Blog of Rights

7 Year-Old Boy Handcuffed for $5 'Robbery'

By Alison Silveira, Paralegal, Racial Justice Program, ACLU at 3:01pm

Five dollars is apparently all it takes to land a 7-year-old in handcuffs in a New York City public school these days.

Parents across New York City awoke Wednesday morning to the news that Bronx third-grader Wilson Reyes was pulled out of class, handcuffed and interrogated over the course of 10 hours at his elementary school, and later, at a local precinct. Reyes was charged with robbery after someone said he grabbed $5 that a classmate had dropped on the floor, causing a scuffle among several boys.

Private Prisons Are the Problem, Not the Solution

By Margaret Winter, National Prison Project & Gabriel Eber, ACLU National Prison Project at 4:38pm

For the past two years, the ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center have been investigating and exposing a horrifying pattern of abuse against juveniles and the mentally ill in two Mississippi prisons operated by the GEO Group, one of the biggest for-profit prison operators in the world.

Recently, we got some good news and some bad news.

The 40-Year War on Drugs: It's Not Fair, and It's Not Working.

By Vanita Gupta, Center for Justice at 4:13pm

June 2011 has the unfortunate distinction of marking the 40th anniversary of the "war on drugs" — a war which has cost $1 trillion but produced little to no effect on the supply of or demand for drugs.

The Outskirts of Hope: How Ohio’s Debtors' Prisons are Ruining Lives and Costing Communities

By Mike Brickner, ACLU of Ohio at 11:44am

They are unconstitutional. They are against state law. And yet, debtors’ prisons – jailing people because they are too poor to pay their court...

Poor People Have Rights Too

By Rachel Bloom, ACLU at 4:05pm

Drug-testing those applying for public assistance is unconstitutional, shortsighted and will end up costing states more than any possible savings.

DNA Privacy Goes to the Supreme Court

By Michael Risher, Staff Attorney, ACLU of Northern California at 5:23pm

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments today in Maryland v. King, a case that raises the question of whether the police can take DNA...

One Year After Simmons: ACLU Sends Letter to DOJ to Help Release People Wrongly Languishing in Federal Prisons

By Jesselyn McCurdy, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:53pm

Yesterday, USA Today reported on a letter the ACLU sent to top officials at the Department of Justice, urging immediate action to identify and possibly release dozens of wrongfully imprisoned federal inmates.

James Watson, Discoverer of DNA: Patenting Human Genes Is “Lunacy”

By Sandra S. Park, ACLU Women's Rights Project at 12:11pm

Recently, Dr. James Watson filed an amicus brief opposing gene patents in our lawsuit challenging the patents on two human genes associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer. Dr. Watson, along with Francis Crick, identified DNA’s ability to create life through its double helical structure and its information-coding sequences in 1953. His brief explains why, from the perspective of a scientist whose work laid the foundation for all genetic research, gene patenting is “lunacy.”

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?

Drug-Testing Welfare Recipients: A Trend with No Traction

By Rachel Bloom, ACLU at 4:26pm

Two months into the state legislative session, not a single welfare drug testing bill has passed into law.