Carceral Research Policy Repository

People who are incarcerated are often excluded from health research. Relatively little research takes place in prisons or jails, and people who are incarcerated are excluded from nearly all nationally representative health data sets. It remains critical to protect incarcerated people who participate in research, while ensuring that they have access to research participation and evidence-based care.

There are federal regulations (45 CFR 46 subpart C) that provide a foundation for federally funded or conducted research in prisons and jails. Many prisons and jails have developed their own research policies to operationalize federal guidance, place additional restrictions, on research, and lay out the processes researchers need to follow to get facility approval to conduct research.

We have compiled all publicly available research policies from state prison systems and the largest jail in each state by county population.

This repository is intended to be a resource for researchers interested in conducting research in prisons and jails and for carceral systems interested in developing or updating their research policies.

If you notice any links that do not work or have recommendations or updates, please email Helen Jack, MD and Justin Berk, MD.

*Largest jail by county population

This research was supported by the Brown University Collaborative Justice-Involved Research and Training Program, which was funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse under award R25DA037190. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.