What’s Here?
What will I find on this page?
You will find interactive maps that show where correctional oversight bodies exist across the U.S. and that provide detailed profiles of each entity. There are separate maps for oversight of prisons, oversight of jails at a statewide level, oversight of jails at a local level, and court-ordered correctional oversight. Learn more about the differences among these types of oversight and why they matter before accessing the maps.
How should I use the maps?
States with oversight bodies are shaded blue. Click on a state to read a profile about the structure, function, and organization of that state’s correctional oversight body. Review multiple states’ profiles to learn more about differences in how they are structured, what authority they have, what resources they have, and what they do. Identify the elements that you like best in each model, as you seek to adapt these ideas for your jurisdiction.
Why do you distinguish between prison and jail oversight?
While the distinctions between prisons and jails aren’t always clear to the public, there are important structural and operational differences between the two types of facilities that lead to significant differences in what their oversight mechanisms look like. Learn more about these differences on this page before reviewing our maps.
Prison Oversight
Prisons are run by the state, and hold people convicted of felony offenses who have sentences of longer than one year. Learn more about what that means for prison oversight.
It is the same level of government involved in this exercise of external scrutiny.
All prisons in the state answer to a single leader, and they operate under a single agency-wide set of policies and procedures and a single budget. Accordingly, there is a clear, single line of authority in the prison agency when it comes to responsibility for addressing any shortcomings in any of these facilities. Thus, if any operational changes are ordered, they should (at least theoretically) be put in place system-wide.
Oversight bodies are established to address issues in all facilities, though naturally some institutions receive more attention than others due to their size, the nature of the population, or the perceived level of problems that exist.
Jail Oversight
Jails, on the other hand, are typically operated and funded by counties or local government, often under the leadership of an elected Sheriff. They hold a wide mix of individuals, many of whom are pretrial, and the remainder are usually those serving short sentences for misdemeanor offenses. Jail oversight can involve either oversight of all jails in the state (“statewide jail oversight”), or oversight of just a single facility or a couple of facilities operated by the same local jurisdiction (“local jail oversight”). Learn more about the distinctions between these two types of jail oversight.
NOTE: There is some variation among states, both in what they call their local jails and who may be housed in these facilities. There are also a handful of states with unified systems where a single state agency operates both prisons and jails.
With statewide jail oversight:
- The state is seeking to scrutinize what is typically a county-level function. Most jails are operated by sheriffs, who are independently elected and autonomous government officials, and jail operations are funded by the county legislative branch rather than by the state legislature. Whenever the state inserts itself into local government, there is bound to be tension among the various players, if the state can even assert this level of oversight over what happens in these locally-run institutions. Usually, the jail authorities have to consent to this kind of regulation by the state.
- The oversight entity needs to take account of huge variation among facilities. Because each jail in the state answers to a different authority, there is tremendous variation in conditions and practices from jail to jail, since they vary widely in available resources and come in all sizes and designs. Moreover, fixing a problem in one jail only affects that facility, not other facilities in the state.
- Statewide jail oversight tends to focus on compliance with minimum standards. To address the huge variations among facilities, oversight bodies are usually established to set minimum standards that apply to all jails across the state, in order to certify them to operate. The oversight body usually also has authority to assess each jail’s compliance with those standards. Compliance inspections tend to be more of an audit than a holistic review, with inspectors limited to focusing on issues covered by the standards. There is a great deal of similarity among statewide jail oversight bodies, since their regulatory functions are so similar.
When it comes to Local Jail Oversight:
- The county (as opposed to the state) is exercising oversight over a county-level agency. Since county officials hold the purse strings for the sheriff’s department as well as the ultimate financial liability for any lawsuits, local leaders can insist on some structure for ensuring more public transparency about conditions and the treatment of incarcerated people.
- One agency is subject to the oversight activities. As with prison oversight, one agency is the subject of local jail oversight activities.
- There is huge variation among local jail oversight models. Because the needs, resources, size, and governance structure of each local jurisdiction are so different, the jail oversight bodies they have established vary tremendously in design, scope of work, and activities.
Methodology
Correctional Oversight Bodies
To identify oversight bodies, we revisited our research on each of the organizations included in the 50-State Inventory and the updated inventory in But Who Oversees the Overseers. Read these publications to learn more about our methodology.
Then, we scoured media reports and organizational websites to find information on any changes to existing bodies or the creation of any new bodies. We also talked with local advocates, correctional administrators, legislative staff, government officials, and other relevant stakeholders to learn more about their efforts to create new oversight bodies or strengthen existing oversight bodies in their states or local jurisdictions.
We included entities on the maps that:
- Are fully independent from the correctional agency they oversee;
- Monitor conditions of confinement, prevent ill-treatment, or investigate complaints of incarcerated people;
- Have a formal or informal right of access into correctional facilities to accomplish that function;
- Are a permanent body;
- Focus on the conditions of prisons and jails, health and safety issues, or the quality of services provided to people in custody;
- Are responsive to issues affecting all people in custody in each facility, rather than sub-populations;
- Seek to increase public transparency about what is happening in prisons and jails; and
- Are actively engaged in this work.
It is important to note the kind of oversight bodies that are excluded from these maps based on our criteria identified above. We did not include:
- Bodies focused solely on population management or facility construction issues;
- Legislative committees that are statutorily responsible for overseeing prisons and jails but that only make occasional informational visits to those facilities;
- Ombuds, internal affairs offices, or compliance offices with staff that are employed by and report to agency authorities, even if they are exempt from the regular institutional hierarchy.
- General government auditing bodies that conduct infrequent performance audits of prisons or jails, those that do not prioritize conditions of confinement issues, and those that focus primarily on prison or jail management issues and financial information;
- Protection and Advocacy (P&A) organizations, which have federal statutory authority to ensure the protection of people with physical or mental disabilities, including those in prisons and jails.
Note: We are also developing profiles about court-appointed monitors, and those profiles will be posted at a later date.
The profile summaries provided about each oversight entity across the country were researched and written by the PJIL research team and were then vetted by the oversight organization to ensure accuracy. However, any mistakes that remain are ours alone, and we request that readers bring mistakes to our attention so they can be fixed.
- We conducted extensive research. We did statutory research to identify the extent of an entity’s authority to conduct oversight; we reviewed an entity’s website; we reviewed reports written by the oversight body; we read news coverage about the oversight body; and we talked with local advocates, correctional administrators, legislative staff, government officials, and other relevant stakeholders to learn more about the entity’s oversight activities.
- We interviewed oversight bodies. After gathering and reviewing all the information we could find from those sources, we reached out to representatives of each oversight entity and conducted in-depth interviews with those that responded.
- We drafted profile summaries of each body. We drafted detailed descriptions of each oversight agency’s authority, history, activities, staffing, budget, accomplishments, and challenges. We sent a draft of the profile summary to the oversight body to review for accuracy and to suggest any substantive changes.
- Each profile is accurate of the date indicated. Organizations change, and we realize that the information on the profile can quickly become outdated. Please note the date the profile was written. We will be providing updated profiles as we identify important changes to any organization.
Note: While we reached out to representatives of each oversight body for an interview and to review the profile summary we drafted, not all oversight bodies responded. We still included the profile summary for the oversight bodies that did not respond.