American Civil Liberties Union

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. 

The announcement this week by Sheriff Lee Baca that he agrees with and intends to implement all 63 recommendations laid out in a new report by the Citizens' Commission on Jail Violence is welcome news. At a press conference Wednesday, Baca said of the recommendations, “I couldn’t have written them better myself,” continuing that by implementing them, “we will be a stronger and safer jail.”

Today the ACLU and the ACLU of South Carolina sent a letter to the Greenville County, South Carolina Sheriff’s Office and the State Solicitor’s Office demanding that the local police department stop violating the constitutional rights of innocent people under the guise of enforcing public decency laws. The letter is aimed specifically at ending Greenville County police officers’ practice of arresting women they suspect of being prostitutes and men who have sex with men, even though they haven’t broken any laws. These arrests violate the Constitution and need to be stopped.

This afternoon, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement is holding a hearing called "Holiday on ICE: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's New Immigration Detention Standards." (webcast here, ACLU statement here). The hearing's title and premise insult the U.S. Constitution by denigrating Immigration and Customs Enforcement's belated attempt to introduce basic, constitutionally required standards of care for the nearly 400,000 people held annually in immigration detention facilities. These men and women are detained for alleged civil, not criminal, immigration violations; many of them have U.S. citizen children and other relatives.