PLAN Data Analytics

PLAN Data Analytics:
Prisoner-Led Advocacy Driven by Prisoner-Reported Data

Official prison data is routinely self-reported by prison employees who have vested interests in avoiding scrutiny by government administrators and members of the general public. The same is true of data produced by probation and parole agencies and contractors who administer halfway house programs upon which formerly incarcerated individuals’ continued freedom depends. The selective omission of information that reflects unfavorably on the “correctional management” of state agencies and contractors creates discrepancies between prison and probation/parole operations as they are reflected in official data on one hand and conditions as they are actually experienced by presently and formerly incarcerated people on the other.

PLAN is the only organization that collects, tracks, and analyzes nationwide data regarding conditions of confinement in U.S. prisons and jails that is reported by prisoners, not prisons. PLAN also tracks conditions of supervised release and probation/parole that are reported by formerly incarcerated people. PLAN collects data reported by individuals who are directly impacted by the criminal legal system through: 1) PLAN’s intermittent national surveys and 2) PLAN reporting forms that are received from incarcerated and returning individuals on an ongoing basis. Once anonymized, this data is analyzed in ongoing collaboration with jailhouse lawyers and other directly impacted people, whose situational awareness helps contextualize primary source material and data trends.

PLAN data analytics dashboards provide unique insights about evolving trends and patterns of rights-violating and dignity-denying conduct by state agencies, officials, and contractors as reported by the presently and formerly incarcerated individuals who experience them firsthand. By using PLAN’s dynamic data dashboards, which are updated with new data on an ongoing basis, it is possible to review prisoner-reported conditions of confinement concerns according to a variety of measures. Search parameters include geographic region, state, correctional system, time period, and category (or combination of categories) of concern. PLAN also develops dedicated dashboards that reflect the representations of post-release conditions as reported by returning citizens.

This primary source data from presently and formerly incarcerated people helps raise awareness of conditions in prison and re-entry facilities and conditions of release in various jurisdictions. PLAN data dashboards enable advocates, researchers, reporters, and members of the public to compare and contrast these conditions among facilities and jurisdictions. PLAN data serves as a powerful counter-weight to the official data and representations of the state officials, agencies, and contractors who are imbued with sweeping discretion in their control over the daily lives and wellbeing of directly impacted people.

PLAN data analytics may help legal professionals who advocate for prisoners and pro se litigants who prosecute civil rights cases against officials and agencies of the criminal legal system develop pattern and practice arguments that corroborate the allegations of presently and formerly incarcerated plaintiffs. PLAN’s searchable primary source data may also enhance journalists’ investigative reporting on prison and re-entry issues, provide substantiation for community organizers’ demands for more humane prison and post-release conditions, and help advocates and organizers develop data-driven strategies that are informed by the concerns most frequently articulated by directly impacted people.

About PLAN’s Data Analytics Dashboards

PLAN tracks and analyzes prisoner-reported conditions and trends through national surveys of presently and formerly incarcerated people

PLAN conducts national surveys that invite presently and formerly incarcerated individuals to report the conditions they experience while incarcerated and while on supervision or parole. As specified on PLAN’s Legal Observer Affidavit Form for Prisoners and Jailhouse Lawyers, anonymized data is also extracted from PLAN reporting forms that are received from incarcerated and returning individuals on an ongoing basis. These data collection tools enable PLAN to analyze prison and post-release conditions and trends as they are reported by the directly impacted individuals who experience them firsthand, not state officials and contractors who may have vested interests in omitting or mischaracterizing facts that are unfavorable to agencies or proxies of the criminal legal system.

All data that PLAN collects is separated from the personal identifying information of directly impacted people who report their experiences to PLAN. Individuals who provide information to PLAN can rest assured that their personal information is protected.

By submitting surveys and affidavit forms to PLAN, directly impacted individuals help document and quantify prison conditions. This data may corroborate the allegations of other presently and formerly incarcerated people. It also increases awareness of conditions as they are truly experienced by people inside and those who are on court supervision or parole.

PLAN data dashboards provide unique insights about evolving trends and patterns of alleged abuses in various jurisdictions and carceral systems.

PLAN is the only organization that tracks nationwide data regarding conditions of confinement in U.S. prisons that is reported by prisoners, not prisons. PLAN also tracks conditions of supervised release and probation/parole that are reported by formerly incarcerated people. PLAN collects data from national surveys and reporting forms that are submitted by presently and formerly incarcerated individuals. This data is used to generate PLAN's data dashboards. These searchable dashboards provide unique insights about evolving trends and patterns of carceral conditions and conditions of release as they are experienced during imprisonment and re-entry.

