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ANNOUNCING: @qsideinstitute's study of #NewYorkCity jails during the early days of #COVID19. Our full report is at the link below. But here, in this thread, I'll tell an abbreviated version of this surprising story about #criminaljustice and #data. https://qsideinstitute.org/new-york-city-jails/
I am tremendously lucky to have been able to collaborate on this project with the phenomenal Eli Miller and @BryanDMartin_ .
Our story stems from events during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in #NYC, and in particular, the week of March 23 - 29, 2020.
Early in the week, Mayor Bill de Blasio ordered the release of city jail inmates who were at high risk of contracting the disease and low risk of committing criminal reoffense. https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-rikers-island-release-inmates-20200324-tugtuidoxbbbfdtjazs6vklpm4-story.html
But whom did the city decide was both at a high risk of contracting the virus and at a low risk of reoffending? What do these decisions imply about potential future reforms to the city’s incarceration policy?
Our study at @qsideinstitute answers these questions. Using public information from the NYC Open Data portal, we construct and analyze a database of nearly 350,000 incarceration episodes in the city jail system from 2014 – 2020. https://opendata.cityofnewyork.us
We have four sets of results. Some of them really surprised us and have implications for data keeping practices and for jail reform in New York City.
Results, part 1: What happened the week of March 23 - 29, and whom did it happen to?
In concordance with de Blasio's directive, the NYC jail population did indeed experience an unprecedented and dramatic decrease during March 23 - 29, 2020.
Our data shows that the inmates discharged during this time were, as de Blasio promised, at a lower risk of reoffense. To make a fair comparison, we compare them to inmates discharged during the same calendar week during the previous years 2014 - 2019.
The inmates discharged from March 23 - 29, 2020 were also slightly older, on average, than those in previous years, although the overall age distributions of the two groups were quite similar.
Notably, the inmates discharged from March 23 - 29 in 2020 had spent dramatically longer in jail than those discharged during the same week in previous years.
So to recap, de Blasio did discharge many inmates, and they were largely inmates who had served longer than typical sentences and yet were at low risk of reoffense. This begs the question... why not always do this?
Results, part 2: With the release of long-serving inmates demonstrated to be feasible, examined how the jail population would have looked over the past six years had caps in incarceration been in place.
With a cap of one year, the system would experience a 15% decrease in incarceration. With a cap of 100 days, the reduction would be over 50%.
Results, part 3: Because our results are only as accurate as New York City’s public-facing jail data, we discuss numerous challenges with this data. As merely one example, in the data we downloaded from the city, inmate race is categorized as either Asian, Black, or Unknown.
No, I am not making this up. Here's a screenshot directly from the NYC Open Data portal.
In any case, we make multiple recommendations for improving public-facing NYC jail data, including some related to preserving the human dignity of inmates in regards to race/ethnicity and gender.
Results, part 4: We discuss policy implications of our work, highlight some opportunities and challenges posed by incarceration caps, and suggest key areas for reform.
It is striking that the de Blasio administration was able to identify inmates at low risk of reoffense and was willing to release them. Their success with discharge during the early stages of COVID-19 suggests that low-risk inmates could be discharged sooner in general.
Here, our study connects to the tragic story of Kalief Browder, an NYC teenager who spent three years in the Rikers Island jail while awaiting trial for allegedly stealing a backpack. Upon release, traumatized by his incarceration, Browder killed himself. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/06/before-the-law
In the wake of that tragedy, criminal justice advocates fought for change.
In October 2019, the city approved a plan to close Rikers and replace it with new, smaller facilities scattered throughout the city having a total capacity of 3,300 inmates, which would require a huge reduction in jail population.
Bail reform was put in place as a way to keep pretrial detainees out of jail. This helped reduce the jail population, but not enough. Our data shows that it plateaued around 5,500 inmates.
But our study shows that in a time of crisis, the city was able to immediately give early discharge to a dramatic number of low-risk inmates. This makes us wonder why similar policies, which target inmates with especially long jail incarcerations, are not permanently in place.
Also, there are other reforms that should be pursued.
Additional bail reform, sentencing reform, better articulation between justice systems, bureaucratic reform in the city's own system, and increased budget would all help the city fulfill its commitment to reducing jail population.
You can read the complete study at http://www.qsideinstitute.org/new-york-city-jails.
If you value this type of work, please donate to @qsideinstitute. We are a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization and we cannot exist with public support. https://qsideinstitute.org/donate/
Also, if the intersection of data and social justice fascinates you, we would love to see you at our upcoming Data For Justice conference, online on April 16. https://qsideinstitute.org/data-4-justice-conference/
Talks are aimed at a broad audience and will cover the intersection of data and criminal justice, education equity, inclusion in arts/media, health care equity, and environmental justice.
There are many other ways to get involved with @qsideinstitute. Just go to http://www.qsideinstitute.org and click Join the Fight.
