In Our Backyards
Ending Mass Incarceration Where It Begins
The geography of mass incarceration has shifted dramatically. Small counties across the country now account for more than half of America's jail population. This untold story calls for ending mass incarceration where it begins–in all our backyards.
Ending Mass Incarceration Where It Begins
See our updated report, "People in Jail and Prison in 2020," here. Researchers from the Vera Institute of Justice, with support from Google.org Fellows, collected data on the number of people in local jails at midyear in both 2018 and 2019 to provide timely information on how incarceration is changing in the United States. This report fills a gap u ...
In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, nationwide calls for reallocation of law enforcement budgets forced elected leaders to consider the values underlying their budgetary choices. But discussions largely remained limited to policing. Few major U.S. cities took a hard look at the billions invested in their increasingly vacant jails ...