Blog of Rights

Rebecca
McCray

Rebecca McCray works as a paralegal with the Criminal Law Reform Project of the ACLU, which seeks an end to excessively harsh crime policies that result in mass incarceration. The Project works to reduce the number of people entering jails and prisons by reforming our nation's punitive drug policies and challenging police and prosecutorial misconduct and other governmental abuses of power. Rebecca has worked as an educator and researcher at the Iowa Correctional Institute for Women, the Iowa Juvenile Home, and Rikers Island, facilitating classes in writing, visual art, and debate. In addition, Rebecca leads free writing workshops throughout New York City with the New York Writers Coalition and regularly contributes to the organization’s blog, The Narrator. An Iowa native, she lives and writes in Brooklyn. She is a graduate of the University of Iowa. You can follow her on Twitter here: @rebeccakmccray

Obama's Words, Our Message: We Must Protect the Vulnerable from Sexual Assault

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 12:43pm

Tell President Obama and Attorney General Holder to grant detainees in ICE custody legal protections from sexual abuse and assault.

Lying to Eat

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 12:36pm

A Mississippi mother of two was sentenced to three years in prison for lying about a past drug conviction when applying for food stamps.

Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration: Weekly Highlights

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 12:55pm

Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it’s ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice system has failed on every count: public safety, fairness and cost-effectiveness. Across the country, the criminal justice reform conversation is heating up. Each week, we feature our some of the most exciting and relevant news in overincarceration discourse that we’ve spotted from the previous week. Check back weekly for our top picks.

New ACLU Report on Dangers of Private Prisons
This week, the ACLU National Prison Project released Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration, which provides a comprehensive analysis of the destructive impact of prison privatization. As the report underscores, now is the time for serious criminal justice reform, not privatization schemes.

Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration: Weekly Highlights

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 4:20pm

Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it’s ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice system has failed on every count: public safety, fairness and cost-effectiveness. Across the country, the criminal justice reform conversation is heating up. Each week, we feature our some of the most exciting and relevant news in overincarceration discourse that we’ve spotted from the previous week. Check back weekly for our top picks.

Check Your Constitutional Rights at the Classroom Door? Not on Our Watch.

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 2:40pm

A judge has ruled that Linn State Technical College's mandatory drug-testing policy is patently unconstitutional, and has blocked any further drug testing.

Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration: Weekly Highlights

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 6:12pm

Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it’s ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice system has failed on every count: public safety, fairness and cost-effectiveness. Across the country, the criminal justice reform conversation is heating up. Each week, we feature our some of the most exciting and relevant news in overincarceration discourse that we’ve spotted from the previous week. Check back weekly for our top picks.

5 More Years in Prison for Making a Phone Call

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 10:59am

It's hard to open a newspaper these days without finding an article about California's myriad criminal justice troubles. From the Plata decision ordering the state to reduce the population of its prisons, to the hunger strike by prisoners protesting the conditions in the state's solitary confinement units, to the rampant abuse in L.A. County jails, California's criminal justice system is an expensive, ineffective, and inhumane embarrassment.

Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration: Weekly Highlights

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 3:56pm

Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it’s ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice system has failed on every count: public safety, fairness and cost-effectiveness. Across the country, the criminal justice reform conversation is heating up. Each week, we feature our some of the most exciting and relevant news in overincarceration discourse that we’ve spotted from the previous week. Check back weekly for our top picks.

ACLU releases report detailing jail overcrowding in California
The ACLU and the ACLU of Southern California released a report last week detailing a pattern of severe and pervasive abuse of inmates in Los Angeles County jails. California’s severely bloated prison system has contributed to such inhumane conditions, which the Supreme Court found unconstitutional earlier this year. As California’s counties attempt to implement the state’s solution to the overcrowding – the “realignment” plan moving certain inmates to county jails - the ACLU continues to closely monitor incarceration conditions and assist counties in implementing the new law.

California Prisoners on Hunger Strike Again to Protest Solitary Confinement

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project & Tanya Greene, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 3:46pm

In July, hundreds of prisoners confined in Pelican Bay State Prison and nine other California correctional facilities protested the heinous conditions of their confinement with the only means they had: their ability to peacefully refuse food. After the prisoners starved for three weeks, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) agreed to a policy review of its solitary confinement, or Security Housing Units (SHU), where prisoners are confined alone in tiny, windowless concrete cells, often for years on end. With that agreement, the prisoners ended their hunger strike.

Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration: Weekly Highlights

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 3:23pm

Today, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. With over 2.3 million men and women living behind bars, our imprisonment rate is the highest it’s ever been in U.S. history. And yet, our criminal justice system has failed on every count: public safety, fairness and cost-effectiveness. Across the country, the criminal justice reform conversation is heating up. Each week, we feature our some of the most exciting and relevant news in overincarceration discourse that we’ve spotted from the previous week. Check back weekly for our top picks.

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