PLAN applies anonymized data and other supporting materials received from presently and formerly incarcerated people to determine in what carceral facilities, agencies, and jurisdictions rights-violating and dignity-denying conditions are most often alleged by individuals who are imprisoned or on supervision/parole and the kinds of inhumane conditions that are most often reported.

As the data underlying PLAN data analytics dashboards is updated on ongoing basis, the number of data points expands on an ongoing basis and shifting trends in reported experiences as they evolve over time are reflected in the data. This raw data is analyzed in close collaboration with jailhouse lawyers and other directly impacted people whose situational awareness helps contextualize primary source material and data trends.

PLAN data analytics upend the prison industrial complex’s monopoly on primary source information.

Prison administrators are routinely entrusted to self-report incidences of prisoner allegations of staff abuse and other unconstitutional conditions. Their selective omission of facts and incidents that could attract unwelcome scrutiny to a facility or agency creates discrepancies between official data and prisoner-reported experiences. For instance, some prisons reportedly avoid entering prisoner grievance data into official databases, because large numbers of prisoner complaints could raise concerns among government administrators that facility officials are failing to maintain “secure and orderly operations,” or engender public outcries about inhumane conditions. Even the most “objective” data measures, such as prison population size, are notoriously unreliable, as some correctional systems rotate prisoner “head count” groups from one facility to the next in order to inflate population sizes for the purpose of increasing government funding that is based on the size of facility populations. Conditions of supervised release tend to be almost entirely insulated from public scrutiny or accountability. There is a relative lack of publicly available data about conditions of release and incidents involving personnel in probation/parole offices and transitional housing facilities.

PLAN data dashboards are the only source of primary source data about prison and post-release conditions nationwide. This data is based on the self-reported observations, experiences, and assessments of directly impacted people. These dashboards enable legal professionals, advocates, organizers, journalists, academic researchers, and members of the general public to track trends in carceral incidents and conditions as they are reported by people inside and people who are supervision or parole.

Using PLAN’s live data dashboards, which are updated with new data on an ongoing basis, users can dynamically explore prisoner-reported conditions of confinement concerns according to a variety of measures. Users can also review conditions reported by individuals who are on supervision or parole. PLAN’s dynamic dashboards enable users to compare and contrast issues reported by presently and formerly incarcerated people by carceral facility, system, geographic region, and time period. Search parameters include geographic region, state, carceral agency/system, time period, and category (or combination of categories) of concern.

Using PLAN’s data analytics interface, it is possible to determine the states, facilities, and agencies that are generating the largest proportions of concerns reporting by incarcerated and returning people. User-friendly search functions also generate real-time analysis of the kinds of rights-violating and dignity-denying conditions that are most frequently alleged by directly impacted people in various regions and prison systems, and how these reported conditions have changed over time.

Applications of PLAN’s Data Analytics Dashboards

Applications of PLAN’s live dashboards, which are based on our unique data set of prisoner- and returning citizen-reported conditions inside include the following.

Corroborating the allegations of prisoner complainants

For prisoners who are representing themselves in proceedings and legal professionals who assist people inside, PLAN’s data analytics platform may help support pattern and practice arguments and establish the existence cultures that condone disputed conditions in implicated facilities or prison systems. Because PLAN is the only program that analyzes nationwide data that originates from prisoners, instead of prison administrators, PLAN’s data analytics tools equip legal professionals, advocates, organizers and prisoners with uniquely robust quantitative measures of what people inside report experiencing.

PLAN’s user-friendly data dashboards can help people who work on behalf of prisoners independently assess – and sometimes rebut – the representations of prison attorneys in court and the statements of prison public relations officers to the media. Legal professionals and pro se litigants may use this data to corroborate prisoner-plaintiff allegations in court proceedings or other complaint, such as administrative complaints filed with a carceral agency or contractor. Because courts and regulatory agency officials such as inspectors general frequently assert a credibility gap between the government officials who staff jails and prisons and the indicted or convicted individuals who are detained therein, prisoner-plaintiffs and their legal representatives are often disadvantaged in proceedings that challenge the conduct of state officials. Prisoner-plaintiffs may be further disadvantaged by prison administrators’ almost complete control over evidence and testimony that relates to facility incidents and conditions. Demonstrating that other people inside are routinely reporting comparable issues may help legal professionals and pro se litigants corroborate the allegations of prisoner complainants.

