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

12/23/2011
Overincarceration

Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration: Weekly Highlights

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 2:31pm

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 discoursethat we’ve spotted from the previous week. Check back weekly for our top picks.

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10/20/2011
Overincarceration

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.

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09/19/2011
Overincarceration

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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07/22/2011
Solitary Confinement

Choosing Death Over Life: (Still) Starving to Stop Solitary

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project & Tanya Greene, Advocacy and Policy Counsel, ACLU at 10:33am

UPDATE: Although it appears that the hunger strike is over, the problems with solitary confinement remain. Not only are these conditions inhumane and harmful, but they also jeopardize public safety.

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06/24/2011
Overincarceration

Weekly Highlights: News from the War on Drugs

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 1:08pm

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.

Joint Effort? Barney Frank, Ron Paul Team Up on Marijuana Bill
This unlikely bipartisan duo teamed up to introduce a bill that would leave it up to the states to set their own marijuana policies, limiting the federal government’s ability to interfere with the state’s ability to legalize, regulate, tax, and control marijuana.

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06/17/2011
Overincarceration

Weekly Highlights: News from the War on Drugs

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 12:26pm

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.

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06/10/2011
War on Drugs

Weekly Highlights: News from the War on Drugs

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 2:43pm

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.

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09/23/2010

Teresa Lewis Execution Underscores Shocking Unfairness Of Death Penalty

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 5:20pm

Barring a last-minute miracle, 41-year-old Teresa Lewis will be unjustly put to death by lethal injection at 9 p.m. tonight at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va. Her final appeal was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week.

Earlier this month, we wrote about Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's impending opportunity to commute Lewis' sentence from death to life. Lewis was one part of a three-person operation that concluded with the murders of her husband and stepson in October of 2002. Of the three, she was the only one to receive a death sentence, despite the fact that she was heavily manipulated by a codefendant who preyed upon the fact that she has an IQ in the low 70's — a person with an IQ score between 70 and 75 can be considered mentally retarded. Further details of her case are available here. On Friday, Gov. McDonnell issued a statement in response to her petition for clemency, declining to grant it and concluding he could find "no compelling reason to set aside the sentence that was imposed by the circuit court and affirmed by all reviewing courts." In light of all the new evidence provided to the governor in the petition, his decision is exceedingly hard to swallow.

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09/14/2010

A Misidentified "Mastermind"

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 12:49pm

On September 23, Teresa Lewis, a mentally disabled individual, is slated to become the first woman executed in the state of Virginia since the electrocution of Virginia Christian in 1912. Accused of hiring Matthew Shallenberger and Rodney Fuller to kill her husband and stepson, Lewis pleaded guilty in 2002 and received a death sentence, while the two men responsible for carrying out the murders were sentenced to life in prison. Judge Charles Strauss explained the disparity in their sentences by identifying her as the "head of the serpent" in the operation. It's not just the differing sentences that perturbs — Teresa Lewis has been classified as borderline mentally disabled by two separate mental health experts. Yet Judge Strauss didn't take into account the vast difference in intellectual abilities between herself and the men who killed her husband and stepson. Lewis' sentence is yet another example of the unjust distribution and application of the death penalty. We urge you to send this letter to Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell asking him to commute Lewis' death sentence to life in prison.

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08/10/2012
Drug Law Reform

In the Race for Sensible Drug Policy, U.S. Snoozes on the Sidelines

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 11:47am

Olympics season is upon us, and there’s no shortage of news in which the United States is heralded as the global frontrunner. Beyond athletics, America tends to pride itself on being innovative and forward-thinking on many issues of law and policy, professing to set an example for the rest of the world. But when it comes to our stagnant approach to drug policy, other countries have surpassed us repeatedly by leaps and bounds. From Portugal to Switzerland to Guatemala, it’s as if the rest of the world aced a public health class that the United States skipped because it was too busy fighting a failed, costly “war on drugs.”

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