Upon coming home from prison, people face the same — and rising — costs of living as the rest of us. But they have to bear additional costs imposed by the criminal legal system as well, all while navigating additional and unique barriers to employment. The resulting financial insecurity makes it harder to succeed at reentry. Cash assistance (often called “guaranteed income”) makes reentry easier by providing people with a monetary safety net, helping them get jobs, housing, and food, and fulfill any remaining court or parole obligations.
In this piece, we explain how guaranteed income reduces recidivism and results in taxpayer savings. We highlight the work of the Just Income program in Alachua County (Gainesville), Florida as a concrete example that demonstrates cash assistance with no strings attached is a smart policy choice for supporting people in reentry.
Formerly incarcerated people face serious financial challenges upon release
There are nearly 2 million people incarcerated in the U.S. at any given time, but because of the enormous churn in and out of facilities, about 8 million people leave jail and prison every year. In other words, millions of people are faced with the daunting challenge of getting back on their feet after incarceration has upended their lives.
One Florida organization is working to help people succeed in reentry — and with over 150,000 Florida residents behind bars and 687,000 returning home each year, there is a lot of need for support. In Alachua County, Community Spring is addressing those needs directly through a guaranteed income program for recently-released people, providing direct financial support that recipients could use to address their most pressing needs.
Community Spring’s Just Income program gives formerly incarcerated people who reside in Alachua County $800 per month for a year with no strings attached. This allows recipients to put the money where it’s needed most at any given time.
Recipients are randomly selected from among those who meet the broad eligibility criteria. To qualify, they must simply have been released from a prison or jail or have started probation in the previous year. To confirm that the program is indeed a good use of funds, the program started as a pilot where researchers conducted a study that compared outcomes for individuals who received the income and a control group of formerly incarcerated people who did not. The pilot participants who received assistance were given $1,000 in the first month and then $600 for the following 11 months. The results showed recidivism fell, and self-sufficiency and mental health improved, all resulting in net savings for taxpayers.
Providing guaranteed income to formerly incarcerated individuals shows great results
Just Income’s pilot study showed that guaranteed income improved probation compliance and reduced recidivism rates.
It’s not hard to see why the pilot produced these results when Florida law requires “probation fees of at least $40 per month, while eliminating exemptions from prosecution and public defense fees for indigent defendants,” according to Just Income’s study report. The findings were consistent with interviews conducted with the participants, who expressed that the guaranteed income program saved them from having to turn to crimes of survival or other criminalized activities to cover basic needs.
Guaranteed Income creates taxpayer savings and increased self-sufficiency
One common misconception about cash assistance in general, and guaranteed income in particular, is that it creates a disincentive to work. But guaranteed income programs actually help people find suitable and sustainable work that leads to more stable employment.
Results from the pilot showed that the guaranteed income payments actually improved participants’ self-sufficiency by strengthening their ability to obtain employment and cover their own basic living expenses.
This makes sense when one considers how guaranteed income programs make people less desperate for money to cover basic needs. Not only does that remove economic incentives that can lead to recidivism, but it also allows people in reentry to find work in a hostile job market. Not being desperate to take the very first job available may make it easier for people to find well-paid, sustainable employment.
The impact of the Just Income program extended beyond the single person receiving the payment. Recipients were able to pitch in for household expenses, cover food costs, and help others in need. This means that guaranteed income not only benefits people in reentry, but their larger communities as well. Even though the cash assistance doesn’t come close to covering all expenses, letting people choose to share some of that money with family and community gives formerly incarcerated people the ability to strengthen social ties through giving back.
The study’s participants also “credited the stability provided by the Just Income program for improving their mental well-being.” Participants who received assistance experienced reduced stress, felt like they mattered more, and had higher hopes for the future. They expressed that these improvements led to “an interruption in the downward spiral of poverty, stress, substance use, and recidivism.”
These benefits not only help individuals directly impacted by incarceration and their immediate communities, but all Florida residents through significant tax savings. Florida spends over $41,000 annually to incarcerate a single person. During the study period, participants received $7,600 over 12 months. For every 100 people in the study, those payments led to 12 fewer people being reincarcerated. By conservative estimate, that averages out to a net gain for taxpayers of over $13,000 per person in the program.
Guaranteed income is a proven tool that should be used across the country
Community Spring’s Just Income program should be replicated across the country. Guaranteed income for people in reentry is a smart policy move, and Community Spring even provides consulting to those who want to start their own program for people in reentry. A key factor of their program’s success is that the payments are completely unrestricted, which enables them to maximize efficiency by allowing people to pick new uses for the funds as new challenges crop up.
There have only been a handful of other guaranteed income programs focusing on justice-involved people so far. Just Income is unique among them because it was accompanied by a rigorous academic study. Even though the other programs weren’t subject to the same level of scrutiny, they did gather some data and (of course) anecdotes, which showed the same general benefits of guaranteed income for people in reentry.
These early pilots of guaranteed income programs show promise in helping people succeed in reentry. In fact, Just Income has kept going beyond their first pilot, turning into a recurring program providing people with unconditional payments of $800 a month for one year. They are now helping other organizations to replicate this type of program.
More organizations and governments should copy these programs; guaranteed income is an efficient way to help people succeed in reentry, reducing recidivism and quickly paying for itself. Everyone deserves a fair shot at reintegrating into society, securing high-quality employment, and contributing to their communities. Just a little money every month can be the first step in achieving that goal.
The U.S. keeps millions of people on probation and parole every day. Rather than serving as an alternative to incarceration, supervision is often a tripwire to harsher punishments.
April 7, 2026
In many states, the number of people on probation or other forms of “community supervision” far outstrips the number of people behind bars. In a new report, Punishment Beyond Prisons 2026: Incarceration and supervision by state, the Prison Policy Initiative offers a state-by-state look at the correctional population that goes beyond prison and jail walls — while illuminating how probation and parole supervision often lead to incarceration.
From notorious “tough on crime” states like Georgia to “progressive” states like Minnesota and Rhode Island, the report shows how supervision — mainly, probation — has elevated correctional control from rare to commonplace:
If the number of people on probation and parole nationwide were its own state, it would be roughly the size of Connecticut, more populous than 21 states and D.C.
