"More Community, Less Confinement: A State-by-State Analysis on How Supervision Violations Impacted Prison Populations During the Pandemic"

The title of this post is the title of a great new analysis by the Council of State Governments Justice Center looking at prison populations as impacted by the pandemic and reactions thereto.  This press release provides this overview (and helpful links at the end):

State prison populations shrank by an unprecedented 14 percent in 2020 due to changes spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to new data released today by The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center.  The study, More Community, Less Confinement, was conducted in partnership with the Correctional Leaders Association (CLA) and with support from Arnold Ventures.
 
Despite the decline in total prison population, supervision violations still drive a substantial share of new admissions — accounting for 42 percent of prison admissions in 2020. This included roughly 98,000 people admitted to prison for technical violations, such as missed curfews or failed drug tests.  The share of the population in prison for supervision violations was 20 percent in 2020, down slightly from 23 percent in 2018.
 
“As these data underscore, during the COVID-19 pandemic, probation and parole agencies made significant changes to the way they do business. These changes protected the health and safety of people in the justice system, including corrections staff,” said Megan Quattlebaum, director of the CSG Justice Center.  “Now, we have a unique and important opportunity to explore which of these policy changes should be retained to maximize success for people serving on community supervision.  Each of the 98,000 people admitted to prison—not for new crimes, but for violating the conditions of their probation or parole — represents 98,000 opportunities to improve public safety while saving states money. When people on probation and parole succeed, it is a win-win-win for them, their communities, and all taxpayers.”
 
In response to the threat of COVID-19, many parts of the criminal justice system halted operations to reduce in-person contact and prevent the spread of the virus.  The CSG Justice Center surveyed corrections leaders in all 50 states to understand the impact of community supervision on state prison populations. The resulting data span 3 years — from 2018 to 2020 — and uncover how the number of people sent to prison for supervision violations changed during and prior to the pandemic. 
 
While some states released people from prisons early to help reduce spread of the virus, the population decline in state prisons was largely driven by a drop in the number of people being admitted to prisons.  Roughly 200,000 fewer people were admitted to prison in 2020 due to changes in offending behaviors, local law enforcement, community supervision, and court operations....
  
Overall, there were roughly 167,000 fewer people in state prisons in 2020. One-third of the total drop (57,000 people) was due to fewer people sitting in prison for supervision violations. In addition, about 73,000 fewer people entered prison for supervision violations in 2020 — a 30 percent drop in a single year.  The cumulative result over this 3-year data collection effort showed that there were 31 percent fewer people in prison for technical supervision violations and 18 percent fewer people in prison for new offense violations, while all other populations (primarily new court commitments) dropped just 12 percent....
 
Learn more:

• Report title: More Community, Less Confinement: A State-by-State Analysis on How Supervision Violations Impacted Prison Populations During the Pandemic
• URL: https://csgjusticecenter.org/publications/more-community-less-confinement/
• What’s included:
  • National Report
  • 50-State Data Reports: View your state’s data
  • Methodology