Establishing patterns and practices of unlawful conduct by prison officials

Legal professionals and pro se litigants may use this data to develop or support pattern and practice arguments to show that a facility or prison agency has a culture that condones certain kinds of rights-violating conduct. This could help establish in court proceedings, or other complaint (e.g., administrative complaints filed with an agency, reports of staff sexual abuse to inspectors general or facility PREA representatives) that the disputed conduct was not an unusual departure from policy by a rogue prison official but is, rather, emblematic of a pattern or practice.

Comparing and contrasting prison and re-entry conditions among facilities and geographic locations

Attorneys and pro se litigants who are arguing the existence of rights-violating or dignity-denying conditions in a carceral facility or agency may strengthen those arguments by demonstrating that the implicated facility or agency is the object of proportionately more prisoner complaints as to a specified category of condition or conduct than other comparable facilities or agencies.

When advocating for policy reforms or developing campaign materials, prisoners rights’ advocates may use PLAN’s primary source data to demonstrate that certain conditions of confinement in a facility, prison system, or geographic region are precipitating significantly more prisoner complaints relative to other facilities, agencies, or geographic areas. Showing that conditions in a facility, prison system, or geographic region are measurably worse than elsewhere may help advocates and reformers achieve change. Individuals who are advocating for formerly incarcerated individuals can assess conditions of release in one jurisdiction relation to another.

Countering the official data official data of prison and re-entry agencies and contractors with numerical measures of incarcerated and returning individuals’ self-reported experiences

Too often prison administrators succeed in controlling the narrative about prison incidents and conditions by presenting by providing “objective” data that is straightforwardly inaccurate or otherwise skewed to support their position. It is difficult to overcome the representations of officially reported prison data with the anecdotal evidence of a small number of prisoner accounts. The same could be said of officials in probation/parole agencies and transitional housing program administrators. Members of the general public and editors who review academic articles and news reports for publication frequently perceive the official data promulgated by state agencies and contractors as decisive because it includes hundreds or thousands of data points, whereas the experiences of a small number of incarcerated or returning people could be anomalies that are not representative of overarching trends.

The prisoner-reported data that is collected, maintained, and analyzed by PLAN is a quantified version of the voices of people inside, whereas reports by returning citizens characterize conditions encountered upon release. As these data sets apparently constitute the only primary resource of prisoner- probationer/parolee-reported experiences nationwide, it introduces a unique counter-position that deprives the prison industrial complex of its monopoly on numeric data measures. This affords investigators and reporters a more comprehensive aerial view of the vantagepoints of all stakeholders, not just those who are employed or contracted by agencies of the criminal legal system.

In some cases, reporting about the experiences of incarcerated or returning individuals include mitigating statements that may dilute the impact of directly impacted individuals’ accounts (e.g., “While this report is only one person’s experience…”). Academics and journalists who research and report on prison and re-entry conditions can use PLAN’s data to characterize the perspectives and experiences of presently and formerly incarcerated individuals in a format that includes quantified – and frequently statistically significant – measures. This enables researchers and reporters to displace qualifiers and concessions that may weaken the impact of individuals’ voices with unequivocal statements of fact (e.g., “Statistically significant analysis of hundreds of people incarcerated in this state show that the majority of them report similar concerns about inadequate healthcare”). PLAN data dashboards also enable academics and journalists to readily compare and contrast the conditions reported in one place with the conditions reported in another.

Facilitating data-driven advocacy and organizing that is prisoner-led

Prisoners’ rights advocates and organizers have limited resources and human capital available to support the implementation of their programs and campaigns. PLAN’s data dashboards help advocates develop programs and campaigns that are directly responsive to the priorities of people inside as they define them in their reports to PLAN. This may help advocates and community organizers ensure that they are allocating limited resources to issue areas that address the most widely felt prisoner needs, as opposed to the needs expressed by a relatively small number of vocal individuals.

PLAN’s data dashboards also include predictive analysis functions that prisoners’ rights advocates can utilize to develop data-driven strategies. The predictive tools in PLAN data dashboards can help advocates and organizers identify long-term trends in reports of rights-violating and dignity-denying conditions and develop long-term strategies that anticipate the likely trajectory of reported prison conditions. For instance, increasingly frequent prisoner reports of inadequate access to mental health care might indicate a statewide trend of deprioritizing or underfunding mental health services. Mathematical predictive measures may project how rapidly these services are likely to deteriorate and to determine the speed and urgency with which this concern should be addressed relative to other competing prisoner concerns.