In 20 states, over two-thirds of people under correctional control are on probation or parole, rather than behind bars.
There are nearly as many people on parole — supervision after release from prison — as there are in the nation’s 3,000-plus local jails.
“Looking only at incarceration obscures the fact that millions more people are under the thumb of the correctional system, forced to comply with a litany of rules every day or face reincarceration,” said report author Leah Wang. “As lawmakers ponder how to reduce prison populations, they should look at these supervision systems, which are often a tripwire to harsher punishments.”
Punishment Beyond Prisons 2026 also includes:
An overview of incarceration and supervision populations over time, with a warning that despite pandemic-fueled downturns, many states are actually at or near peak probation populations.
A sidebar highlighting another punished population: the over 800,000 people required to be listed on public registries for sex offense convictions, despite abundant evidence that these registries do not improve public safety.
A section about people on supervision held behind bars for non-criminal rule violations, showing that these violations send more people on probation and parole to prison than do new criminal offenses.
The report highlights how certain states have enacted reforms that reduce supervision for people who do not need it. Virginia and Florida, for example, have passed laws allowing people to earn time off their probation sentences through education, employment and other achievements, while Pennsylvania now uses an individualized approach to setting probation conditions and allows for early termination of supervision.
“Supervision sentences, particularly probation sentences, are too long and keep people under correctional control far past the point where it benefits them,” said Wang. “Just as with this country’s bloated incarceration system, probation and parole can and should be drastically reduced while preserving public safety.”
We analyzed data about formal complaints made by incarcerated people regarding medical care in federal prisons and can only conclude that grievance systems are designed to thwart nearly every one.
When incarcerated people face abuse and mistreatment, they can typically file a formal complaint with jail or prison administrators. In federal prisons, the system for resolving these complaints is known as the “Administrative Remedy Program,” but it’s more commonly referred to as a “grievance system” in state prisons and local jails. Grievance systems are supposed to provide incarcerated people with a way to challenge issues they face behind bars — such as inadequate medical care, harassment by corrections officers, or unsanitary living conditions — and (hopefully) receive some kind of relief. In practice, however, incarcerated people who turn to grievance systems are forced to run a gauntlet of rules and regulations just to be heard, and very rarely succeed. This is especially true when it comes to medical complaints: our analysis of a decade of data from the Data Liberation Project finds that, between 2014 and 2024, a startling 98% of medical grievances were rejected for reasons ranging from the bureaucratic (such as using the wrong size sheet of paper) to the substantive (actually being denied on the merits of the complaint). Less than 1% of medical cases ended in a grant of relief.
A functioning grievance system is an important lifeline for incarcerated people, who have very little leverage to affect their circumstances. It’s especially important for health-related matters, given that incarcerated people suffer from illness and disease at rates far exceeding that of the general public, and their access to medical care is highly constrained and notoriously awful. But in the end, a system does what it is designed to do, not what it is intended to do, and the federal grievance system rejects nearly every medical complaint filed by incarcerated people, often for vague or trivial reasons.
In this briefing, we examine the statuses of nearly 66,000 medical grievances from across the Bureau of Prisons to determine what kinds of medical complaints are most common in the federal system and how incarcerated people fare in their pursuit of relief.
The federal prison grievance system is designed to shut down complaints
Major segments of the U.S. population struggle to obtain basic medical care, but incarcerated people face especially challenging barriers and limitations such as the inability to choose doctors, get second opinions, or continue treatments prescribed prior to their incarceration. Conditions are so bad on the inside that since 2000, roughly half of all state prison systems have been court-ordered to improve mental and medical healthcare.
Our analysis of a decade of data from the Data Liberation Project finds that, between 2014 and 2024, a startling 98% of medical grievances were rejected for reasons ranging from the bureaucratic (such as using the wrong size sheet of paper) to the substantive (actually being denied on the merits of the complaint). Less than 1% of medical cases ended in a grant of relief. See Appendix A for more information.
The sheer volume of correctional healthcare lawsuits reflects how ineffective prison grievance systems are for incarcerated people. After all, grievance systems should help people address their concerns so that neither side has to engage in costly, time-consuming litigation. Instead, grievance systems gatekeep actual opportunities for accountability in the courts.
The federal Bureau of Prisons’ grievance system, in the simplest terms, works like this:
Informal resolution: An incarcerated person must first attempt to resolve their complaint informally by speaking directly to the person with whom they have an issue. As one might imagine, this first hurdle can easily dissuade people from pursuing their complaint for fear of retaliation — especially when that person works for the prison.
Formal resolution: If they can’t informally resolve the issue, an incarcerated person can file a formal complaint with the warden, who is supposed to investigate and respond. To do this, the incarcerated person must overcome tedious administrative hurdles for their complaint to even be considered, including adhering to short deadlines1 and specific requirements like using the correct paper size, attaching the right number of copies, or using the right form (of which there are many).
Appeals: If the warden denies the grievance or fails to resolve it, the incarcerated person can first appeal to the regional office and, if denied or unresolved again, can appeal to the central office.
Lawsuits: Due to restrictions imposed under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, this administrative system must be completely exhausted before an incarcerated person can file a lawsuit in court to compel relief.
So, how far do complaints about medical care make it through this system? Our analysis of federal medical grievance data 2 provides a snapshot (as of May 2024) of the statuses of nearly 66,000 complaints filed between January 2014 and January 2024. 3 At the time the data were exported, nearly one-third (32%) of all medical complaints had been rejected because they were “improperly filed” according to one administrative rule or another; another 51% had been closed upon appeal for administrative reasons. In particular, the dental and mental health grievance categories had the highest rates of these rejections: 78% of dental and 83% of mental health grievances were tossed out for administrative reasons, including cases that had reached the appeals stage.
The data snapshot reveals that just 14% of all medical grievances over the decade made it past these administrative tests only to be denied on the actual merits of the complaint. Here, again, mental health and dental-related categories had the highest percentage (20%) of cases denied relief. Remarkably and disturbingly, zero grievances pertaining to pregnancy, abortion, or childcare in this decade-long dataset were granted relief. Meanwhile, the categories of “other forced medical treatment” and “forced psychotropic medication” had zero cases that were even accepted for consideration.
