Overincarceration

05/04/2012

Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration: Weekly Highlights

By Alex Stamm, ACLU Center for Justice at 2:34pm

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.

05/02/2012

Overincarceration

Long Island Should Break its Addiction to Incarceration

By Eric Balaban, ACLU National Prison Project & Corey Stoughton, NYCLU at 12:27pm

The issue of over-incarceration in America is gaining traction among state and local law makers – but not, apparently, on Long Island. The New York Civil Liberties Union recently sued Nassau and Suffolk counties, home to the Hamptons’ beach clubs and million-dollar estates, over squalid, life-threatening conditions at their jails.

04/27/2012

Overincarceration

Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration: Weekly Highlights

By Alex Stamm, ACLU Center for Justice at 4:27pm

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.

04/23/2012

Overincarceration

Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration: Weekly Highlights

By Alex Stamm, ACLU Center for Justice at 5:33pm

03/12/2012

Overincarceration

States' Top Jurists Call for Criminal Justice Reform

By Alex Stamm, ACLU Center for Justice at 4:45pm

Skyrocketing corrections budgets have fixed state lawmakers' attention on the problem of mass incarceration, and smart reform — reducing prison populations and spending while keeping communities safe — is starting to happen. Nonetheless, some states have been slow to respond. In the early months of 2012, a number of states' chief justices told their legislators to wake up to the growing problem and suggested reforms that would be good for both budgets and public safety.

02/28/2012

Celebrate Black History

Continuing the Fight for Civil Rights and Prisoners' Rights

By David Fathi, National Prison Project at 3:46pm

In the United States, the freedom struggle of Black people and the struggle for prisoners' rights have long been intertwined.

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.

11/18/2011

Overincarceration

Breaking the Addiction to Incarceration: Weekly Highlights

By Rebecca McCray, ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project at 1:47pm

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.

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.

06/30/2011

War on Drugs

Just Say "No" to the War on Drugs

By Rachel Myers, ACLU at 3:21pm

June 2011 marked 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, we’ve run daily posts about the drug war, its victims and what needs to be done to restore fairness and create effective policy.

Today, we got some encouraging news: the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted to retroactively apply the new Fair Sentencing Act guidelines to individuals sentenced before the law was enacted. This decision will help ensure that over 12,000 people — 85 percent of whom are African-Americans — will have the opportunity to have their sentences for crack cocaine offenses reviewed by a federal judge and possibly reduced.

American Civil Liberties Union