Remarks of Laura W



Remarks of Laura W. Murphy

Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office

NAACP Press Conference, April 7, 2011

National Press Club

 

First of all, I want to thank the NAACP for publishing this crucial report and for inviting me to be a part of this prestigious group of speakers. Our organizations have worked together for almost a century. The ACLU and the NAACP co-chair a national criminal justice and civil rights task force and we worked effectively for the recent passage of the bi-partisan Fair Sentencing Act of 2010. It’s clear from the wide breadth of organizations represented here today that mass incarceration is a pressing issue at the forefront of many Americans’ minds.  The current fiscal crisis brings us together today to advance smarter criminal justice policies that reduce corrections spending and our bloated prison population.

 

The ACLU has made ending mass incarceration and reforming our criminal justice system a top organizational priority. It is irresponsible to stand idly by and tolerate our government locking up so many people, treating racial and ethnic minorities unfairly and squandering public resources.

 

We’ll be busy this year on Capitol Hill pushing back against another piece of overly broad legislation. The Gang Abatement and Prevention Act is expected to be introduced soon by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and could have adverse consequences for American juveniles.

 

The bill would needlessly expand the criminal justice dragnet that already ensnares too many young minorities in the criminal justice system. It increases harsh sentences for juveniles and contains little to no provisions for prevention or rehabilitation, both of which are key to keeping kids out of the prison system. Even the Heritage Foundation opposes this redundant, ineffective, mean-spirited, bloated monster of a bill that comes with a $1.1 billion price tag. Stopping this bill should be the first order of business for this coalition at the federal level because it is not smart on crime.

 

The ACLU is in a unique position to fight for criminal justice reform given our state affiliates. Our 53 affiliates allow us to have a voice and presence on the ground in state legislatures and courtrooms across the country, working with lawmakers of every ideology to advance our work.  Of the $70 billion spent annually on prisons and jails, $50 billion is spent by states. We are working in states across the country to advance smart criminal justice reform that cuts state spending on corrections and breaks our senseless addiction to incarceration while still protecting public safety. 

 

We have worked with the Commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections to institute a reclassification system in Mississippi prisons that became a catalyst for broader corrections reforms that safely reduced the incarcerated population and saved the state over $200 million.

 

We are leading efforts to advance a comprehensive criminal justice bill in the Ohio legislature while fighting against privatization of the state’s prisons.

 

In California, we are pushing back against the governor’s proposal to shift prison costs from the state to the county level, advocating instead for smart and safe sentencing reform that would produce significant cost savings without resulting in an ineffectual accounting shell game.

 

Our affiliates also allow us to help individuals caught up in an unjust justice system.

 

Take for example the case of ACLU client Richard Wade. Richard, a Mississippi middle school student, was wrongfully expelled from school after authorities illegally searched his cell phone and found photos that they deemed to be “gang-related activity.”

 

What they were actually photos of was Richard, dancing alone in the privacy of his own home. After we intervened on the student’s behalf, the school agreed to reinstate Richard and revised its gang policy.

 

Richard’s story had a happy ending but the vast majority of these cases do not.

 

Tough on crime should not mean criminalizing our nation’s youth. The juvenile justice system has countless entry points and our schools have become one of these points. Often, after entering the juvenile justice system, childrenthen become entangled in the criminal justice system.

 

It’s time for our communities, our lawmakers and law enforcement to come up with real, workable solutions to keeping our kids out of jail and in classrooms where they belong. On this issue, we cannot and will not fail.

The ACLU, for its part, will continue to make it a priority to work with these groups on decreasing our prison population and promoting a smart and fair criminal justice system that truly lives up to its name.

 

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