Contrast this with the victories: Only 1% of cases over the decade had a status indicating they were granted relief. This amounts to a grand total of just 940 cases out of 65,712. While the dataset doesn’t include details on those outcomes, relief is typically specific to the grievance. For example, if a person files a grievance because they were denied a particular medication, they might seek relief in the form of access to that medication.
As one might expect, the most common grievance subjects match what we know about commonstructural issues with prison healthcare. In terms of raw numbers, the following grievance subjects had the highest numbers of complaints and subsequent denials of relief:
Grievance subjects with the highest number of cases
in which the prison denied relief
To see all case outcomes for each subject, see Appendix B.
Subject category
Percentage of all medical grievances
Percentage of cases in this category that were denied relief
Cases denied relief
Delayed or lack of access to medical care
33%
10%
2,242
Improper or inadequate medical care
17%
14%
1,568
Prescription medication
12%
18%
1,389
Alternatively, we can look at grievance subjects that had the highest proportion of cases in which the prison denied relief. Here, again, we see subjects that match some of the most notorious problems in prison healthcare:
Grievance subjects with the highest proportion of cases
in which the prison denied relief
To see all case outcomes for each subject, see Appendix B.
Subject category
Percentage of cases in this category that were denied relief
Non-medication prescriptions (e.g., walking aids or medical necessity mattresses)
24%
642
Tedious paperwork issues are a leading reason for rejected grievances
As the data show, federal prisons don’t reject most grievances on the merits. Instead, most are rejected because incarcerated people fail to navigate administrative rules for submitting complaints, so their grievances are never actually judged on their merits.
Why are so many complaints rejected on technicalities? Put simply, many of the rules and requirements that govern the grievance process are difficult for incarcerated people to meet. Prison officials control the time and movement of incarcerated people, which can hinder their ability to access the necessary forms and submit complaints to the right person in a timely manner. They also restrict the type and amount of property people can keep in their cells, including writing tools and materials they would need to fill out grievance forms. Add to this the typically lower levels of educational attainment and literacy among incarcerated people compared to the general population, and it becomes obvious that the various confusingly-named forms, rules about single-subject complaints, prohibitions on third-party assistance,4 and other highly specific rules work to thwart most grievances before they’re ever considered on their merits. Other requirements, like requiring attempted informal resolutions as a first step, may sound reasonable in the abstract but can quickly dissuade incarcerated people who might fear retaliation for speaking up, especially in abusive situations. On top of all of this, those filing medical grievances are dealing with unresolved medical issues as they fight to receive basic dignified care.
In the dataset,5 each case can have up to five reasons explaining why it was rejected and/or closed. We tabulated the most common reasons for rejection given across cases to find that:
2 in 5 reasons for rejection pertained to various paperwork issues (such as failing to provide a copy of a particular form, using the wrong size paper, illegible writing or different wordings across forms, failing to write separate appeals for each incident report, or the grievance was filed to the wrong place/person).
1 in 10 reasons claimed the complainant failed to first exhaust all other, informal avenues for resolution.
1 in 12 (8%) reasons pointed to a failure to adhere to time limits for initial complaints and appeals.
The remaining reasons were a mix of withdrawn complaints, repetitive filings, rejections for subjects that are not appealable or “not sensitive issues,” or because the complaint allegedly contained “obscene language.”
Are grievance systems designed to solve problems, or deter lawsuits?
In theory, grievance procedures are an important tool for incarcerated people to pursue fair treatment and defend themselves in a system designed to disempower them. This power is particularly important in the context of medical care, where needs are widespread and urgent, and where failure to meet them can lead to injury, illness, and death. In practice, however, the grievance system is a black hole, a time-waster, and a deterrent to complaining at all. It’s a long and winding maze of rules and technicalities that must be cleared before an incarcerated person can get their complaint to a setting that might actually force a change: the courts.
As we explain in our report, Cut-rate Care, prison healthcare often functions in a similar way, denying and delaying care until the incarcerated person either (1) becomes so frustrated that they give up, (2) pursues their complaint all the way to an improbable success in the courts, or (3) is released or dies. With nearly 100% of medical grievances rejected or denied, it’s hard not to see the federal grievance system as a process designed to block or discourage complaints and lawsuits rather than a meaningful path for relief, protection, or accountability.
At minimum, prison grievance systems should be operated independently, not run by prison administrators,6 and incarcerated individuals’ complaints should carry more weight, be easier to file, and lead to more meaningful and rapidly-delivered relief than they currently do.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP)’s Administrative Remedy Program “allow[s] an inmate to seek formal review of an issue relating to any aspect of his/her own confinement.” BOP tracks those complaints through SENTRY, the agency’s “primary mission support database.”
In October 2022, the Data Liberation Project filed a request to BOP, seeking a copy of all database records stored in SENTRY’s “Administrative Remedy System module.” Through a series of phone calls and emails, BOP indicated that the agency did not have the capacity to export the complete set of requested records, but was able to export a substantial subset of data-points for each case. BOP provided those records to the Data Liberation Project on June 10, 2024.
The raw dataset contains 1,783,999 complaint and appeal filings covering the time period between January 2000 and May 2024. It contains grievances about a range of issues, such as living conditions and work arrangements, in addition to the medical complaints we analyzed.
The dataset provided by the Bureau of Prisons is best understood as a snapshot of case statuses at the time the data were pulled to fulfill the Data Liberation Project’s request. Grievances moving through the federal system are fluid and subject to change. The dataset only provides the most recent status for each case, which eliminates many duplicate records but also prevents us from seeing a historical view of how cases made their journey through the system. Furthermore, some cases may be incompletely represented — for example, if a case’s initial filing(s) were submitted prior to the start date of the dataset and later appealed, only the appeal would appear in the dataset.
Additionally, a given complaint can have multiple entries in the dataset, for example when someone’s case is rejected on a technicality and must be resubmitted. To analyze the data, we deduplicated these cases to isolate entries with the most recent case status update and narrowed the time series to between the years 2014 and 2024.
The data are organized on two levels:
Primary subjects are the general topic (for example, Dental Care).
Secondary subjects are a narrower subset of the primary subject (for example, Dental appliances).
