Blog of Rights
Inimai
Chettiar
Inimai Chettiar is an Advocacy & Policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, where she serves as a national legislative counsel working to end mass incarceration in states across the country. She has published extensive scholarship on using economic analysis to advance progressive legal reform. She received a B.A. from Georgetown University and a J.D. from the University of Chicago School of Law.
09/27/2011

It's Not Just Prosecutorial Leverage That's Eroding our Justice System

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU at 6:17pm

Yesterday's New York Times article highlighting the coercive practice of plea bargaining is not news to advocates of criminal justice reform. Over the last three decades, this country's excessively long sentencing schemes, inflexible mandatory minimum laws, and arbitrary three-strikes-you're-out legislation have created a "justice" system in which prosecutors wield ridiculous amounts of leverage to extract guilty pleas from defendants. NYU's Rachel Barkow sums it up best: "When you have that attitude you penalize people who have the nerve to go to trial." Almost 100 percent of federal defendants plead guilty.

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09/13/2011

Ohio Mother Granted Clemency after Being Prosecuted for Sending Her Child to the Wrong School

By Geoff Schotter, ACLU & Inimai Chettiar, ACLU at 4:55pm

In January, we wrote about the particularly disturbing case of Kelley Williams-Bolar, an African-American single mother convicted of two felonies and facing prison time because she used her father's address on a school enrollment form so that her daughter could attend a safer school.

Williams-Bolar lived in Akron, Ohio, in a school district that, like many urban districts populated predominantly by poor people of color, is understaffed and underfunded. Although the judge suspended the sentence to 10 days jail time and probation, Williams-Bolar's status as a "felon" barred her from ever being able to obtain a teaching license, a credential she was working toward. By February, the highly publicized case prompted Ohio governor John Kasich to ask the state parole board to review Williams-Bolar's prison term.

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08/09/2011
Overincarceration

A Way Toward Balancing Government Budgets While Promoting Justice: Break Our Addiction to Incarceration

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU & Vanita Gupta, Center for Justice at 12:44pm

A new ACLU report shows how several states have enacted cost-effective laws cutting their unnecessary overreliance and massive spending on prisons while continuing to protect the safety of our communities.

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07/26/2011
Georgia

Mother Jaywalking Faces More Prison Time Than Man Who Ran Over Her Son

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU & Jon Martin, ACLU at 10:20am

“Tough on crime” rhetoric – especially when it comes to perceived threats against our nation’s children – has been a political focal point in recent years. Local prosecutors and law enforcement agencies are often judged by how many convictions they can score, especially in cases that involve potential harm to a child. This undercurrent in our criminal justice system, instead of promoting public safety, too often serves to compound already tragic events, as was the case recently with a mother and her young child in Georgia.

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07/22/2011
A.B. 109

Californians Say: Better Policies, Not More Prisons

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU & Zoë Bunnell, ACLU at 2:03pm

The people of California are speaking and they’re saying that they don’t want any new prisons. A poll released this week by The Los Angeles Times and USC demonstrates what criminal justice reform advocates have been saying for years: people would rather have shorter prison sentences for non-violent offenders than foot the bill for rising prison costs.

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06/29/2011
Overincarceration

Criminal Sentencing Reform Wins Bipartisan Support in Ohio

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU & Mike Brickner, ACLU of Ohio at 3:41pm

Ohio's legislature has not been the friendliest place for civil libertarians this year. Bills under consideration include the most restrictive photo identification requirements for voters, privatizing six of the state's prisons and some of the nation's most aggressive attacks on reproductive freedom.

However, there is one notable bright spot in Ohio's legislative session: the passage of criminal sentencing reform. The ACLU of Ohio has been on the front lines advocating for sensible sentencing reform that would alleviate the state's overcrowded prison system. After two decades of unfair sentencing laws sending more low-level, nonviolent offenders to prison, the state's prison system is at 133 percent capacity with a growing class of ex-felons who are unable to gain access to employment, education and housing.

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06/17/2011
Overincarceration

Are Saggy Pants Really a Threat to Flight Safety?

By Elana Fogel, ACLU & Inimai Chettiar, ACLU at 6:32pm

On Wednesday, a college student was removed from his U.S. Airways flight and arrested at San Francisco International Airport. The scholar-athlete, Deshon Marman, was attempting to return to the University of New Mexico after attending a childhood friend's funeral when he was arrested for "trespassing" after being removed from a plane that he had a ticket to be on.

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06/14/2011
War on Drugs

Just What Is So Wrong With the War on Drugs?

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU at 1:41pm

June 2011 marks the 40th anniversary of President Richard Nixon's declaration of a "war on drugs" — a war that has cost roughly a trillion dollars, has produced little to no effect on the supply of or demand for drugs in the United States, and has contributed to making America the world's largest incarcerator. Throughout the month, check back daily for posts about the drug war, its victims and what needs to be done to restore fairness and create effective policy.

All our lives we have been taught that when someone uses or sells drugs, justice dictates that he or she should go to prison. We are taught that those who commit drug crimes are a threat to society, either because they want to turn others into addicts or steal from them for drug money; they belong in prison, safely away from law abiding citizens. But lately, newspapers and legislatures are abuzz with a message that is just the opposite: relying less on prison sanctions for drug crimes can actually increase public safety.

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05/24/2011
Elderly Prisoners

The High Costs of Going Gray in Louisiana and Nationwide

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU & Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 5:26pm

Prisoners across America are getting older, experiencing all the same ailments that afflict those of the same age who aren't behind bars. Extreme sentencing policies and a growing number of life sentences without the possibility of parole have effectively turned many of our correctional facilities into veritable nursing homes — and we're paying for it.

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05/24/2011

Plata is a Net Benefit to Public Safety and Our Constitutional Rights

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU at 4:48pm

Yesterday's Supreme Court opinion in Brown v. Plata is controversial only to those who do not understand the magnitude of the overincarceration epidemic in this country. The high court upheld an order mandating California to reduce prison overcrowding to remedy systemic constitutional violations. The opinion in no way mandates the blanket "early release" of prisoners; instead, it encourages the state to use prisons only when doing so would be cost-effective and increase public safety. It finds that California's prisons are so overcrowded that they violate the standard of decency required by the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

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