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.

Sending Your Kid to the Wrong School Could Land You Five Years Behind Bars

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU & Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 5:34pm

Last Tuesday, something happened in Ohio that should shock the conscience of every American. After a seven-day jury trial, Kelley Williams-Bolar was found guilty of two third-degree felonies — with a sentence of five years in prison each. Williams-Bolar must have done something pretty heinous, right?

Why Are We Spending So Much To Lock Up Elderly Prisoners Who Pose Little Threat?

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU & Vanita Gupta, Center for Justice at 3:07pm

Elderly prisoners are the least dangerous group of people behind bars but the most expensive to incarcerate. Yet despite this truth, the number of elderly prisoners is skyrocketing. Harsher sentences for less serious crimes – one defining characteristic of our failed “tough on crime” and “war on drugs” policies – are responsible for this staggering increase in the number of older prisoners, and taxpayers are taking the hit.

Supreme Court Says Jails Can Strip Search You – Even for Traffic Violations

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU at 2:18pm

Yesterday a divided Supreme Court ruled in Florence v. Burlington that any person arrested can be subject to a strip search — even for a minor offense or traffic violation — without any reason to suspect that they may be carrying a weapon or contraband.

As disturbing as the practice of subjecting people accused of minor offenses to degrading strip searches is, it wouldn’t be a problem if those people weren’t thrown behind bars in the first place. Unfortunately, U.S. jails are full of people accused of minor, nonviolent crimes. One such person was Albert Florence, a 35-year-old Black man erroneously arrested in 2005 for failing to pay a traffic fine he had already paid — and whose experience is the center of the case decided by the Court.

States Take Sizeable Steps in 2012 to End Overincarceration

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU & Alex Stamm, ACLU Center for Justice at 3:48pm

As states begin to realize that they can reduce their prison populations safely, the pace of reform has begun to pick up a bit this year. State legislative sessions are coming to a close, which makes it a good time to review the actions lawmakers have taken to reduce their unsustainable prison populations in 2012. Here are the some of the legislative reform highlights:

Alabama

Faced with a system of overcrowded prisons and fearing the same sort of court order that forced California to reform its prison system, Alabama took an indirect route toward depopulating its prisons. The state passed SB 386 inMay, which will allow the Alabama Sentencing Commission to set sentencing guidelines for nonviolent crimes that judges would generally have to follow. Under the new law, the Commission can make sentencing changes for nonviolent crimes, which will take effect unless the legislature takes action to reject any such the changes. The Sentencing Commission, which is insulated from the electoral pressure to reject proposals to soften criminal sentences, may now be poised to take action to reduce prison sentences for nonviolent offenses.

Blame Mass Incarceration on Sentencing Policies, not Mass Crime

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU & Alex Stamm, ACLU Center for Justice at 5:16pm

Any competent explanation of why our prison population has grown by 700 percent since the early ‘70s will involve a number of factors, including changes in demographics and in the way prosecutors charge defendants. But new research confirms what sentencing reform advocates have been saying for years: we have so many more prisoners because we’re locking people up for longer than ever before.

"Tough on Crime" No Longer the American Mantra?

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU & Alex Stamm, ACLU Center for Justice at 4:35pm

Politicians over the last quarter-century have held strong to the conventional wisdom that being "tough on crime" will win elections and appease the public's appetite for safety. And for the most part, it seems Americans did feel this way (if you don't think so, just ask Michael Dukakis). To alleviate the public's overblown fear, or even to slake a thirst for retribution, our lawmakers have repeatedly deemed more private acts criminal and doled out harsher punishments for a generation. They selectively enforced these laws against the "feared" Black and brown communities, and in the end gave us a massive, unsustainable prison population unlike anything the world has ever seen.

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.

ACLU Joins Republicans and Democrats to Streamline Maryland’s Bloated Prison System

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU & Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 6:21pm

The ACLU has joined forces with a bipartisan group of legislators and advocates to support a bill that would make great strides toward easing the strain of Maryland’s overpopulated prison system. The bill (S.B. 801), introduced by Republican Michael Hough, would create a pilot program to streamline the state’s parole system with a “graduated sanctions program.” It’s a mouthful, but the concept is ultimately about equipping parole officers with options.

Why Mass Incarceration Really is the New Jim Crow

By Inimai Chettiar, ACLU at 3:41pm

Black Americans are twice as likely to be arrested during a traffic stop and nearly four times as likely to experience the threat or use of force.

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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