Despite this changing political environment we have made strides in advancing justice and helping to shape a reform agenda for both policymakers and the advocacy community in 2017.
This year, we have faced many challenges to meaningful criminal justice reform. Attorney General Sessions has reversed many of the reforms initiated by his predecessors, while calling for “tough” policies on crime and immigration. We and our allies have documented the counterproductive nature of such policies, and opposition is growing nationally.
Despite this changing political environment we have made strides in advancing justice and helping to shape a reform agenda for both policymakers and the advocacy community. Our 2017 annual newsletter provides an overview of our efforts this year, which have included:
Producing a policy report that refutes the message that immigrants are responsible for rising crime
Working with our allies in New Jersey to advance racial impact statement legislation
Calling national attention to the escalation in sentences of life imprisonment
Providing data analysis in support of South Carolina’s “raise the age” legislation
Gaining more than 500 media mentions and publishing op-ed commentary in the Washington Post, U.S. News and World Report, Newsday, and many other outlets
German responses to far-right extremism in law enforcement are more robust than the U.S., over half of people stopped by Portland Police Gun Violence Team were Black, racial bias impacts risk assessments for Canada's Indigenous Women, and more in Race and Justice News.
Following a nearly 700% increase between 1972 and 2009, the U.S. prison population declined 11% in the subsequent 10 years. At this rate of decline it will take 57 years — until 2078 — to cut the prison population in half
