Making prisons and jails transparent and accountable.
A one-stop shop to learn what correctional oversight looks like and how to establish an effective oversight body in your state or locality.
Why Do We Need Correctional Oversight?
Lack of transparency:
- Prisons and jails are among the most opaque public institutions in our society.
- Correctional staff exercise total control over the lives and well-being of people in custody, and abuse, neglect, and harm can thrive when there is no external scrutiny.
- We can’t answer basic questions about what is happening inside our prisons and jails, nor do we know how safe or dangerous any particular facility is.
- Incarcerated people are dying at disproportionately high rates.
- We spend billions of dollars on our corrections systems, but we don’t know if that money is being spent wisely.
- Policymakers, judges, and prosecutors lack information about conditions of prisons and jails that they need to help guide their policy, budget, and sentencing decisions.
- Problematic conditions of confinement disproportionately impact lower-income people of color, marginalized groups, and vulnerable populations.
Lack of accountability: Lack of meaningful mechanisms for complaints to be addressed, for problems to be proactively identified and fixed, and for justice to be served in cases of misconduct or ill-treatment.
Limited opportunities to encourage innovation and promising practices to improve corrections for both incarcerated people and staff.
- People who are incarcerated
- People who work in prisons and jails
- Agency administrators
- Policymakers
- Judges
- Prosecutors
- Families and loved ones of people who are incarcerated
- Media
- All of us!
- Transparency and accountability—pillars of a democratic society—are essential in prisons and jails where daily operations are overwhelmingly hidden from the public eye.
- Correctional oversight shines a light on the daily realities of confinement and equips our leaders and the public with unbiased information about what is actually happening in prisons and jails.
- Oversight bodies can help prevent harm through routine inspections of facilities rather than waiting until conditions hit rock bottom to get stakeholders and the public involved in reform efforts.
- Oversight can help policymakers ensure that their jurisdiction’s tax dollars are spent efficiently and effectively.
- The simple presence of an outside observer acts as a form of informal social control and can change what happens inside a prison environment.
- Oversight bodies can share best practices and strategies that have worked in other facilities to encourage a culture of improvement.
- Oversight bodies can assess unmeasurable facets of corrections in a holistic way, such as whether people are being treated with dignity and respect, whether they are being held safely, and whether they are being prepared adequately for release.
- Oversight can help humanize everyone connected to incarceration, including both people in custody and the staff who supervise them.
What ls Oversight?
The Basics
Correctional oversight is a means of achieving the twin objectives of transparency of public institutions and accountability for the operation of safe and humane prisons and jails. Together, these goals ensure that the rights of incarcerated persons are addressed and that correctional practices can improve so as to prevent future harm.
Where Does Oversight Exist in the U.S.?
Prison Oversight Bodies in the U.S.
Learn about and compare the entities that provide oversight of statewide prison systems across the country.
Jail Oversight Bodies in the U.S.
What kind of oversight is available for local jails? Learn about and compare the different types of jail oversight in the U.S.
Court-Ordered Oversight in the U.S.
What is court-ordered oversight in the U.S. and how does it differ from other types of oversight? Learn about and compare the different types of oversight in the U.S.
How Can I Learn More About Oversight?
ABA’s Key Requirements for the Effective Monitoring of Correctional and Detention Facilities
Description:
Passed in 2008, this landmark resolution calls on all levels of government to establish correctional oversight bodies and outlines reasons why correctional institutions should become more transparent and accountable to the public. The Resolution also details what such oversight bodies should look like and sets forth a checklist of the elements necessary to make a correctional oversight body effective. The Resolution is a guiding force in efforts to create oversight bodies around the country, and a touchstone to assess the quality of any oversight structures that do exist.
American Bar Association, Criminal Justice Section. “Key Requirements for the Effective Monitoring of Correctional and Detention Facilities.” Aug. 2008.
Distinguishing the Various Functions of Effective Prison Oversight
Description:
This short piece provides an analytic framework for thinking about prison oversight. Noting the term “oversight” lacks a clear meaning, the author distinguishes several important functions provided by oversight mechanisms, including regulation, audit, accreditation, investigation, legal, reporting, and monitoring. “Oversight” is really an umbrella concept that encompasses each of these functions, but each of these functions need not be served by the same oversight body. Instead, the focus should be on ensuring that each function is served effectively in every jurisdiction. The ideal is to have a layered system of correctional oversight in which there is a range of effective internal accountability measures and robust external oversight mechanisms.
Deitch, Michele. “Distinguishing the Various Functions of Effective Prison Oversight.” Pace Law Review 30, no. 5 (Fall 2010): 1438–45.
But Who Oversees the Overseers? The Status of Prison and Jail Oversight in the United States
Description:
This in-depth article provides comprehensive background information about the nature, value, and history of correctional oversight; documents the shifting landscape and increasing momentum around the oversight issue over the last decade; highlights key distinctions between prison and jail oversight; and provides a comprehensive assessment of the state of prison and jail oversight in the U.S. today. The article includes tables listing and categorizing every correctional oversight body in the United States as of 2020.
Deitch, Michele. “But Who Oversees the Overseers? The Status of Prison and Jail Oversight in the United States.” American Journal of Criminal Law 47, no. 2 (2020): 207–74.
Oversight In The News
In Their Own Words
This short video features several formerly incarcerated individuals and a family member talking about why we need independent oversight and how it benefits people in custody, their families, and staff. Featuring national justice reform leaders John Fabricius, Johnny Perez, Jennifer Toon, Lois Pullano, and Stanley Richards.