Lowering Jail Populations Safely Before, During, and After COVID. Updated Findings on Jail Reform, Violent Crime, and the COVID-19 Pandemic
By Sana Khan,, Emily West and Stephanie Rosof
In recent years, cities and counties across the country have made great strides to strategically reduce jail incarceration without jeopardizing community safety. To keep this momentum going, it is critical to examine the safety implications of these jail population reform efforts. This is especially true against the backdrop of COVID-19 era increases in violent crime, with unsubstantiated hypotheses suggesting that increases in violent crime were a result of efforts to reduce jail populations and not of the major socio economic impacts of lockdowns. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) presents a unique opportunity to explore the relationships between criminal legal reform, the COVID-19 pandemic, and violent crime. Since 2015, jurisdictions participating in the SJC have planned and implemented data-driven reform strategies to both safely reduce unnecessary jail incarceration and advance equity across the criminal legal system. These jurisdictions serve as models for pursuing data-driven criminal legal system reform. The SJC allows for comparisons of jail populations and crime pre- and post-reforms; SJC timelines also provide a look at how reforms were associated with violent crime before, during, and after the pandemic. As the lead data and analytic partner for the initiative, the Institute for State and Local Governance at the City University of New York (CUNY ISLG) has been studying the community safety implications of the SJC over time. This has resulted in a series of reports exploring trends in crime, incarceration, and returns to jail custody in 16 participating cities and counties. The first two reports were issued in 2021 and 2023, covering individuals in jail through 2020. This brief presents the most up-to-date data— through April 2023—on the outcomes of individuals released from jails after SJC reforms were passed. Additionally, this brief expands on previous work by distinguishing returns to jail that involve a new alleged criminal offense and those that involve administrative reasons only, such as failing to appear in court or violating a condition of release. Findings include: • Two years out from COVID-19’s peak, there continues to be no apparent correlation between changes in incarceration and violent crime. Most individuals released from jail on pretrial status did not return to jail custody, and local violent crime rates varied regardless of changes to the jail population—suggesting that jail reduction reforms can be implemented safely. • About 80 percent of people who were released on pretrial status were either not rebooked into jail at all (75 percent) or were returned to jail for administra tive reasons (7 percent)—therefore, not a threat to public safety. • The pandemic-era increase in violent crime was not caused by jail reduction reforms; people released pretrial were very unlikely to return to jail charged with a violent crime, about 2% of indi viduals released pretrial returned with a new violent crime charge. This rate has remained consistent for almost a decade, predating reform efforts.
New York: CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance, 2024. 23p.