Yesterday, Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), Chair of the House Judiciary Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security Subcommittee, convened a terrific Capitol Hill summit on smart, effective ways to prevent youth violence. The half-day event brought nationally-renowned experts and juvenile justice reform advocates together to discuss evidence-based strategies for juvenile justice prevention and early intervention (a.k.a. working with children who are at risk to keep acts of violence from ever happening in the first place). In particular, the day served as a good momentum builder for Rep. Scott’s Youth PROMISE (Prison Reduction through Opportunities, Mentoring, Intervention, Support, Education) Act in the upcoming 111th Congress.

Marian Write Edelman, the legendary social justice advocate and founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, got the day started off with an inspiring discussion, in which she called on those of us present to help end the over-criminalization of children by working to support efforts like the Youth PROMISE Act that aim to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline while supporting young people and their families; making communities safer; reducing rates of victimization; and helping at-risk youth lead law-abiding and healthy lives, free of gangs, delinquency and violence.

The Youth PROMISE Act is unique among proposals being considered in Congress aimed at curbing youth violence. Several of the other gang bills that have been introduced in Congress, result in federalizing ordinary street crime that should be handled at the state level. Rather than funneling more young people into the juvenile and adult criminal justice systems and laying a foundation for committing future offenses, the Youth PROMISE Act builds upon evidence-based practices that have been proven to reduce rates of violence and delinquency. It is a true "bottom-up" approach that works with community leaders and youth at the local level to begin to address significant unmet needs and prevent crimes from ever occurring in the first place.

Another highlight of the day came with the release of a new report from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency on the various gang bills that have been proposed in Congress and concluded that:

Research and NCCD’s experiences strongly favor the practices promoted in the Youth PROMISE Act.

Additionally, in the Youth PROMISE Act’s rejection of the same-old-same-old, "get tough" approaches of the past, which have only resulted in putting more young people behind bars, the Council stated:

The Youth PROMISE Act appropriately rejects these failed policies, and embraces what years of research and practice have proven — that with the right programs, our youth can not only stay out of trouble but also have promising futures.

Here’s hoping that message comes across loud and clear when the new Congress gets started next month.

As President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden prepare to assume their new roles — and the 111th Congress, with its strengthened majorities in both the House and the Senate for Democrats, gears up to tackle the many pressing problems confronting our country — advocates who have been pushing for years to eliminate the infamous 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine are energized and excited about the prospects of finally correcting this shameful stain on our criminal justice system.

For those who may not be familiar with this issue, current federal sentencing law punishes crack cocaine offenders far more severely for simple possession than any other drug offenders, for the same offense. Possessing or dealing five grams of crack cocaine results in the same five-year mandatory minimum sentence as dealing 500 grams of powder cocaine.This counterproductive policy subjects low-level and non-violent participants to the same or harsher sentences as high-level traffickers and violent criminals. It has also had a particularly devastating impact on African American and low-income communities, while diverting precious federal resources from addressing the root causes of drug abuse and addiction.

Read more…

While Social Security is often described as the "third rail" of politics, the same term could easily apply to policies that seek to reform our nation’s criminal justice system.

Whether out of fear of being labeled as "soft on crime" or a genuine belief that we can arrest and incarcerate our way out of the problem, elected officials are often more than happy not to have to deal with reforms to our criminal justice system, despite the many systemic problems that plague it.

This is why I was so excited to see the release this week of "Smart on Crime: Recommendations for the Next Administration and Congress." This transition guide for the Obama administration and the 111th Congress lays out in great detail all of the reforms, both major and minor, that should be undertaken to have a criminal justice system that protects public safety, but also honors our commitments to fairness and equality under the law for all. A coalition of more than 20 organizations (including the ACLU) comprised the 2009 Criminal Justice Transition Coalition that compiled these excellent, workable recommendations.

