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Issues

Learn about our key areas of focus to end mass incarceration and promote racial justice.

Key Issues

Racial Justice

One in five Black men born in 2001 is likely to experience imprisonment within their lifetime, a decline from one in three for those born in 1981. But pushback from policymakers threatens further advancement.

Get the facts on racial disparities in the criminal legal system in our report, “One in Five: Ending Racial Inequity in Incarceration.”

Get the Facts

Featured Fact Sheet

Incarcerated Women and Girls

Research on female incarceration is critical to understanding the full consequences of mass incarceration and to unraveling the policies and practices that lead to their criminalization. The female incarcerated population stands over seven times as high than in 1980.

By Kristen M. Budd, Ph.D., Dinesh Napal and Joshua Rovner on

Report

Mass Incarceration Trends

Report highlights the growth in state and federal prison populations since the early 1970s, and its far reaching effect on families, communities, and society as a whole.

Fact Sheet

Media Guide: 10 Crime Coverage Dos and Don’ts

The Sentencing Project’s new media guide can help media outlets develop coverage that will better inform the public and policymakers on how to pursue the most effective and humane public safety policies.

By Nazgol Ghandnoosh, Ph.D. on

Report

Private Prisons in the United States

Twenty-seven states and the federal government incarcerated 90,873 people in private prisons in 2022, representing 8% of the total state and federal prison population.

By Kristen M. Budd, Ph.D. on

Youth wearing red hoodie, black backpack, and holding a basketball on a basketball court

From Punishment to Prevention: A Better Approach to Addressing Youth Gun Possession

Reducing gun violence should be an urgent priority in the United States. However, imposing harsh consequences for all adolescent gun possession cases harms urban youth of color disproportionately without benefits for community safety. Other approaches to reducing gun violence – such as local gun violence interruption efforts – are far more equitable and effective.

This webinar highlighted the importance of improving justice system responses to youth gun possession.

Watch the webinar

“What does it say about a society that treats some of its most victimized and vulnerable citizens with so little compassion and mercy? How do we fix such a terrible injustice?”

April Wilkens
April Wilkens
Domestic Violence Advocate and Survivor
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