Blog of Rights

Amy
Fettig
Amy Fettig serves as Senior Staff Counsel for the ACLU’s National Prison Project (NPP).
 
At NPP, she litigates federal class action prison conditions cases under the Eighth Amendment. Her practice focuses on claims regarding medical and mental health care in prison, solitary confinement, prison rape, and comprehensive reform in juvenile facilities. Ms. Fettig also directs the ACLU’s Stop Solitary campaign seeking to end the practice of long-term isolation in our nation’s prisons, jails and juvenile detention centers through public policy reform, legislation, litigation and public education.
 
Ms. Fettig is a leading member of the national coalition seeking to end the practice of shackling pregnant women prisoners and works with a wide range of ACLU affiliates on both anti-shackling campaigns and their advocacy strategies around women’s health in prison. A national expert on prisoner rights law, she provides technical legal assistance and advice to advocacy groups and lawyers around the country and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, where she teaches courses on public interest advocacy.
 
Prior to law school, Ms. Fettig worked with women prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families in New York City. She holds a B.A., with distinction, Carleton College; a Master’s from Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs; and a J.D. from Georgetown University. Ms. Fettig is a member of the New York State Bar (2002) and the Bar for the District of Columbia (2006).
  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page

Solitary Confinement Destroys All Kinds of People

By Amy Fettig, ACLU National Prison Project at 4:01pm

An American woman recounts her time in solitary confinement in an Iranian prison, an experience endured by thousands of prisoners here in the U.S.

Starving For Better Conditions in California Prisons

By Amy Fettig, ACLU National Prison Project at 12:54pm

How terrible would things have to be for you to stop eating and possibly starve yourself to death? For prisoners in California, their conditions of confinement — severe and prolonged isolation in small, windowless concrete boxes — have reached that level. Prisoners in California are now on a hunger strike, protesting inhumane conditions in Pelican Bay State Prison.

Rhode Island Stands Up For Pregnant Women in Prison: Says No to Shackling

By Amy Fettig, ACLU National Prison Project & Becca Cadoff, Reproductive Freedom Project & Steven Brown, ACLU of Rhode Island at 12:18pm

Following the lead of a dozen other states, Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee has signed into law a bill that sharply restricts the harmful practice of shackling pregnant prisoners. As we have learned from the stories of women across the country, this legislation is critical to protecting mothers and babies. In Rhode Island, legislators heard from one former inmate who described her fears for her pregnancy every time she was transported in a prison van. Not only was she shackled, the van had no seat belts, and she was constantly jostled around with no way to protect herself from falling on her abdomen.

We Can End Prison Rape

By Amy Fettig, ACLU National Prison Project at 3:27pm

There is a terrible irony in the experience of incarcerated women: the lives of abuse and subordination that frequently brought them to prison are most often replicated behind prison walls. Women’s experience of prison as a place of abuse, violence, psychological deprivation and physical harm is both a human rights tragedy and an indictment of our justice system. Although many aspects of prison life produce tangible harm to women prisoners, their families and ultimately the community, the crisis proportions of sexual violence behind bars demands our immediate attention.

Each Day, More Victims

By Amy Fettig, ACLU National Prison Project at 11:50am

Sexual abuse behind bars in this country is rampant. Today, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) issued a report finding that a staggering 64,500 people in federal and state prisons reported being raped or sexually abused in the last year. The report further found that an additional 24,000 jail detainees were sexually abused during that same period. And in juvenile facilities, the problem is even worse: according to a recent government study, almost 15 percent of youth reported being sexually abused in the preceding year.

  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page
Statistics image