We tabulated the number of cases for each primary and secondary subject and their statuses. There are five case statuses:
Accepted: Grievance was properly filed and will move toward resolution.
Rejected: Grievance was improperly filed or the process was not properly exhausted at lower levels; it’s rejected without consideration of the merits.
Closed – Denied: Requested relief was denied on the merits.
Closed – Granted: Requested relief was granted on the merits.
Closed – Other: The case was closed on appeal.
In addition to case subject categories and statuses, the dataset provides “reason codes” that provide the Bureau of Prisons’ reasoning for particular statuses. Each case can have up to five reason codes. Some entries had blank fields for their reason codes, while others had codes that were too opaque to be meaningful (for example, “see remarks,” “information/explanation only,” and “resubmit appeal”). For our analysis, we aggregated all reason codes across cases and discarded these vague codes to isolate only those that shed some light on the reasoning behind particular decisions.
Appendix C: Reasons given for rejecting federal medical grievances (2014–2024)
Reason for rejection
Number of times reason appeared
Percent of all reasons given
Request or appeal denied substantially in full.
18,295
24%
You did not attempt informal resolution prior to submission of administrative remedy, or you did not provide the necessary evidence of your attempt at informal resolution.
6,926
9%
You did not provide a copy of your institution administrative remedy request (BP-9), or a receipt, or you did not provide a verified photocopy.
5,795
8%
You must first file a BP-9 request through the institution for the warden’s review and response before filing an appeal at this level.
4,457
6%
Withdrawn at inmate’s request.
4,444
6%
You submitted your request or appeal to the wrong level or wrong office.
3,749
5%
Concur with rationale of regional office and/or institution for rejection. Follow directions provided on prior rejection notices.
2,599
3%
Your appeal is untimely. Regional appeals must be received within 20 days of the warden’s or CCM’s response. This time limit includes mail time.
2,479
3%
Your request is untimely. Institution and CCC requests must be received within 20 days of the event complained about.
2,359
3%
All four pages of your (BP-9) (BP-10) (BP-11) form must be legible and worded the same. Photocopies of the form will not be accepted.
2,305
3%
The issue you raise is not a sensitive issue. Your request/appeal is not being returned to you in accordance with policy.
2,131
3%
You may only submit up to one letter-size (8 1/2″ x 11″) continuation page.
2,026
3%
Provide staff verification stating reason untimely filing was not your fault.
1,999
3%
You must provide more specific information about your request/appeal so that it may be considered.
1,984
3%
You did not submit your request or appeal on the proper form (BP-9, BP-10, BP-11).
1,790
2%
You did not sign your request or appeal.
1,610
2%
You are appealing more than one incident report (incident number) on a single appeal form. You must file a separate appeal for each incident report (incident number) you wish to appeal.
1,369
2%
You did not submit the proper number of continuation pages. You must submit one copy at the warden’s level; two copies at the regional director’s level; and three copies at the central office level.
1,303
2%
You did not submit your request through your counselor, or other authorized person.
1,227
2%
You did not provide a copy of the regional appeal, or a receipt, or you did not provide a verified photocopy.
1,166
2%
Tequest or appeal denied as repetitive of previous filing.
931
1%
You did not submit a complete set (4 carbonized copies) of the request or appeal form.
902
1%
Request or appeal granted substantially in full.
859
1%
You did not submit the correct number of copies of the attachments (new documentation not considered by lower levels). 2 at institution; 3 at region; and 4 at central office.
612
1%
Your appeal is untimely. Central office appeals must be received within 30 days of the regional director’s response. This time limit includes mail time.
598
1%
Request or appeal partially granted.
537
1%
Your appeal of the rejection is untimely. Resubmissions are due within: 5 days (institution); 10 days (CCM or regional office); 15 days (central office). Submit staff memo on BOP letterhead stating reason untimely filing wasn’t your fault.
407
1%
Your issue is not appealable to the BOP. You must use the grievance procedures at your facility.
374
0%
Other
342
0%
Request or appeal is moot.
138
0%
You did not provide a copy of the attachment(s) to your institution administrative remedy request (BP-9).
115
0%
Your request contains gratuitous obscene or abusive language.
101
0%
Due to your allegations, your appeal is being forwarded to another department for review; however, your appeal was retained in accordance with policy.
79
0%
You may request staff assistance in preparing your request or appeal in english.
38
0%
Request or appeal previously granted.
14
0%
You did not provide a copy of the DHO report; or you did not otherwise identify the charges and date of the DHO action you are appealing.
14
0%
You did not provide a copy of the attachment(s) to your regional appeal.
In the federal system, the timeframes for incarcerated peoples’ filings and appeals are as follows:
Initial filing: 20 days from incident
Regional appeal: 20 days from warden’s response
Central office appeal: 20 days from regional response
There is one exception in the federal system, which is sexual abuse. According to policy, grievances pertaining to such conduct can be filed at any time after it occurs (though other time limits remain in place). ↩
See the appendices for a full accounting of federal medical grievances ↩
It’s important to note that these figures are specific to the moment the data was pulled by the Bureau of Prisons on behalf of the Data Liberation Project. Given the fluid nature of prison grievance systems, a specific complaint can have different statuses at different points in time. For example, a medical grievance could initially have a status of “rejected” due to a paperwork issue, but later have a status of “approved” once the complainant updated and refiled their grievance. This is what we mean when we say the data provided is only a “snapshot” — our analysis reflects case statuses as they were captured at the moment the federal Bureau of Prisons exported their database. See the methodology for more information. ↩
Unlike many other prison systems, the BOP does allow third party support in the preparation of grievances. ↩
See Appendix C for a full accounting of reason codes for rejecting federal medical grievances. ↩
In the federal system, the grievance system is operated by prison administrators at various levels. Grievance systems in state prisons, however, are operated in a variety of ways. In New York, for example, grievances are reviewed by a committee that includes incarcerated people and staff. Regardless, having people who work for the prison judge complaints against other people who work for the prison is a conflict of interest. ↩
On March 18, 2026, the Prison Policy Initiative submitted written testimony in the Connecticut Legislature in support of SB 503, “An Act concerning the sentencing of and parole eligibility for individuals whose offense was committed when such individual was under the age of twenty-six years.”