The introduction ends with a prescient reminder that during these very challenging economic times, there are critical cost savings that can come from reforming a system that incarcerates 2.3 million people (that’s more than 1 out of every 100 adults in the U.S.) at a staggering cost of more than $60 billion per year.

At a time when the nation is facing its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, it is essential to review the cost of the criminal justice system to all Americans. Such a review should not only account for the cost in terms of dollars and cents, but also in terms of human lives and capital, which are our nation’s most valuable resource.

Those who care about reforming our criminal justice system (and if you’ve read this far, I’m assuming you do) have reason to be hopeful. The Obama/Biden transition team has included numerous criminal justice reforms to their civil rights agenda, including ending the shameful and racially discriminatory 100 to 1 sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. It will be up to all of us to hold them to their promises and provide the popular will for reform. I know we have it in us!

Also, I would encourage everyone who hasn’t to check out the ACLU’s transition agenda — Actions for Restoring America. There are great recommendations on the entire range of ACLU issues. Needless to say, we will be very busy over the coming weeks and months.

The Bush Administration’s Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has had what can only be described as an unhealthy obsession with marijuana for years now. ONDCP has spent millions in tax dollars on anti-marijuana ads, for example, that have been remarkable only in how utterly ineffective they are.
Now, a review of government drug data by George Mason University senior fellow Jon Gettman shows just how big this failure on the part of the Bush administration is. Should we honestly expect anything less from them at this point?

Mr. Gettman’s findings included the following:

• The Bush administration has failed to reduce or control marijuana use in the United States. Marginal changes in marijuana and other drug use have been distorted to support false claims that incremental progress in reducing marijuana and other drug use has been achieved. Marijuana use is fundamentally the same as when President Bush took office and illicit drug use overall has increased. Drug use data do not support Bush administration claims that its policies have had a significant impact on illicit drug use in the United States.
• Increases in drug treatment admissions for marijuana (often cited by officials as "proof" of marijuana’s dangers) are driven by criminal justice policies rather than medical diagnosis. These policies increase public costs for providing drug treatment services and reduce funds for and availability of treatment of more serious drug problems.
• Bush Administration documents acknowledge the failure of their national drug control strategy.

I was especially disturbed by the fact that while drug treatment admissions for marijuana have increased since 1996, not even half (45 percent) of these individuals met the criteria for being dependent, but rather had the misfortune to be caught in possession of marijuana. This is a clear waste of resources that could better be spent treating those who actually are suffering from drug addiction.

In the topsy-turvy world of the war on drugs, however, logic and common sense rarely carry the day.

As the Executive Director of the Marijuana Policy Project here in Washington remarked, “The most intense war on marijuana since Reefer Madness, including record numbers of arrests every year since 2003, has wasted billions of dollars and produced nothing except pain and ruined lives.”

In 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American teenager from Chicago was visiting family in Mississippi for the summer. On August 28 of that year, Till was brutally murdered. He was kidnapped from his family’s home in the middle of the night, beaten, shot, and dumped in the Tallahatchie River. Two white men allegedly committed the crime. The motive: Till whistled at a white woman in a grocery store. After a trial by an all-white, all-male jury, which deliberated for only 67 minutes, the two white men accused of Till’s murder were acquitted. While it may be too late to give comfort to Till’s mother — she passed away in 2003 — it is not too late for the families of victims of countless other unsolved crimes from the civil rights era.

Last night, President Bush signed into law legislation named in honor of Till, the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act. This law takes an important step towards ensuring that those who committed civil rights era crimes are brought to justice. The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act will provide the Department of Justice (DOJ) with additional personnel and resources to investigate and prosecute unsolved civil rights era crimes. Obtaining evidence is becoming more and more difficult as time goes by and witnesses and suspects age, so it’s crucial that DOJ have all the necessary resources to solve these cases. That there was no just trial for a crime as heinous as Till’s murder is a travesty. The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act sends the clear message that leaving these cases unsolved is not acceptable and that no matter how much times has passed, civil rights era crimes will not remain unprosecuted.

