SJC Exchange Library

Originally posted by Wanda Bertram on 11/20/2025

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Hi everyone,

Yesterday, the Prison Policy Initiative released our 2026 edition of Winnable Criminal Justice Reforms, a report designed to give state policymakers and advocates the background they need to shrink the criminal legal system and make it fairer. This year's report includes 34 reform strategies; as always, each reform comes with links to research and model bills to help advocates and lawmakers get started.

The reforms in our report are grouped into eight categories:

• Expanding alternatives to criminal legal system responses to social problems

• Protecting the presumption of innocence so people receive a fair shot at justice

• Decreasing the length of prison sentences and providing pathways for all people to exit prison

• Treating people humanely during incarceration

• Treating people on community supervision fairly, and keeping them thriving in the community

• Setting people up to succeed when they exit prisons and jails

• Giving incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people political representation and voice

• Reducing spending on the criminal legal system and increasing investment in communities

We recognize that as we publish this guide, many advocates are working tirelessly not just to pass much-needed reforms, but to beat back coordinated attacks against prior victories. For that reason, we've also included some talking points to use to fight against these regressive policies that threaten to undo decades of work by advocates.

The full report is available at: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/winnable2026.html.

In other news: In case you missed it, last week, we released a briefing about menstruation in prison. Partnering with researcher Miriam Vishniac, we show how prison disciplinary policies create ample opportunity for corrections officers to punish people for having their periods. Read the full briefing here.

I hope this is useful in your work.

Take care,

Wanda

Prison Policy Initiative