This bill extends important parole eligibility and sentencing provisions that apply to people who were under 21 at the time of their offense to people who were under 26, reflecting scientific research that shows that brain development continues during people’s early 20s.
If you are a criminal legal system reform advocate or legislator who would like to talk to our Advocacy department about providing testimony for a bill, please reach out to us using our contact form.
Prison Policy Initiative is excited to announce that Alpha Jalloh will join us as our first Creator-in-Residence.
With more Americans turning to social video content for their news and information, the Prison Policy Initiative created this residency to empower and support creators producing videos that expose the harms of the carceral system. For the next four months, Alpha will produce videos that break down complex problems in the U.S. criminal legal system, with the Prison Policy Initiative providing data and research support.
Alpha is a filmmaker, educator, and policy-focused storyteller whose work explores incarceration, surveillance, and structural inequality. Formerly incarcerated, he is an alumnus of the Yale Prison Education Initiative and now a double major in Political Science and American Studies at Yale University, Class of 2029, while serving as president of the Yale Undergraduate Prison Project. Previously, he was a Justice Through Code Fellow at Columbia University and an Education Fellow with the Bard Prison Initiative, and he worked as a career specialist at a New Haven nonprofit supporting people navigating reentry and employment.
Videos will be published as collaborative posts on both his and the Prison Policy Initiative social media accounts. Be sure to follow Alpha on Instagram and TikTok. And also follow Prison Policy Initiative on Instagram and TikTok.
SB 497 would change Connecticut law to allow people on probation to access Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits even if they have a probation violation.
On March 17, 2026, the Prison Policy Initiative submitted written testimony in the Connecticut Legislature in support of SB 497, “An Act Protecting Food Security for Veterans and Others and Mitigating Federal Cuts to Nutritional Assistance”. In particular, our testimony focused on improving a section of Connecticut law that denies Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to people who have probation violations.
This bill removes the requirement that someone be “satisfactorily” serving a sentence of probation in order to receive nutrition assistance. It also requires that SNAP application forms to remove references to probation violations, so that people are not deterred from applying for benefits because they are afraid their probation status will exclude them.
If you are a criminal legal system reform advocate or legislator who would like to talk to our Advocacy department about providing testimony for a bill, please reach out to us using our contact form.
The increase in the number of people behind bars since last year's report is almost entirely attributable to immigration enforcement.
March 11, 2026
The number of people held in ICE detention on any given day grew 58% between 2025 and 2026, increasing the total number of people behind bars in the U.S., a new report shows. The latest edition of the Prison Policy Initiative’s report Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie — which pieces together the most recent data on different confinement systems to provide the big-picture view of incarceration in this country — shows that the rise in immigration detention has driven up overall incarceration numbers.
Key findings from this year’s report include:
Across all federal agencies for which data are available, including the federal Bureau of Prisons, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Office of Refugee Resettlement (which holds unaccompanied migrant children), the number of people behind bars for immigration reasons increased 32% since last year.
The number of people detained by ICE grew by 25,200 (58%) since last year, remaining near record-high levels.
In 2024 (the most recent year for which data are available), people held under local jurisdiction in city, county, and regional jails fell by 17,000.
Nearly 10,000 fewer people were incarcerated for federal crimes in 2026 compared to 2025, reflecting changes in federal law enforcement priorities and clemency actions under the second Trump administration.
“Even as we see the number of people in prisons and jails hold relatively steady, immigration detention has exploded,” said report co-author Wendy Sawyer. “What’s more, the number of facilities holding people for ICE grew by 65 percent in the last year. President Trump’s cruel and wasteful policies of mass detention are not only driving up the number of incarcerated people; they are expanding the carceral landscape in this country.”
As in every edition of this report, 2026’s Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie includes sections putting incarceration numbers in important context:
A “myth-busting” section addressing ten common misconceptions about mass incarceration and crime, including the impacts of immigration and criminal justice reform on crime and the footprint of the “war on drugs”;
Sections taking a closer look at specific sections of the “pie” chart, and explaining how even low-level offenses can spiral into time spent behind bars;
A section “zooming out” to show that when systems of community-based punishment — mainly, probation and parole — are included, the total number of people under correctional control grows to over 5 million.
Insights about the fiscal costs of mass incarceration, which now total $445 billion per year.
Bills in Congress that repeal bail reform, worsen mandatory minimums, and further criminalize youth threaten to undo decades of criminal legal system reform in D.C.
Because it is not a state, Washington D.C.’s criminal legal system operates in a uniquely vulnerable situation. Although historically, D.C. has largely developed and enforced its own laws regarding pretrial practices and sentencing, the federal government retains the ultimate statutory authority to change D.C.’s laws unilaterally, without the input of the people who live there. Recently, about a dozen bills targeting D.C.’s justice system have moved through federal House committees, and several have passed the House. These bills seek to undo decades of successful reform in D.C. and return its justice system to failed 90s-style tough on crime policies that are widely disfavored by D.C. residents.
Federal officials target D.C.’s criminal legal system because for the most part, they don’t have the ability to set local criminal justice policy in states. As the Trump administration and conservatives in Congress seek to turn back the clock on decades of successful criminal legal system reform, D.C. provides a window into which parts of the system are likely to be targeted by conservative forces in the future, including in state legislatures where these kinds of policy changes could impact millions of people.
In this piece, we’ll examine three of the efforts to change D.C.’s criminal legal system: threats to bail reform, reinstatement of mandatory minimums, and efforts to treat more youth as adults. We also take a look at similar efforts in various state legislatures to roll back reforms. The collective impact of these proposed policy changes would be to expand jail and prison populations, along with racial disparities, without any public safety benefit.
Pretrial practices: returning to an ineffective cash bail system
The “District of Columbia Cash Bail Reform Act of 2025” (or HR 5214) would undo one of the most successful and unusual aspects of D.C.’s criminal legal system: the fact that it does not use cash bail. D.C. virtually eliminated the use of cash bail in an overhaul of its criminal system in 1992. Since then, it has replaced cash bail with a risk-based detention system, in which a pretrial services agency assesses a person’s risk level and makes a recommendation regarding release to a judge, who then decides if the person should be released pretrial. HR 5214 would require mandatory pretrial detention for certain crimes, and would require the use of cash bail for others — most notably for various “public safety or order crimes” often associated with protest arrests, like obstruction of justice, rioting, and destruction of property.