The ACLU applauds the passage of this law. Deborah J. Vagins, ACLU Legislative Counsel, said in a statement: "This law means justice delayed, no longer has to be justice denied."

(Originally posted on Daily Kos.)

In the 1980s and 90s, "tough-on-crime" legislators held enough sway to pass draconian sentencing schemes that exponentially increased the number of Americans behind bars — mostly by sentencing nonviolent drug offenders to lengthy terms once reserved only for violent criminals. However, despite an 1,100 percent increase of drug offenders in prisons and jails over the last 25 years, the use of illegal drugs has remained steady. (Not to mention that drug-related harm has increased dramatically, as overdose deaths more than tripled from 1990 to 2005.)

Today, the public’s attitudes about drugs have shifted. In 1989, when a Gallup poll posed the question, "What do you think is the most important problem facing this country today?" Twenty-six percent of respondents answered "Drugs; drug abuse." From 2004-2007, only 1 percent gave the same answer. Meanwhile, according to a Zogby poll released yesterday, 76 percent of Americans believe the "War on Drugs" is failing.

Read more…

Working for the ACLU on criminal justice policies, we are often asked to confront an array of legislative proposals aimed at getting “tough on crime” by doing things like making it easier to try children as adults and increasing the use of mandatory minimum sentences. While certainly tough-sounding, these policies do very little to actually reduce crime, other than fill our prisons to the point where the U.S. stands as the global leader in incarceration (PDF). No gold medal comes with this title.

While what doesn’t work is painfully obvious, the question of what does work must also be addressed. I recently came across two very good articles that shed some light on exactly what positive criminal justice policy results from (you know, what actually works as opposed to just sounding tough) and the answers may surprise you.

The first is an article in the October edition of In These Times magazine titled “No Jobs Make Mean Streets,” which traces the increase in violence, in particular gun violence, that accompanies job losses and economic decline in urban areas around the country. The second is an article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal titled “Superintendent, Sheriff Link Low Graduation Rates, Crime.” This article describes the low graduation rates of certain school districts in Nevada and the potential connection to increased levels of criminal activity. This paragraph grabbed my attention:

Improving graduation rates by just a little might save lives, Gillespie said. He referred to a 2004 study by University of California, Berkeley economist Enrico Moretti and Canadian economist Lance Lochner, whose research found that a 10 percentage point increase in graduation rates would reduce the murder and assault rate by 20 percent.

Show me any so-called “get tough” policy that has led to a 20 percent drop in violent crime.

It’s the simple things — providing good job and educational opportunities — that really get to the heart of reducing crime. Not only that, it actually helps to make for stronger communities. Talk about getting two for the price of one!

The 110th Congress, for all its faults, has really marked an important shift at the federal-level on juvenile justice reform. Congress has refused to move a punitive-heavy, “get tough” gangs bill. In fact, there was a hearing back in June on positive, intervention and prevention-based strategies to confront youth violence and gangs. Imagine that, actually highlighting practices that have been shown to work. I must be working in the wrong city! Anyway, just before the August recess, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved reauthorization of the landmark Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. Later this afternoon, there is going to be a hearing in the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime regarding legislation that would end the practice of sentencing children to life without the possibility of parole — the Juvenile Justice Accountability and Improvement Act.

This is an issue that the ACLU has been working on for years, and we are very happy to see it finally getting the attention it deserves and is long overdue. Estimates have placed the number of individuals serving life without parole sentences for crimes committed before the age of 18 approaching 2,500 — a disproportionate number being children of color. Sadly, this is a uniquely American practice. Until February of this year, Human Rights Watch found juveniles serving life without parole sentences in only one other country — Israel (which had a total of seven individuals serving such sentences). However, Israeli officials have confirmed that the seven individuals serving these life without parole sentences are now entitled to parole review, leaving the U.S., with its nearly 2,500 cases, all alone in the world.

