The Open Society Foundations recently awarded a grant of $50 million to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in support of its nationwide campaign to end mass incarceration. The campaign seeks to reform criminal justice policies that have increased incarceration rates dramatically during a period of declining crime — and exacerbated racial disparities. The nation’s adult jail and prison population numbers over 2.2 million with one in 100 adults behind bars, the highest incarceration rate in the world. The ACLU intends to cut that number in half by 2020, with the most ambitious effort to end mass incarceration in American history.
While the ACLU’s most impactful work has typically been through litigation, this campaign signals a sea change for an organization with more than one million members and supporters, staffed state-based affiliates, and formidable legal muscle. It will build on the momentum created by state and national advocates, and on the analysis of the National Academy of Sciences, which found that in order to significantly lower prison rates, drug enforcement and sentencing laws should be revised. And, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has strongly endorsed reduced sentences for certain non-violent drug offenses, which would cut average sentences for federal drug offenses by 11 months.
The ACLU will take the following immediate next steps:
• Bring transparency to the current crisis by assembling and disclosing state and local data around who is behind bars, for how long, and for what offenses
• Select 3 to 5 key states for the 2016 action — those with the largest prison populations, most egregious sentencing, and a history of playing a consequential role in the election of the next president
• Build state capacity in early primary and battleground states such as Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Colorado
The announcement of increased funding for mass incarceration reform comes just days after a ballot measure — Proposition 47 — passed by an overwhelming 58 percent majority in California. The measure, which the ACLU aided with a $3.5 million investment, lowers personal drug use and small-scale property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, and distributes the criminal justice savings to substance abuse and mental health treatment, anti-truancy programs, and victims’ services. Approximately 15,000 to 20,000 people will likely be eligible for re-sentencing and release from either state prison or county jail.
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