D.C.’s current risk-based pretrial system is atypical but successful. Similar systems are in place in the federal courts and New Jersey, which also rarely use cash bail, and Illinois has completely eliminated cash from its pretrial system. In fiscal year 2025, 89% of people charged with crimes were released without cash bail (the remainder were mostly held in D.C.’s jail without the ability to pay to be released). Of the people released, 88% were not re-arrested during their pretrial period and 88% attended all their court dates. Only 0.5% of people were re-arrested for a violent crime. These outcomes hold true even when people charged with violent crimes are released; in 2025, only 9 people initially released for a violent crime were then re-arrested for a new violent crime while on pretrial release.
The federal government has no power to force states and municipalities to use cash bail the way it can in D.C. However, state legislatures around the country have shown a willingness to entrench the failed system of cash bail into their criminal legal systems. Ohio and Wisconsin have both enshrined the use of cash bail in their state constitutions in recent years, despite the lack of evidence that cash bail does anything to ensure public safety. And around the country, states have attacked charitable bail funds, making it harder for poor people to pay cash bonds.
The “Strong Sentences for Safer D.C. Streets Act of 2025” (or HR 5172) would impose a range of mandatory sentences that had previously been removed from D.C.’s criminal legal system. It would require mandatory life without parole sentences for first degree murder, and would remove a provision of D.C. law that prohibits the use of life without parole sentences for juveniles. It also establishes mandatory minimums of at least seven years for a range of serious charges. D.C. already has harsh sentencing structures, and 1 in 5 sentences imposed in D.C. is a mandatory minimum.
More than 30 years of evidence has shown that mandatory minimums do not improve public safety. They fail to reduce crime, gun possession, drug use, or overdoses. They also intensify racial disparities. Mandatory minimum sentences remove a judge’s discretion to consider the individual facts and circumstances of each crime when setting a sentence. By doing so, they place more power in the hands of prosecutors, who can make initial charging decisions that carry mandatory minimums, coercing accused people into pleading guilty. This power imbalance has been shown to result in longer sentences for Black people because they are more likely than white people to be charged with mandatory minimum crimes.
Although efforts around the country to reinstate or extend mandatory minimums are being challenged by organizations like Families Against Mandatory Minimums, some states have recently passed sentencing reforms that have the same effect, requiring that people spend longer in prison. Arkansas, Louisiana, and Tennessee have all enacted punitive “truth in sentencing” laws that are projected to massively grow their prison populations and likely require billions in new spending. Louisiana did so in conjunction with ending parole for most people, vastly extending the amount of time people are likely to spend in prison in the state.
Advocates facing efforts to lengthen sentences are sometimes in a difficult position because the crimes being targeted for longer sentences are often particularly heinous. But they can remind lawmakers that mandatory minimums don’t work, and that they also create a massive waste of government resources imprisoning people who judges did not want to sentence to such long sentences. “Fiscal notes” — analyses of potential criminal legal reform bills’ monetary impact, usually conducted by legislative analysts within the government — regularly conclude that efforts to expand mandatory minimums cost millions. In addition, victims of crime by and large do not support long sentences: a nationwide survey of crime survivors conducted by the Alliance for Safety and Justice found that only 16% agreed with the statement, “When there are longer prison sentences, crime goes down.”
Ignoring science and common sense: treating youth as adults
Crime committed by children and youth is at historic lows in D.C. and elsewhere in the country. Nonetheless, the U.S. House and Senate have advanced a set of three bills that would harshen penalties for youth in D.C., treating more of them as adults:
HR 5140 would “lower the age” that a minor may be tried as an adult, from 15 or 16 for serious cases to 14 years of age.
S 2815 would repeal D.C.’s youth-focused “Second Look” provision, which allows reconsideration of sentences for people who committed crimes before age 25 after they have been in prison for 15 years.
HR 4922 would remove requirements to consider alternatives to incarceration, consider youth brain development in sentencing, and seal records for people between 18 and 24 years old.
Jeanine Pirro, a close Trump ally and the current U.S. Attorney for D.C., defended these laws, claiming, “I know evil when I see it, no matter the age.” This language harkens back to damaging “super predator” rhetoric from the 1990s, which falsely painted the picture of youth — particularly Black youth — who were irredeemably evil or callous toward human life.
These depictions of youth who commit crime are no more true now than they were three decades ago. On the contrary, both common sense and neuroscience show that brain immaturity is the primary driver of delinquent behavior; as people age and their brains mature, their likelihood of committing crime declines. Most youth (63%) who enter the justice system for delinquency never return to court on delinquency charges. Even among youth charged with serious crimes, research shows that only 9% continued to commit serious offenses over the next three years. Incarceration creates a roadblock to outgrowing delinquency, holding youth back from maturing psychologically and making it more likely that children will be rearrested in the future.
The efforts to roll back D.C.’s youth-focused reforms are not unique. Despite youth crime being at all-time lows, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry called a special legislative session to deal with “out of control” youth crime. It resulted in the repeal of Louisiana’s 2019 “raise the age” law, essentially reverting to the state’s previous practice of treating all 17 year olds as adults, regardless of how minor their charges were. North Carolina also repealed its “raise the age” law and now treats all 16 year olds as adults, despite state-sponsored reports that found that raising the age had not raised recidivism rates.
What is happening in D.C. is relevant to the whole country. Even as state criminal legal systems stay relatively insulated from the policy directives of the Trump administration, the situation in D.C. can give state-level advocates some sobering clues about the full scope of the conservative agenda to roll back decades of successful criminal legal system reforms. We hope that advocates will put pressure on their own congresspeople and senators to resist these harmful changes.
Making sure people have food to eat is one of the most important ways to support them when they’re on probation. But there is a legislative patchwork across the U.S. that prevents and deters people on probation from receiving vital federal food assistance, known as SNAP benefits.1 This patchwork means that some people on probation in some states can’t afford to purchase basic foods, with serious consequences for their health, their family’s health, and their ability to comply with their conditions of probation. We analyzed state SNAP laws and applications in all 50 states and found that 39 states have some kind of probation violation-related disqualifications for SNAP benefits. This includes states that explicitly ban people with probation violations from participating in the program, as well as states that discourage eligible people from applying by adding irrelevant questions about probation to their SNAP application.
