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.

It’s no secret that the United States is the largest incarcerator in the world. It’s also no secret that our government selectively enforces criminal laws disproportionately against poor people and people of color, resulting in the mass incarceration of black and brown Americans. Now, one in nine black children has a parent in prison; there are more black men under the control of corrections than were enslaved in 1850. Our addiction to incarceration has decimated the social and economic futures of generations of Americans.

As 2011 comes to end, we’re taking a look back at the year in criminal justice. Over the next few days, we’ll run a series of blog posts on the developments, good and bad, that have shaped our justice system – from overincarceration and sentencing policy to the treatment of prisoners and capital punishment. Read the series here.

It is said that you can tell a lot about a society by how it treats its most vulnerable members. In the United States, a good measure might be how we treat those who come in contact with our criminal justice system, for they are often the very same. In 2011, the American Civil Liberties Union made the fight against overincarceration a top organizational priority with the launch of our Safe and Fair Campaign. It was the perfect time to do so: after decades of “tough on crime” policymaking, there is now an opening to shift to being smart on crime, and to make policy based on facts and evidence, rather than emotion and politics. America’s criminal justice system should keep communities safe, treat people fairly, and use fiscal resources wisely. It should use prison as a last resort. While we are having some success in breaking our addiction to mass incarceration, we still have a long way to go.

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.