Category: Updates on Prisons

Updates on Prisons

First Women’s Class Graduates from California’s Sole In-Person Prison Bachelor’s Program

Davis Vanguard 

By Emily Martine 

October 9, 2025

CHINO, Calif. — On Oct. 3, 2025, in a major step toward educational equity and prison reform, 23 incarcerated women at the California Institution for Women (CIW) received bachelor’s degrees through Cal State LA’s Prison Graduation Initiative (PGI), marking the first women’s cohort to graduate from the state’s only in-person prison bachelor’s degree program.

The milestone highlights the persistent challenges and disparities in access to higher education for incarcerated women as PGI accelerates efforts to dismantle systemic barriers in the criminal justice system.

“This is the biggest accomplishment of my life,” said graduate Leticia Montoya, who served as a student speaker during the ceremony, which coincided with her 48th birthday. “I didn’t graduate high school; I got a GED. I thought that’s it for me. Higher education was never in the plan; it wasn’t valued in my household.”

Read more from the Davis Vanguard here!

Updates on Prisons

Parole in Perspective: A deep dive into discretionary parole systems

Prison Policy Initiative 

October 2025

By Leah Wang   

Parole, the release mechanism which could significantly reduce the number of people behind bars, has reached a moment of reckoning. Dysfunctional in some states and banned in others, parole looks really different from state to state. But parole is a system worth having, if states can implement it fairly and broadly.

This two-part report builds out work we started with the MacArthur Justice Center, which resulted in a “North Star” document of Parole Principles. These principles establish a vision of what our parole systems should look like, knowing that every state’s system is different and each faces different political realities.

In this two-part report, Parole in Perspective, we take a deep dive into these systems, providing the most accessible and comprehensive look at how they operate, and what can be done to make them real tools for decarceration.

  • In part 1, we examine the composition of these boards and how their hearings work.
  • In part 2, we look at parole grant rates and the decision making guidelines and realities that lead to those rates.

 

Read more from Prison Policy Initiative here. 

Updates on Prisons

States of Women’s Incarceration: The Global Context 2025

Prison Policy Initiative

September 2025

by Emily Widra and Aleks Kajstura 

The United States still incarcerates 614 people for every 100,000 residents, more than almost any other country in the world. Women in particular are incarcerated in the U.S. at a rate of 112 per 100,000. This may seem relatively minor, but it’s a scale of women’s incarceration that remains higher than that of any other country except El Salvador. Furthermore, women’s incarceration stubbornly remains at near-historic highs in the U.S., while the country’s overall incarceration rate has been falling.

This report helps make sense of these numbers, providing an updated snapshot of how women in the U.S. fare in the world’s carceral landscape and comparing incarceration rates for women in each U.S. state with the equivalent rates for countries around the world.

Read the full report from Prison Policy Initiative here.

Updates on Prisons

US Incarcerates Women at Rates Higher than Nearly Every Country, Report Reveals

Davis Vanguard 

September 24, 2025

By: Angelina Tun 

EASTHAMPTON, Mass. — A new report from the Prison Policy Initiative finds that every U.S. state incarcerates women at higher rates than nearly every country in the world, underscoring the nation’s status as a global outlier. According to the findings, “the United States remains a global outlier, with women’s incarceration reaching near-historic highs.”

The report compares women’s incarceration rates across U.S. states with independent nations. It accounts for all types of confinement, including prisons, jails, youth detention centers, tribal jails, and immigration detention facilities. Collectively, the United States represents only 4% of the world’s population of women but holds one-quarter of the women incarcerated globally.

The data shows stark contrasts between states and nations. South Dakota, which has the highest women’s incarceration rate in the U.S., surpasses every country in the world. Montana and Idaho also rank higher than any other nation. Women in Kentucky face incarceration rates nearly equivalent to those in El Salvador, “a country that has been described as an authoritarian police state.” Even New Jersey, one of the lowest-ranking U.S. states, still mirrors the United Arab Emirates, where “nonmarital sex can result in a prison sentence of six months for women.”

Read full article from The Davis Vanguard here.

 

Updates on Prisons

New Report Finds California’s Second Look Resentencing Policies Lead to Lower Recidivism, Especially for Long-Term Prisoners

September 25, 2025

By David Greenwald

  • “People resentenced and released under these policies had very low rates of new serious and violent offenses.” – Alissa Skog, researcher at the California Policy Lab

BERKELEY, CA – A new series of reports from the California Policy Lab and the Committee on Revision of the Penal Code provides the most comprehensive evidence to date on how California’s “second look” resentencing reforms have reshaped the state’s criminal legal system.

The findings show that people released under these policies have low rates of reoffending, especially those who had served long prison terms before release.

To read the full article from Davis Vanguard go here.