Since 2006, three different international human rights treaty bodies have expressed grave concerns over the practice of sentencing children to life without parole. In 2006, the national ACLU and the ACLU of Michigan filed a petition with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on behalf of 32 juveniles who were tried and convicted as adults and given mandatory life sentences for crimes committed when they were under the age of 18 without any consideration to their status as children. This petition is still pending before the Commission to this day.

Hopefully today’s hearing won’t be the end-all-be-all, but rather the first serious step by Congress in what will eventually spell the end of one of the most pressing human rights challenges confronting our criminal justice system. Here’s hoping…

Preliminary research indicates that up to 80 percent of all drug cases in America may be based on information provided by informants. Informants work for the government, often secretly, to gather and provide information or to testify in exchange for cash or leniency in punishment for their own crimes. In many courts across the nation, all it takes is the uncorroborated word of an informant to charge someone with a crime.

This week has featured a few encouraging developments for those of us advocating reforms in the ways law enforcement works with informants: Read more…

Earlier this year, the Pew Center for the States reported that more than 1 of every 100 American adults is in jail or prison. That totals approximately 2.3 million adults.

NPR reported today on one program that could help solve America’s huge incarceration problem. Texas sends many people to "DIVERT" Court, a system that pushes first-time, low-level non-violent offenders—especially those arrested for minor drug possession offenses—through rehab and treatment programs instead of the through the criminal justice system and into prison.

Texas has a prison population of 157,000, a number that’s expected to balloon in the next few years if it continues to incarcerate at its current rate. NPR reports:

Two studies by Southern Methodist University show that DIVERT Court cuts the recidivism rate by 68 percent over the regular Texas criminal justice courts. For every dollar spent on the court, $9 are saved in future criminal justice costs.

…The expanding prison population is a financial red stain spreading across the state’s books like the Andromeda Strain, [Texas State Rep. Jerry Madden (R-Plano), Chairman of the House Corrections Committee] says. Each new maximum security prison costs Texas taxpayers $300 million to build and $40 million a year to operate.

State officials estimate that unless changes are made, Texas will need 17,000 more prison beds just four years from now. Releasing prisoners on parole is politically untenable — which makes "diversion" an increasingly appealing way to avoid what’s looking like a $2 billion invoice.

You can’t argue with numbers like that. The DIVERT Court has been such a success that officials are hoping to expand it beyond first-time offenders. Jody Kent, Public Policy Coordinator for the ACLU’s National Prison Project, says:

Too many non-violent offenders are sent to prison because of deeply flawed sentencing policies, which are costing taxpayers millions of dollars and not addressing the heart of the problem. Programs such as the DIVERT court provide a sound, less costly alternative that has proved to be successful in reducing recidivism, and should be adopted in every city in the country.

Thanks to the "War on Drugs," incarceration of non-violent drug offenders has increased 1,100 percent since 1980; the current population of such offenders stands at nearly half a million. That’s almost a quarter of the current total national prison population.

Jag Davies, Policy Researcher for the ACLU’s Drug Law Reform Project, says:

We are at a remarkable moment in history that presents an opportunity for systemic change. The confluence of ballooning state prison populations, budget shortfalls, and a newfound political willingness to be “smart-on-crime,” are presenting unprecedented opportunities to halt the ever-increasing population of incarcerated drug law offenders. Most of these individuals have no history of violence or high-level drug selling activity, and do not belong in prison. With more humane and effective alternatives available, such as the DIVERT program in Texas, it is imperative that policymakers implement alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders as soon as possible. State and local agencies carry the brunt of enforcing, prosecuting, and incarcerating drug offenders, yet it is also state and local budgets that are being squeezed tightest by the current economic downturn. Both fiscally and in terms of overall public safety, the U.S. can no longer afford the status quo.

Texas taxpayers should be gratified to know that their policymakers are looking for innovative, responsible ways to keep the prison population low, while still keeping the public safe. Diversion programs save both taxpayer money now and in the future, and benefits those who need it most.