Prison Monitoring

What happens behind bars matters.

We work to end abuse and mistreatment in prisons. When prisons and jails are unsafe, communities are unsafe. When residents and staff in correctional facilities are degraded, the community is degraded.  

As the only independent oversight body with statutory access for Pennsylvania’s prisons and jails, we work directly inside all 85 state and county correctional facilities to monitor conditions, escalate problems we witness, and surface issues before they become a problem.

Through our statewide network of trained volunteers, we respond to individual requests for assistance from incarcerated people and their families, and work to resolve issues on a case-by-case basis. To provide effective oversight of individual institutions and the correctional system at-large, we track key issues and identify trends through data collection, walkthroughs, and in-depth regular communication with people living and working in prison.

We use this information to effectively partner with prison administrators and government officials to help ensure our shared goal of safer, more humane prisons. We make this information publicly available to advance understanding, transparency, and accountability on the government's third-largest expenditure.

“Thank you for your help thus far. I seriously thought I was alone in this....I’m trying to take care of everything and it’s so stressful” ^{INCARCERATED PERSON, SCI COAL TOWNSHIP}