TGI Justice Program's Prison Oversight Template

Abstract

Since the civil rights movement, the population of prisons in the United States has increased tremendously. The crack epidemic, alongside the United States’ War on Drugs, has pushed for the mass incarceration of black and brown individuals in many urban cities such as New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and many more. As the 21st century approached, many civil rights activists began to recognize the pattern of mass incarceration of people of color, and the awful prison conditions that many of them were experiencing. This caused many reform movements of the United States’ criminal justice system that still works present-day to help release many of the people in prison, and provide them with the necessary assistance that they need to become a productive citizen in society. The goal of prison oversight is to provide eyes over the conditions of prisons, and how people in prison are being treated. Many prison oversight organizations use both quantitative and qualitative data to analyze how prisons have an impact on the people in prison, and what possible policy changes could be made to fix prisons so they are beneficial for society. For TGI Justice’s Prison Oversight Template, we decided to use widely accessible data about many prisons in the United States, in order to make a document that could help many of the organization’s incarcerated and formerly incarcerated clients. The template itself is more than just a resource for them, but also a document meant to highlight the organization’s mission of advocacy for trans and intersex individuals, who are the biggest target to the United States’ criminal justice system.

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