Projects
PJIL’s projects meet the needs of policy makers, criminal justice officials, state and local agencies, advocates, and the media who are looking for guidance on corrections issues. Our current projects include the following initiatives:
Current Projects
International Network on External Prison Oversight and Human Rights (ICPA)
PJIL’s Directors were appointed to lead this network, which operates under the auspices of the International Corrections and Prisons Association (ICPA), the premier global professional association in our field. In this role, we deepen connections with oversight professionals around the world, promote the importance of independent oversight, ensure a human rights focus in ICPA’s work, publish a biannual journal “Prison Oversight and Human Rights Review,” organize panel discussions at international conference, and offer webinars for a global audience.
Correctional Oversight Peer Learning Community (PLC)
PJIL operates a Peer Learning Community for directors of statewide prison oversight bodies to share insights, guidance, and challenges with their peers in other states, and brings together these leaders for in-person and virtual convenings that help strengthen oversight practices across the country.
National Resource Center on Correctional Oversight
Launched in November 2023, the National Resource Center for Correctional Oversight (NRCCO) is the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab's signature project. The NRCCO serves as a comprehensive website for offering research insights, state-specific data, interactive maps, detailed profiles of oversight bodies, background information, legislative developments, and news updates. We are continually adding more resources to this dynamic platform.
Deaths in Custody
We are researching deaths in custody in the following areas:
- Natural deaths in custody
- How deaths in custody are investigated
- How families are notified of deaths in custody
Correctional Oversight
We advise policymakers, advocates, and oversight practitioners on ways to develop and strengthen correctional oversight mechanisms to better ensure the protection of people in prisons and jails. We have also established a Peer Learning Community for directors of prison oversight bodies to enable the sharing of best practices and to create a vibrant network of experts in the correctional oversight field.
Jail Standards
Building on our work developing jail standards for Louisiana, we are developing a set of jail standards based on best practices that are applicable to jails across the United States.
Humanizing Living Conditions in Prison
We emphasize our common humanity with people in custody and identify ways conditions can be improved to promote health, safety, and dignity in the categories of sleep, hygiene, and clothing. We are also developing a database of innovative initiatives in prisons across the country that help change the culture of the facilities.
Women in Custody
We produce resource materials on best practices for developing a gender-responsive approach to supervising women in custody.
Completed Projects
Uruguay Women’s Prison Project
The U.S. Embassy in Uruguay invited PJIL to provide guidance to Uruguayan government leaders, corrections officials, youth justice officials, and re-entry providers on strategies for reducing the number of women in prison and addressing the needs of incarcerated women. During an on-site visit to Uruguay in December 2025, PJIL testified before a Parliamentary committee, toured women’s prisons, met with officials, and briefed U.S. Embassy leadership on needed reforms.
Aging Behind Bars Report
We collaborated with the ACLU’s National Prison Project to produce a comprehensive report on the problem of aging behind bars, including a data analysis of the elderly population in prison.
Conference: “Deaths in Custody,” November 14-16, 2024
PJIL hosted a national symposium on “Deaths in Custody” at the University of Texas at Austin. The two-and-a-half-day conference brought together 150 of the country’s leading experts on this topic, including oversight practitioners; medical professionals; researchers; people with lived experience; journalists; advocates; corrections officials; academics; litigators; and more.
Conference: “Cruel and Not Unusual: Can America’s Prisons and Jails Change, and, If So, How?,” February 2-4, 2023
PJIL hosted a two-day symposium to discuss what can be done to address the seemingly intractable horrific conditions in certain correctional systems, and debated whether meaningful reform of America’s prisons and jails is truly possible. The national audience of over 100 experts included people with lived experience, journalists, litigators, oversight practitioners, advocates, corrections officials, academics, and more.
Louisiana Jail Standards Project
Pursuant to a directive from the Louisiana Legislature, PJIL worked with the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and the Louisiana Sheriffs Association to help evaluate and develop more comprehensive jail standards and a more effective jail oversight structure for the state.
COVID, Corrections, and Oversight
We produced resource materials on ways that corrections officials, oversight practitioners, and policy makers could manage COVID-related challenges in prisons and jails, and analyzed the impact of COVID on incarcerated people and staff.