These variations in SNAP eligibility arose because the federal law that created the program disqualifies people with certain drug convictions from receiving benefits. Under the law, states can opt out of these federal eligibility rules and allow people who have convictions to access SNAP.2 However, many states have chosen a misguided middle path, maintaining a carve-out that denies benefits to some people on probation. The most common of these disqualifications is for people with “probation violations.”3 These disqualifications have two negative effects: first, they directly disqualify people who have a probation violation, and second, they indirectly discourage many more eligible people from even applying.
In this briefing, we highlight restrictions on SNAP benefits for people with probation violations, their impact, and how advocates are pushing back. First, we explain the scope of the impact — the country’s rampant use of probation, its overlap with high levels of poverty and food insecurity, and how states differ in expanding or limiting SNAP access with policies related to probation violations. Then, we show how increasing SNAP access to people on probation will improve public safety. Finally, we dive into the legal framework and present several possible solutions, highlighting how advocates are working to expand access to SNAP in Connecticut. We also include a state-by-state appendix of probation violation-related SNAP disqualifications.
Millions of people on probation are affected by SNAP restrictions
Food insecurity is rampant in the U.S.; 41.7 million people — nearly 1 in 8 Americans — receive SNAP benefits. Meanwhile, the number of people on probation in the United States (2.9 million) is even bigger than the total number of people behind bars.
Many people on probation depend on SNAP to feed themselves and their families, and they face questions on their SNAP applications about whether they are on probation and whether they have any violations. In many states, people with probation violations are disqualified from SNAP. However, because these applications often threaten harsh consequences for misrepresentations or mistakes,4 simply asking about probation violations has a chilling effect on all people on probation, likely keeping people from applying even when they are eligible.
This chilling effect has a broad impact on the probation population because so many people who are on probation are also poor. Over half of people on probation earn under $20,000 per year, which is below the SNAP income eligibility cap of $22,352. A breakdown by race and gender reveals stark differences in people’s access to even that meager income: For example, 70% of all women, and 81% of Black women on probation in particular, make less than $20,000 a year. In other words, limiting access to SNAP has a disproportionate impact on women on probation.5
States are split on whether a probation violation actually disqualifies someone from receiving SNAP benefits. For our analysis, we grouped states into two general categories: those that have probation-related roadblocks for SNAP eligibility, and those that don’t. We found that:
11 states don’t have any probation-related disqualifications.
39 states have or threaten probation-related disqualifications. Of those 39 states:
21 states have a statutory disqualification for people on probation, either through a partial opt-out from the federal drug offense disqualifications or by separately adding disqualifications for probation violations.
18 states don’t have any statutory probation violation disqualifications, but ask about probation violations on their SNAP application anyway — even though the answer is irrelevant to eligibility.
Some of the states with the highest rates of people on probation — including Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Minnesota, and New Jersey — either bar people with probation violations from accessing SNAP entirely or at least ask about probation violations on their applications.
The confusing federal definition of ‘probation violator’ creates additional problems
A “probation violation” may seem straightforward but the states and federal regulations ascribe very different meanings to the term.
A “probation violation” may seem straightforward but the states and federal regulations ascribe very different meanings to the term.
Separate from provisions that disqualify people with drug-related offenses from SNAP eligibility, federal regulations do mention “probation or parole violators” as a category of people who are disqualified from SNAP (7 CFR § 273.11(n)(2)-(3)). This could be why state agencies that administer SNAP believe it is necessary to ask about probation violations. However, reading the full language of the regulations, it’s clear that the terms “probation and parole violators” are defined very narrowly.
Federal SNAP regulations define a “probation violator” as someone who has a warrant for their arrest as a result of the violation or because they are actively fleeing law enforcement. Obviously, most people would read the phrase “probation violator” as broader than just people “actively fleeing” law enforcement or having a warrant. This means there is ample room for states to reform their laws to allow the vast majority of people on probation to access SNAP. To be clear, the only people who are currently required to be excluded under the federal regulations are people actively on the run from law enforcement.
We found 18 states that ask about probation violations on their SNAP applications, even though the answer is irrelevant to their eligibility criteria based on the state’s statutory language.6 Virginia, for example, got rid of their probation violation disqualifications in 2020, but still asks about the violations on its SNAP application, even after revising the form for other purposes in 2022. The Virginia situation exemplifies that reform cannot stop at legislative change, but must actively involve the implementing agencies to create updated forms in a timely manner.
If a state-level department in charge of administering SNAP indicates that they will be keeping mentions of probation violation because of the federal disqualification of “probation violators,” then we recommend that the question use the specific federal definition of the term, rather than just vaguely referring to “probation violations” as a whole. Arkansas serves as a good model for this type of transparent approach; their form asks whether the applicant is “fleeing from felony prosecution, outstanding felony warrant, or jail.”
Combatting food insecurity is key to public safety
Ostensibly, the purpose of probation is to help people become successful members of society, and food security is a key component of this goal. Food security lowers crime rates and reduces recidivism, leading to improved public safety, all while spending fewer taxpayer dollars on incarceration.
Food insecurity is likely rampant among people on probation. Although there are no studies that specifically look at the number of people on probation who experience food insecurity, studies have been conducted regarding formerly incarcerated people. Twenty percent of formerly incarcerated people report suffering from food insecurity — double that of the general population — with even higher rates among women and Black people. While we don’t have food insecurity data specifically on children of people on probation, we know that they are more likely to experience food insecurity than children of non-incarcerated parents. Over a quarter of people on probation are parents living with their children, so ensuring SNAP access for their households means fewer children going hungry.
Furthermore, meeting people’s basic needs reduces crime.One study found food security was linked to increased neighborhood safety and social cohesion, and lower violent crime rates. Studies have also linked lower rates of recidivism directly to SNAP access, explaining that “[b]locking the formerly incarcerated from basic nutrition assistance […] leaves them more vulnerable to food insecurity and may put them at risk of returning to illicit activity to meet their basic needs. Some research suggests that full eligibility for SNAP may significantly reduce the risk of recidivism for newly released people with drug offense convictions.”
