Stories and Data
County jails are not folksy institutions, the stuff of stereotypes. In communities throughout the country, the experience of being jailed or working in a jail is anything but benign, and many local jails—especially those in small counties, surprisingly—are becoming bigger and more costly to operate.
To help Americans get real about their local jail, Vera launched the Human Toll of Jail, a web-based platform for true stories about the uses and abuses of jail, supplemented with links to relevant research, good practice, and other resources. Vera built the first-ever website where people can track incarceration trends in their own county, or in any country nationwide, and also published The Price of Jails. Already, small and mid-sized communities are waking up to the fact that bloated jails and their costs, both human and financial, are not just a big-city problem.
Related Work
Series: Covid-19
Vera’s New Prevalence Model Suggests COVID-19 is Spreading through ICE Detention at Much Higher Rates than Publicized
As of May 31, 2020, ICE reported testing 2,781 people in its custody; 1,461 positive cases were disclosed at just 61 of the more than 200 facilities it uses to detain people. ICE has not clarified whether the remaining tests are confirmed negative or still pending, meaning a minimum of 52 percent of people tested have received positive test results ...
People in Prison in 2019
Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) researchers collected data on the number of people who were incarcerated in state and federal prisons as of December 31, 2019, to provide timely information on how prison incarceration is changing in the United States. This report fills a gap until the Bureau of Justice Statistics releases its next annual report—lik ...
Series: Covid-19
Use this Data to Hold Your Local Jail Accountable During the Pandemic
Jails are places where people, even during ordinary times, are at greater risk of death. It’s clear that the best way to keep people safe is to let them return home. Although there have been some efforts to decarcerate, they have been too small. Now, using a new tool from Vera, you can hold policymakers accountable by monitoring jail populations ac ...
People in Jail in 2019
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 until the Bureau of Justice Statistics releases its report on jail p ...
We Need More Data to Understand the Impact of Mass Incarceration on Latinx Communities
Because of the lack of data, the disparities described may be even greater than the estimates we see. This is why it’s important for states to properly update their criminal justice data sets to include Latinx people. According to an Urban Institute report, even states with the biggest Latinx populations do not necessarily report accurate data on e ...
In St. Louis, It Takes a Small Army to Close a Notorious Jail
“We started with policing and we went straight to politics,” said Michelle Higgins, the lead organizer for Close the Workhouse. “We decided that people who have power need to be held accountable by the people who put them in power.” I spoke with Higgins about her work while reporting on Close the Workhouse for 70 Million, an open-source podcast a ...
The Public Wants Stories about Criminal Justice Reform
Taking stock of the open-source podcast 70 Million and its impact as season two launches
We learned so much from our first season. We learned that there's a demand for coverage of stories that focus on actionable ideas for local criminal justice reform. We learned that digital audio is an ideal medium for disseminating these necessary stories. Every smart phone comes preloaded with a podcast app, so accessing 70 Million only requires c ...
Arrest Trends
Data Tool Demonstration Video
The Vera Institute of Justice has created an interactive data tool for unlocking decades of police data on arrests at the national and local levels. In this video, Vera's Policing Program Director, Rebecca Neusteter, introduces the Arrest Trends data tool and its basic features.
Expanding our Knowledge on Local Incarceration Trends
Using the state as the unit of analysis is sufficient for understanding the broad contours of incarceration in the United States, but it does not provide the level of detail necessary to unpack its causes and consequences. This is because it is largely county officials—judges, prosecutors, people who manage jails—that decide how communities use inc ...
Keeping Women Out of Jail, One Mother at a Time
A special public defenders office set up to help women is keeping families together.
Kami could have walked out of the jail that day if only she could afford the $5,000 bond prescribed by the judge. But without the money, she was stuck behind bars, waiting for the court to decide whether she was guilty. Nationally, women are less likely than men to be able to bond out of jail. Women behind bars are also more likely to have a histo ...
Exclusive First Listen: 70 Million, a New Podcast about Justice Reform
Hear the trailer for this 10-part open-source series that looks at how residents are taking action locally.
So, on August 27, 70 Million will premiere after a team of brilliant and dedicated reporters and producers spent the last eight months traveling the country to collect stories about regular folks becoming catalysts for jail and justice reform in their hometowns. A quick shout out to the dream team, so far: Jen Chien, Luis Gil, Mitzi Miller, Kate Kr ...