The FIRST STEP Act creates a system within the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) intended to provide those incarcerated with programs, education, and skills that will help them re-enter their communities after they have served their sentence. These re-entry programs are essential public health and safety strategies, since 95 percent of those incarcerated will eventually be released and return to their families. Thus, policymakers should look to expand—rather than restrict—incentives to participate in these programs.

Justice reform took an unlikely end-of-year turn with the success of the bipartisan-supported FIRST STEP Act, the first major federal criminal justice reform since 2010. But overall, 2018 was a year of deepening tensions. ... Join Vera for a journey through the stories that shaped American justice in 2018.

The rise of mass incarceration, spanning the 1970s to the early 2000s, was characterized by continuous, unified growth in both prison and jail populations across states and counties. In contrast, the past decade has given rise to what is widely recognized as an era of reform, with prison admission rates declining by 24 percent since 2006 and jail admissions rates down 25 percent since 2008. The national declines, however, mask the new dynamics of mass incarceration.

A conversation with Jasmine Heiss from the Vera Institute of Justice about a recent poll that uncovers American's souring sentiment toward incarceration policy.

This memorandum summarizes the results of a national survey of 2,000 American adults taken from February 27-March 5, 2018. This survey focused heavily on rural areas, where incarceration rates tend to be much higher than in the nation’s major urban areas. In order to build a robust sample of rural residents, this survey included 1,000 interviews in counties designated as rural.

The United States faces two distinct but interconnected challenges: violence and mass incarceration. Ensuring safety is an urgent and essential responsibility of a society and is a core dimension of delivering on the promise of justice. The United States has been remiss in attempts to fulfill that responsibility because of an over reliance on incarceration as the primary pathway to ensuring safety. Substantially reducing violence will require acknowledging the limitations of prisons as a strategy to deliver safety or justice.

Pew Trusts - PODCAST 19:28 minutes

Aunt Bertha's free search tool is now called findhelp.org. findhelp.org will continue to connect all people in need to the programs that serve them (with dignity and ease)

In states where pardoning is characterized as “frequent and regular,” there is a regular pardon process with a high percentage of applications granted (30% or more); where pardoning is “sparing,” there is a regular process but a low grant rate; where pardons are infrequent, uneven, or rare, the chart will generally indicate numbers

This study examines Commonwealth of Pennsylvania state prison data on inmates released to a term of residential community corrections in either a publicly or privately managed institution (n = 7,204). Analyses indicate significant associations of race, facility orderliness, extent of educational/vocational programming, and type of facility management (Commonwealth or a private provider) with an offender’s subsequent reincarceration.