SJC Exchange Library

Across the country, counties seeking to curb jail populations have looked to a common entry point: their front doors. By January 2020, just prior to the onset of the pandemic, bookings had declined in SJC communities overall by 13 percent. Once the pandemic hit, SJC communities began implementing emergency measures to reduce jail populations resulting in even sharper declines in bookings. As operations resumed with some normalcy in the later months of the pandemic, bookings began to rise.  This brief uses Measuring Progress data to take a closer look at COVID-19's effect on jail bookings across SJC communities.