Justice System by Teplin, Linda et al., April, 2021
  "Among participants with a [psychiatric] disorder at baseline, 64.3% of males and 34.8% of females had a disorder 15 years later. Compared with females, males had 3.37 times the odds of persisting with a psychiatric disorder 15 years after baseline."
• Race, Ethnicity, and Official Perceptions in the Juvenile Justice System: Extending the Role of Negative Attributional StereotypesPaywall :( by Laura Beckman and Nancy Rodriguez, April, 2021
  "Using juvenile probation file content (N = 285) that quantitatively captures court officials' perceptions...youth of color are more likely to be linked to negative internal attributions in comparison with White youth."