Michigan's jail population has nearly tripled in the last 35 years while crime has sunk to a 50-year low. The Bridge news site reports that the state's fragmented record-keeping is making it tough to pinpoint how this happened.
Nearly 750,000 people are held in U.S. jails on any given day, but only about a third have been convicted of a crime. Here's what the public thinks about jails, alternatives to detention, and more.
"We are brave enough to say: 'We can do better. We can improve the lives of people who are charged with a crime and protect public safety,'" says New Jersey judge Glenn A. Grant. Here, he addresses how to reform pretrial systems.
"Effective jail reform can simultaneously advance human dignity, public safety, fiscal restraint, and due process," concludes R Street's Lars Trautman in this overview of approaches to comprehensive jail reform.
