News & Commentary

Tomorrow, the Board of State and County Corrections will vote to approve the guidelines for counties seeking state funding for housing, rehabilitation, and treatment services. This decision will largely shape the type of criminal justice system we will have in California.

Across the country communities are rising up to protest police violence and to assert that Black Lives Matter. We stand in solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter and with the recent #SayHerName demonstrations about police violence against Black women.

A growing chorus of elected officials, law enforcement, and community leaders settled on an answer to the senseless deaths of unarmed people of color at the hands of law enforcement: body cameras. And one in four police agencies have already started using them.

Since the death penalty was reinstated in California in 1978, taxpayers have spent over $4 billion to prop up the defunct system. There are currently 750 men and women on death row. Most die of old age, not execution. We hope that California’s leaders will finally tackle this monstrous problem and replace the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Across California, traffic courts are withholding the right to contest a traffic citation until the fines and fees for the citation are paid in full. This unfair practice violates constitutional guarantees of due process and unfairly impacts low-income people. But now there’s been an exciting development that could put an end to this practice once and for all. Chief Justice Cantil-Sakauye has directed the California Judicial Council to immediately take emergency action to make it clear that Californians do not have to pay for a traffic infraction before being able to appear in court.

Today, the Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Policy will host a public forum in Oakland, on the need to protect the health and well-being of youth if marijuana is legalized, taxed, and regulated in California.

Another unarmed black person will soon be killed by the police. Take a stand for police reform in CA. Every mother deserves safety for her children - no matter their skin color.

In California, legislators, the ACLU, and our partners are advocating for a broad range of measures that, collectively, could put California on a path toward socially just police reform.

The ACLU of California is challenging San Diego County’s denial of Prop 47 sentencing relief to juveniles. Juveniles in California deserve the same opportunities under Prop 47 as adults.