Category Archives: Articles of Interest

This report is one of a series that the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) is releasing with the Safety and Justice Challenge—the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s initiative to reduce overincarceration by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails.

Can it really be true that most people in jail are being held before trial? And how much of mass incarceration is a result of the war on drugs? These questions are harder to answer than you might think, because our country’s systems of confinement are so fragmented.

The United States leads the world in incarceration. A new report explores why — and offers recommendations for fixing the system.

As head of New York City’s correctional health services, Dr. Homer Venters spent nine
years overseeing the care of thousands of inmates in the jails on Rikers Island. Though
he left Rikers in 2017, what he witnessed on the job has stayed with him.

Our American criminal justice system is broken. Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile — these names just touch the surface of the multitude of Black lives lost at the hands of the police or while in police custody.

More than half a million people are released from federal and state jails and prisons in this country each year. Following their release, roughly two-thirds of ex-offenders are arrested for a new offense within three years resulting in a seemingly unbreakable vicious cycle.

Economic and Fiscal Benefits of Postsecondary Education in Prison

An ecosystem approach for successful reentry

1 in 55 U.S. adults is under community supervision.

The over-representation of black Americans in the nation’s justice system is well documented. Black men comprise about 13 percent of the male population, but about 35 percent of those incarcerated.