From 2020 to 2024, the Urban Institute led the Prison Research and Innovation Initiative (PRII), an effort to increase transparency and accountability in prisons. Using climate surveys, administrative data, and a participatory research approach, PRII examined prison conditions and tested reforms to improve living and working conditions.

PRII established the Prison Research and Innovation Network (PRIN), a consortium of five pilot sites in Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, Missouri, and Vermont. At each site, corrections agencies worked with research partners and advisory councils of incarcerated people and correction staff to use data and lived experience to drive humane, safe, and rehabilitative reforms.

Graphic explaining the Prison Research and Innovation Network (PRIN), a consortium of five pilot sites in Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, Missouri, and Vermont
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    • Explore the publications Urban created as part of the Prison Research and Innovation Initiative below.

    Explore a collection of insights from our local partners.

    Colorado

    Team: Colorado Department of Corrections, Sterling Correctional Facility, and University of Denver

    Delaware

    Team: Delaware Department of Correction, University of Delaware, and Howard R. Young Correctional Institution

    Iowa

    Team: Iowa Department of Corrections, Iowa Correctional Institution for Women, and Iowa Department of Management

    Missouri

    Team: Missouri Department of Corrections, Moberly Correctional Center, and University of Missouri

    Vermont

    Team: Vermont Department of Corrections, Southern State Correctional Facility, and University of Vermont

    The initiative was guided by three goals:

    1. Develop a better understanding of prison environments and how they shape the safety and well-being of the people who are confined and work in them.
    2. Enhance prisons’ capacity to collect data on prison environments, with the goal of promoting transparency and accountability.
    3. Design, implement, and evaluate evidence-based operational and programmatic innovations to improve basic conditions.

    Independent researchers from five states partnered with their respective state departments of corrections to improve data collection and transparency.

    Each state team used participatory research approaches to work directly with incarcerated people and corrections staff to develop and administer an annual climate survey of prison conditions. Across three waves, these surveys captured incarcerated people’s and corrections staff’s perspectives on prison living and working conditions. The survey results were used to make evidence-based improvements in living and working conditions in each facility.

    Through these efforts, the initiative generated one of the few multistate datasets on the experiences of incarcerated people and corrections staff.

    In its role as consortium coordinator, the Urban Institute completed a process evaluation to understand how prison-based participatory research worked in each site. For this, we conducted interviews at multiple points in time with people involved in the consortium from each state, including people who were incarcerated, corrections staff, facility leadership, local research partners, and state-level leaders who advised on the project via executive committees.

    We learned from our local partners that although participatory research approaches are uniquely challenging to conduct in prison settings, when done with intentionality they are not only possible but can lead to actionable insights and meaningful changes.