The majority of people in jail are presumed innocent. Most are there for nonviolent offenses. Many are simply too poor to post bail. Our overuse of jails carries significant costs—to individuals, families, communities, and society at large. We need solutions to start where incarceration starts: in our nation’s jails.
The primary purpose of jails is to detain those awaiting trial who are a danger to public safety or a flight risk. Jailing someone who is neither results in huge costs for families and communities, including lost income, parents separated from their children, untreated mental health and substance abuse problems, a greater risk of re-offending, and wasted taxpayer dollars.
A total of 191 applications were submitted to the Challenge from jurisdictions spanning 45 states. Meet the 40 that were selected to participate in the Challenge Network.
“The number of people incarcerated in American prisons is the lowest it’s been in decades. But a new report from The Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit research group that wants to limit mass incarceration in the United States, tells
“Since 2007, the overall prison population has declined by roughly 1 percent each year. Such a statistic might suggest that the problem of mass incarceration in America is improving. But that belies a complicated truth about the way this nation
Is Criminal Justice Reform Leaving Small and Rural Communities Behind? https://t.co/SWzyVFjYfD #RethinkJails @reason https://t.co/6ybzGiYA6e
June 19 marks #Juneteenth, a celebration of the de facto end of slavery. For hundreds of thousands of African-Amer… https://t.co/GTvJcnvUbi
Yakima County, Washington has been actively working to improve our criminal justice system with analysis-driven, evidence-based system change. One of the significant ways in which we are doing this is by focusing on some of the most vulnerable people who
