The United States incarcerates nearly 1.1 million people in state prisons (PDF), more than any other nation in the world. Yet remarkably little of what corrections leaders and policymakers know about daily prison life comes directly from those who live it. Partnering with five state prisons and five local research institutions, the Urban Institute’s Prison Research and Innovation Initiative aimed to better understand and improve prison living and working conditions. This brief summarizes findings from three waves of climate surveys administered to thousands of incarcerated people in the five states by the local research partners.

Why This Matters

Across many systems, persistent issues such as extreme heat, overcrowding, chronic understaffing, and inadequate medical care reveal how surface-level audits and administrative data can miss the lived realities that shape both institutional safety and rehabilitation outcomes. Understanding how incarcerated people perceive their living conditions provides critical, actionable insight for reform. These perspectives illuminate environmental and relational factors that influence well-being, behavior, and reentry success, functioning as a form of performance feedback for corrections systems. This research offers firsthand insights into incarcerated people’s perceptions of their own living conditions, drawing on surveys jointly designed and analyzed by incarcerated people, corrections staff, and each state’s local research partners. Understanding these perspectives is essential for policymakers, corrections leaders, advocates, and researchers working toward reforms that address challenges in prison living and working conditions that the surveys uncover.

Key Takeaways

This research highlights significant issues in prison living conditions, according to incarcerated people, particularly regarding basic living conditions, personal safety, staff relations, access to activities, and health care. Key findings include the following:

• Basic living conditions: Perceptions of basic living conditions were negative overall. For example, more than half of incarcerated people felt they did not get enough to eat in prison and two-thirds felt they did not get what they need for good personal hygiene for free.
• Safety: Respondents’ confidence in staff to maintain their personal safety is low, and their safety is generally a persistent source of concern for them. Two-thirds of incarcerated people felt staff at their prison did not make them feel safe.
• Staff relations: Survey responses suggest incarcerated people hold mixed but often skeptical views of staff relationships, fairness, and institutional responsiveness. For example, more than half of incarcerated people did not feel that staff treated them with respect.
• Access to activities: Survey responses reveal that many incarcerated people perceive access to meaningful activities to be limited and are skeptical about their facility’s preparation for release.
• Health care: Survey results suggest that large segments of the incarcerated population perceive major gaps in access to both physical and mental health care. Though some facilities may provide meaningful mental health services, access remains inconsistent and insufficient, according to incarcerated people.

How We Did It

Local research partners surveyed incarcerated people and corrections staff across five state prisons between 2021 and 2024. In total, they administered 14 climate surveys over three waves, yielding 5,268 responses from incarcerated people. Surveys included “cross-site” questions, asked in all facilities, across seven domains, such as basic living conditions, personal safety, staff relations, access to activities, and health care. Responses were anonymous and not linked across waves. Urban conducted analysis of these surveys to produce cross-site findings.