Prison Policy Initiative

The Prison Policy Initiative (PPI) is a criminal justice oriented American public policy think tank based in Easthampton, Massachusetts. It is a non-profit organization, designated 501(c)(3) by the IRS.

It is the "leading public critic"^[2] of the United States Census Bureau's practice of counting prisoners as residents of the towns where they are incarcerated, and has conducted research in several states proving that this practice results in distortion of equal representation.

The organization produces reports that aim to show the scale of incarceration in the United States. The most well-known of these reports is the Whole Pie report, which provides a visual representation of all aspects of incarceration in the United States. It also produces "States of Incarceration," a report that compares the incarceration rate of every U.S. state to that of nearly every other country on the planet.

It also produces research and reports on specific aspects of the criminal legal system, including "States of Emergency: The Failure of Prison System Responses to COVID-19," "Rigging the jury: How each state reduces jury diversity by excluding people with criminal records," and "Eligible, but excluded: A guide to removing the barriers to jail voting." Annually, it also publishes a listing of criminal justice reforms that legislators are likely to take up in the upcoming legislative sessions.