Criminal Law Reform

The ACLU works in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.

Police in the United States are empowered to detain, search, and interrogate people walking the streets or driving in cars as a tool for criminal investigations, without suspicion of criminal wrongdoing. And police engage in invasive, widespread, and often violent pedestrian and traffic stops against primarily Black, Latine, and Indigenous people, causing harm to the people and communities most targeted.

Through litigation and advocacy, the ACLU’s Criminal Law Reform Project works to ensure that public defense systems throughout the country reliably live up to the promise of the Sixth Amendment so that all criminal defendants — regardless of their wealth or poverty — receive fair treatment in the criminal legal system. Failing public defense systems violate the constitutional rights of the accused, lead to unjust outcomes, and contribute to our overburdened, inhumane, and wasteful jail and prison systems.

We want a world in which people have an equal right to go about their lives without invasive, humiliating, or violent encounters with the police regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or disability. To achieve this world, the ACLU works to increase individual rights against police violence and oppression, while shifting power to people impacted by police overreach to build better models for public safety.

The ACLU works in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.