Jail populations have increased steadily over the first half of this year. In the sample of 822 jail rosters below from the Jail Data Initiative, from less than 245,000 at the beginning of 2025 to over 255,000 at the end of May.

If you're a journalist who wants to learn more about jail data and deaths in custody, register for our conversation with @themarshallproject.org's @brittanyhailer.bsky.social and Anna Flagg www.themarshallproject.org/events/for-j...

Unhoused people face a litany of unfair criminal charges simply because they’re unhoused – usually for actions they take when just trying to survive. Clearly, the solution to homelessness is not more criminalization. No one should be punished for not having a place to stay.

New reporting from @prisonpolicy.bsky.social using Public Safety Lab Jail Data Initiative data 🔽 "...the Jail Data Initiative data provide the best and most recent look at our national reliance on jails for addressing the ongoing crisis of homelessness."

In 2023, about 4.5% of jail bookings were unhoused people. This translates to about 205,000 different unhoused people going to jails each year nationwide — nearly one-third of the number of people experiencing homelessness on any given night in 2023.

Compared to the general population, unhoused people are held in jail for 3.5x as long, despite typically being charged with the lowest level crimes It’s safe to assume that unaffordable cash bail is to blame. No one should have to stay behind bars because they can't afford bail

Check out this thorough journalists' toolkit for reporting on deaths in county jails, courtesy of @brittanyhailer.bsky.social for @themarshallproject.org ⤵️ And if you want to see if your jail is included in the Public Safety Lab's Jail Data Initiative bookings database ⤵️ jaildatainitiative.org

📈 Today's factoid available only because of the real-time web scraping of the Jail Data Initiative: Jail populations reach local minima on Christmas (Dec 25th). After collecting data for 5 full years, the Christmas Day population was higher in 2024 than it has been in any other year we've seen.

If you have any interest in US jail populations, I suggest spending some time with the Jail Data Initiative's filters for overall jail population trends.

Self-serving politicians may want you to believe that violent crime is rampant and repeat offenders are to blame – but two things to remember: 1. Overall crime rates are at historically low levels 2. 74% of all jail bookings are for charges that are not "violent"

In our recent collaboration with the Prison Policy Initiative, we quantify a few of the mechanisms of disproportionality racism in the criminal justice system 📊 Check out the Public Safety Lab's Jail Data Initiative to learn more: jaildatainitiative.org

Data shows that more than 40% of unhoused people booked into jail were booked again within the year The data is clear: poor people are a primary target for policing, especially those forced to live on the streets www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2024/11...

More than 1 in 5 people are jailed multiple times a year There is no "safe" way to jail a person – even a single day in jail has devastating effects. And people who are jailed multiple times a year inevitably face exacerbated consequences of incarceration: www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2024/11...

The Public Safety Lab's Jail Data Initiative dataset "fills a serious gap in our knowledge about the demographics and charges of people booked into jails, given that comparable data has not been collected or published from the Bureau of Justice Statistics in over twenty years." 📊

"The Jail Data Initiative offers a sorely-needed alternative source of information about jail admissions and about people who are jailed repeatedly." Check out the first reporting from our collaboration with the Prison Policy Initiative ⤵️