Scoping the Problem
It’s impossible to appreciate a problem, let alone solve it, without understanding its scope—the shape and scale of what’s happening. And a complex problem like mass incarceration, typically defined by the 2.3 million people incarcerated at any one time in America, requires substantial unpacking.
Our work wrestling with data falls into two broad categories: defining and monitoring trends in ways that inform both experts and the public, and using cutting-edge cost-benefit analysis. In the first category, for example, we created a truly unique vehicle to track incarceration trends at the county level—telescoping an issue that can feel huge and remote by generating numbers that matter locally. Similarly, cost-benefit analysis provides the foundation for smarter criminal justice policies. That work includes calculating the true price of prisons, something that the traditional budgeting process has failed to do.
Issue
Spotlights
Featured
Arrest Trends
Interactive data tool on policing trends at the national and local levels
Incarceration Trends
Data tool on jail and prison populations in every U.S. county
In 2014, the nationwide jail incarceration rate of 326 per 100,000 county residents exceeded the highest county rates registered in the 1970s, which rarely exceeded 300 per 100,000.
Divided Justice
Trends in Black and White Jail Incarceration 1990-2013
Recent data analyses on jail incarceration—taken from Vera’s Incarceration Trends tool—reveal that although significant racial disparities still exist between black and white jail incarceration rates, incarceration rates for black people are declining, while rates for white people are rising. This report dives into the data on black and white incar ...
Related Work
A New Way of 911 Call Taking: Criteria Based Dispatching
A Review of the Literature
As a movement across the country has begun demanding changes to policing and public safety, the need to revisit 911 call-taking and dispatching methods has become urgent. The scope of 911 has expanded and technological infrastructure has evolved, but there have been few advances in the call-taking and dispatching aspects of the system over the last ...
Tracking COVID-19 in Immigration Detention
A Dashboard of ICE Data
Changing Police Practices Means Changing 911
Three questions every community should be asking
Each year, people across the country make approximately 240 million calls to 911. That’s an average of 7.6 calls for service every second. But only about 1 percent of 911 calls in major cities are to report violent crimes in progress. Instead, 911 has become the default option for many people seeking support for a broad array of problems—such as d ...
Blog Post
Jim Parsons
Frankie Wunschel
In the Shadows
A Review of the Research on Plea Bargaining
Most criminal cases that result in conviction—97 percent in large urban state courts in 2009, and 90 percent in federal court in 2014—are adjudicated through guilty pleas. Of these, researchers estimate that more than 90 percent are the result of plea bargaining—an informal and unregulated process by which prosecutors and defense counsel negotiate ...
Series: Target 2020
Data-Backed Outrage: Police Violence by the Numbers
Over the past decade, the widespread use of cell phone cameras and social media has brought more public consciousness to the cold reality of police brutality, including the killings of unarmed Black men, women, and children. The tragedies of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd this year ignited overdue awareness, outrage, and calls to action from a wid ...
Blog Post
Logan Schmidt
Micah Haskell-Hoehl
Protecting Black Lives: The Crisis of American Policing
The police make 10.5 million arrests a year, mostly for minor offenses. In fact, less than 5 percent were for incidents that involved serious violence. Every police encounter threatens escalation, injury, and death. Real accountability in policing is long overdue. Vera is committed to dismantling the current culture of policing and working toward s ...
Blog Post
Nicholas Turner
Floyd’s Death Emblematic of a Fundamentally Brutal Criminal Justice System
Even if encounters with police do not result in extrajudicial execution, Black Americans can reasonably fear that the criminal justice system will deliver wildly disproportionate punishment and disregard for our humanity. Even when operating “correctly,” it is fundamentally brutal towards people of color. The true extent of the horror that the U.S. ...
Blog Post
Erica Bryant
Understanding Law Enforcement Practice in Your Community: An Exploration of 911 Open Data Sets
This sort of analysis is just the tip of the iceberg, and we’ll be blogging about how best to use the data here. We’re expecting people to reach out so that they can ask more questions. We would love to start a conversation about how Vera and Two-Sigma can support your 911 data exploration in your city, and how you can use the data aggregation and ...
Blog Post
Frankie Wunschel
Justice Fines and Fees
People trapped in the criminal justice system are typically poor and struggling to provide basic necessities for themselves and their families. Yet an arrest can lead to many and varied fines, fees, and court costs resulting in a bill of hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Vera’s Justice Fines and Fees Project will explore just how much fine and ...
Project
Chris Mai
The Arrest-Jail Admission Gap
Jail admission rates surpass arrest rates in small and rural counties
But why does this jail-arrest gap exist? First, it is important to acknowledge that differences in counties’ data collection, data sources, and documentation could have contributed to the gap. Federal statistics have some data gaps—not all arrests are reported in FBI statistics, and some jail admissions are missing in states that have city level pr ...
Blog Post
Abdul Rad
Wenshu (Monica) Yang
Vera’s Incarceration Trends State Fact Sheets
An Important New Resource
We present historical trends for the longest period possible with the available data. Analysis of incarceration trends, particularly in the media, often use data from a recent period, such as the recent year-over-year change—or the change since a recently enacted reform. Although there is obvious value in examining recent changes, it is also import ...
Blog Post
Christian Henrichson
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 ...
Blog Post
Colin Hernandez