Presentation materials to raise public awareness and educate allies and volunteers

Readymade presentation slides can be generated using PLAN’s data dashboards. The data outcomes of user searches can be rendered into slide format for a variety of uses such as professional or volunteer trainings, public presentations, or publications. Materials generated using PLAN’s data dashboards may be incorporated into presentations or publications free of charge as long as PLAN is credited in the graphic as the data source.

Impact of PLAN Data Analytics

Demonstrating disproportionately frequent reporting of inadequate medical care in Delaware prison facilities to lay a foundation for prisoners’ rights litigation

As a national initiative, PLAN collects and analyzes data from reports about conditions of confinement that are received from prisoners across the country. Fifty percent of all conditions of confinement complaints from Delaware prisoners from 2018 to 2020 that were received or evaluated by PLAN alleged inadequate medical care. Many of these reports expressed concern about inadequate access to mental health treatment. This is not only higher than the national average, but it is also far and away the worst that PLAN has seen.

While some of these increases in reported medical concerns may be attributable to heightened health concerns precipitated by COVID-19, reports of poorly managed outbreaks in DDOC facilities suggest prison officials’ failures to implement and uphold policies as to infectious diseases. These reports cannot, therefore, be dismissed as inevitable byproducts of the pandemic. The heightened health concerns caused by COVID-19 also do not explain why, of those reports received and evaluated by PLAN, the proportion of medical complaints from Delaware prisoners during the relevant period is the highest in the nation.

By assessing Delaware prisoners’ reported concerns about inadequate access to healthcare relative to the stated concerns of individuals incarcerated in other states, PLAN was able to situate Delaware reports of inadequate healthcare in national context. PLAN’s March 2022 report about this analysis was presented at the 2022 Dignity Rights Conference at Delaware Law School. It also helped lay the foundation for forthcoming prisoners’ rights litigation that will challenge the conditions of confinement experienced by Delaware prisoners who have been designated as severely mentally ill.

Establishing Delaware Department of Corrections’ inaction despite clear drastic escalations in reports of rights-violating conditions at James T. Vaughn correctional center in months preceding the 2017 Vaughn uprising

PLAN’s joint investigation with the ACLU of Delaware uncovered compelling evidence that conditions at James T. Vaughn Correctional Center were markedly worse than other Delaware state prisons in the months preceding the February 2017 Vaughn uprising. PLAN analyzed prison conditions as they were reported by 2,207 incarcerated individuals imprisoned in facilities throughout the State of Delaware in the months before and after the Vaughn incident. This analysis revealed a drastic escalation in allegations of unconstitutional conditions at Vaughn in the months preceding the February 2017 Vaughn prison uprising. This sharp uptick in prisoner reports of inhumane treatment in the lead-up to the uprising was unique to the Vaughn facility. When this data was adjusted to account for disparities in Delaware facility population sizes, it became clear that the per capita rate of complaints for Vaughn prisoners increased more precipitously than in any other Delaware Department of Corrections (DDOC) facility during the same period.

PLAN and the ACLU of Delaware concluded that, on the basis of prisoner grievance data that should have been readily available to state officials, DDOC administrators knew or should have known that reports of rights-violating prison conditions at Vaughn were vastly outpacing prisoner complaints about other DDOC facilities during the relevant period. PLAN’s Vaughn legal response team found that prison administrators failed to recognize or adequately respond to clear indications of untenable conditions at Vaughn that were spiraling out of control.

In the joint presentation with PLAN where the findings of this study were announced, ACLU National Prison Project Director David Fathi discussed the known over-crowding issues that plagued the Vaughn facility: “Delaware prisons were at 150% of their design capacity in 2015. Prisons are not a priority until a tragedy occurs.” PLAN’s Supervising Attorney Stanley Holdorf said at the same event: “To the best of our knowledge, this study is the only effort to assess the Vaughn incident using hard data and incorporating the voices of affected prisoners.”

Using the data analysis conducted by PLAN, this joint initiative concluded that, had Vaughn prison officials administered a functional grievance system and remained abreast of grievance information that should have been known to them, they would have been able to recognize the crisis as it was developing and to institute reasonable corrective measures – such as the improvement of living conditions in that facility to better accord with policy and law – that could have prevented the February 2017 uprising.

Following the release of PLAN’s findings and recommendations, issued jointly with the ACLU of Delaware, Vaughn prisoners reported a marked de-escalation in physical attacks by prison officers, which had apparently become commonplace in the period following the February 2017 uprising.

When the Vaughn uprising was cited by Delaware lawmakers as pretext to consider reinstituting the death penalty in the state, PLAN was at the forefront of advocacy organizations that resisted the measure.

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