Blog of Rights
Will
Matthews

Will Matthews is the senior communications officer at the ACLU of Northern California, where he leads the strategic communications component of a statewide ACLU campaign to reform California’s criminal justice system. Previously he was the senior media relations associate at the ACLU’s national office in New York, where he primarily worked on the ACLU’s campaign to reduce over-incarceration. A graduate of Chapman University in Orange, Calif, and the recipient of the Master of Divinity degree from Vanderbilt University, Matthews formerly was an award-winning investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group.

12/10/2012
Drug Law Reform

The Incomplete Story Told by California’s Declining Juvenile Arrest Rates

By Will Matthews, ACLU of Northern California & Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 2:20pm

A recent study from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice (CJCJ) demonstrates that decriminalization of marijuana can actually improve our children’s futures while saving taxpayers billions of dollars.

In 2011, Senate Bill 1449 was implemented, which reduced the punishment for simple marijuana possession from a misdemeanor criminal offense to a civil infraction punishable by a fine of no more than $100. Data from the California Department of Justice’s Criminal Justice Statistics Center for 2011 reveals an impressive 20 percent decrease in overall youth arrests in the state compared to the previous year, and a 60 percent decrease in marijuana arrests. The CJCJ analysis determined that the “largest contributor to [the overall] decrease was a drop of 9,000 in youths’ low-level marijuana possession arrests” since the passage of SB 1449.

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