News & Commentary about Alternatives to Incarceration
![Alternatives to Incarceration image](https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/themes/aclu-wp/img/news/news-by-issue-images/smart-justice_600.png)
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.
![The lock and bars of a prison cell are at the forefront, while a detainee, standing in an orange jumpsuit and with his tattooed arms crossed waits in a cell with other detainees.](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2022/09/UNJUST-CONFINEMENT-Blog-400x266.jpg)
Sep 1, 2022
When Release Conditions End in Unjust Confinement
![Inmate housing area in a California prison.](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2020/04/COVID-Prisons-FullBleed-Header-400x266.jpg)
Apr 22, 2020
New Model Shows Reducing Jail Population will Lower COVID-19 Death Toll for All of Us
![](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2019/10/AP_16237814475582_opt-400x266.jpg)
Oct 25, 2019
The First Step Act was Exactly that, a First Step. What Comes Next?
![Chicken Processing Plant](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2019/09/web17-chickenprocessing-1160x768-400x266.jpg)
Nov 2, 2017
Forced Labor, Rotten Chicken, and the Occasional AA Meeting
![Dilapidated and abandoned school in Detroit](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2019/09/web15-blog-delapidatedclassroom-1160x768-400x266.jpg)
Jul 22, 2015
Keeping Children in the Classroom and out of the Courtroom
![The Juvenile Detention Center of Hennepin County in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Source: Courtney “Coco” Mault/Flickr](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2019/09/blog15-juveniledetention-1160x768-400x266.jpg)
May 26, 2015
If Members of the House Believe Mass Incarceration Is a Real Problem, They Aren’t Putting Their Money Where Their Mouths Are
![Light streaming through a barred window casts a shadow of the bars the floor of a prison cell](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2019/09/kyr-transgenderprisoners-560x480-v01-400x266.jpg)
Apr 3, 2015
Everything That Is Wrong With U.S. Prisons in One Picture
![Prison cell window](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2019/09/solitary_window-400x266.jpg)
Mar 27, 2015
The 'wHOLE' Truth Behind Solitary Confinement
![](https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2019/09/blog-velez-500x280-v01_0-400x266.jpg)
Mar 18, 2015
How Did a Lifelong Prison Sentence for an Iraq Vet Turn Into an Imminent Death Sentence?