When governments ensure that people have food, it not only reduces crime but makes it easier for people to meet their probation requirements in the first place, and thus avoid incarceration for probation violations. Indirectly, having access to adequate food makes it easier to succeed at work or school, which are standard conditions of probation. More directly, having supplemental income for food helps people to meet the financial obligations of probation, such as fines, fees, restitution, and monthly supervision fees.7
Reforming SNAP eligibility in Connecticut and beyond
Ensuring food security through SNAP is so impactful that advocates in Connecticut are fighting for change. The state has over 32,000 people on probation, but limits their eligibility and access to SNAP benefits.
Connecticut has chosen to opt-out of the federal SNAP disqualifications for people convicted of drug offenses, but the state preserves a few carve-outs nonetheless. One such caveat is that Connecticut requires that people on probation be “satisfactorily serving” their sentence in order to be eligible for SNAP benefits.
In applying this law, Connecticut’s application for SNAP benefits asks:
“Do you or any member of your household have a probation or parole violation?”
The form leaves no room for nuance; the only answer options are checkboxes for “Yes” or “No.” Yet neither the Instructions (W-1EINST) nor the Rights & Responsibilities pages (W-0016RR) in the SNAP application packet provide any guidance on what constitutes a “probation violation” for the purposes of the form. The vagueness of the form, and the severe penalties for getting the answer wrong lead many people who are eligible for SNAP not to risk applying.
Chicks Ahoy Farm, a Connecticut nonprofit that focuses on increasing the number of women and BILPOC farmers in Connecticut, is working to fix this. The organization works to strengthen youth and families’ access to farming, agriculture, conservation, and environmental stewardship, while fixing the state’s broken social safety net. Their member-led community organizing group, Cultivating Justice, is leading the F.R.E.E. CT campaign, which works at the intersection of food justice and criminal justice to dismantle barriers in Connecticut’s social safety net that impede successful community reentry for justice system-impacted individuals. Their current campaign is focused on reforming probation to limit the impact of technical violations and ensure SNAP access. The easiest way to restore SNAP access for people on probation is to change the current statutory language governing SNAP eligibility. In Connecticut, the current statute requires that people on probation are “satisfactorily serving” their sentence in order to be eligible for SNAP benefits. Fixing this problem requires deleting a single word:
“A person convicted of any offense under federal or state law, on or after August 22, 1996, which (1) is classified as a felony, and (2) has as an element the possession, use or distribution of a controlled substance, as defined in Subsection (6) of 21 USC 802, shall be eligible for benefits pursuant to the temporary assistance for needy families program or the supplemental nutrition assistance program pursuant to the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, if such person has completed a sentence imposed by a court. A person shall also be eligible for said benefits if such person is satisfactorily serving a sentence of a period of probation or is in the process of completing or has completed a sentence imposed by the court of mandatory participation in a substance abuse treatment program or mandatory participation in a substance abuse testing program.”
A more expansive option available to states is simply opting out entirely of federal disqualifications linked to drug offenses. States can exercise the federally-permitted opt-out provision, as Delaware does:
Pursuant to the option granted the State by 21 U.S.C. § 862a(d)(1), an individual convicted under federal or state law of a felony involving possession, distribution or use of a controlled substance shall be exempt from the prohibition contained in 21 U.S.C. § 862a(a) against eligibility for food stamp program benefits for such convictions.
In addition to these legislative changes, we recommend that advocates be vigilant in working with the state agency responsible for administering SNAP in the state. Even if the law changes to remove probation disqualifications or totally opt the state out of the drug conviction disqualifications, the state may still continue to ask the question on their forms, either because they are unaware of the law change or because they believe that federal regulations require them to do so. But because the question itself is a deterrent to applying for SNAP, it’s important that the application form is updated quickly and accurately to reflect the law.
States need to follow sound policy and create clear, straightforward laws that ensure that people on probation have access to SNAP. Expanding SNAP access to people regardless of probation-related violations will improve public safety and improve the lives of people on probation and their families. Solving the problem is an easy legislative fix — and in some cases, simply an administrative one. States across the country should follow the lead of the 11 states that ensure access to SNAP regardless of conviction or probation violation status.
Footnotes
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is a state-administered federal program that provides food assistance to people with low incomes, and used to be known as “food stamps.” ↩
The federal law which sets out the rules for SNAP disqualifies people who have certain drug convictions (21 USC §862a(a)). However, it also allows states to opt out of those provisions (21 USC §862a(d)(1)(A)). ↩
“Probation violations” may seem like a straightforward term but is in fact ill-defined, with often conflicting definitions between state and federal law. For more information, see our sidebar:. ↩
Connecticut’s SNAP application, Form W1-E requires signature attesting that: “The information I am giving is true and complete to the best of my knowledge, including all information about citizenship, alien and felon status” and “I could go to prison or be required to pay fines if I knowingly give wrong or incomplete information…” ↩
Further adding to the problem, some states have combined applications that ask about probation or parole violations because it’s a disqualifying factor for one of the other assistance programs that use the same form. Some states flag which questions pertain to which program, but others don’t, creating a chilling effect on SNAP applications. Solving this problem would be as easy as allowing applicants to skip questions that are irrelevant to the particular program they’re applying for. For example, Minnesota’s combined application actually flags some questions as “SNAP only,” but then asks about probation violations generally even though they are grounds to disqualify from other assistance programs, but not SNAP. Minnesota could easily add such a flag to limit the probation violation question to the relevant program. ↩
On February 23, 2026, the Prison Policy Initiative submitted written and oral testimony in the Maryland Legislature in support of HB 1575/SB 791, “The Community Trust Act.”
This bill stops Maryland law enforcement officials from collaborating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) through informal arrangements like alerting ICE that a certain person is in custody or allowing ICE access to local jails. Although Maryland has already banned formal agreements with ICE (called 287(g) agreements), the Prison Policy Initiative’s research showed that most Maryland ICE arrests that took place in local jails were the result of the informal collaboration that this bill would halt. This testimony builds on our research into collaboration with ICE around the country.
If you are a criminal legal system reform advocate or legislator who would like to talk to our Advocacy department about providing testimony for a bill, please reach out to us using our contact form.
