ACLU-NJ News - Criminal Justice

From Pupils to Prisoners

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and Bethany Cares, Incorporated
invite you to attend

From Pupils to Prisoners: Examining the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Featuring a viewing of the short film

The Freedom Files: School-to-Prison Pipeline

and panel discussion with

Junius Williams
Director, Abbott Leadership Institute

Patrice Davis
Director of Criminal Justice, Essex County College

Ras Baraka
Central High School Principal, former
Deputy Mayor and Councilman-at-large

Jeremiah L. Grace
ACLU-NJ Racial Justice Organizer & Moderator

James Harris
NJ NAACP President

Ron Salahuddin
Newark Deputy Mayor and former Director
Essex County Juvenile Detention Center

Wednesday, February 20, 2008
5:30 p.m. - Reception • 6:00 p.m. - Film Viewing • 6:30 p.m. - Panel Discussion

Bethany Baptist Church
275 West Market Street, Newark, New Jersey • (973) 623-8161

The "school-to-prison pipeline," is a disturbing national trend that funnels thousands of children out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice system. Many of these children have profound disadvantages such as living in poverty, having single-parent homes and having learning differences.

Free and Open to the Public

Co-sponsored by

NJ State Conference of the NAACP • People's Organization for Progress Newark Teachers Union
Newark Branch NAACP • Newark Councilwoman Dana Rone
American Friends Service Committee Prison Watch Project
New Jersey Institute for Social Justice • Second Chance Campaign of NJ

For additional information, contact:
Taquan Williams
twilliams@aclu-nj.org or (973) 642-2086

New Jersey Rejects Inhumane and Ineffective Death Penalty

Newark, NJ - The ACLU-NJ praised lawmakers today as Governor Jon Corzine signed a measure to end capital punishment in the state of New Jersey. The bill, which passed the state legislature last week with bipartisan majorities, replaces the death penalty with life imprisonment without possibility of parole. New Jersey is the first state since 1965 to legislatively repeal the death penalty.

"The death penalty is an archaic, inhumane and ineffective practice that most nations abandoned long ago" says ACLU-NJ Executive Director Deborah Jacobs. "It has proven fundamentally unfair and discriminatory, too often resulting in the execution of innocent people."

The bill was introduced in November after the New Jersey Death Penalty Study Commission concluded that capital punishment does not deter crime. The Commission found that capital punishment is "inconsistent with evolving standards of decency."

In addition to lawmakers, Jacobs acknowledged the tireless work of death penalty opponents, including the remarkable leadership of the New Jersey Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and ACLU members from across New Jersey who lobbied their representatives in support of abolishment.

Gov. Corzine specifically thanked the ACLU for its dedication to this important issue. "I also want to thank advocacy groups, particularly . . . the ACLU and there are many other groups that joined in this process and I am eternally grateful," said Corzine.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment, New Jersey joins 13 states and the District of Columbia that do not use execution as a means of punishment.

"This is historic progress towards the end this cruel and futile punishment," says Jacobs. "We hope it will generate momentum in the campaign to end capital punishment nationwide."

The legislation (S171/A3716) was sponsored in the Senate by Senator Raymond J. Lesniak (D-Union), Senator Robert J. Martin (R-Morris/Passaic), Senator Shirley K. Turner (D-Mercer) and Senator Nia H. Gill (D-Essex/Passaic). It was sponsored in the Assembly by Assemblyman Wilfredo Caraballo (D-Essex/Union), Assemblyman Christopher Bateman (R-Morris/Somerset), Assemblyman Gordon M. Johnson (D-Bergen), Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Bergen) and Assemblywoman Nilsa Cruz-Perez (D-Camden/Gloucester).

ACLU Challenges Placement of Women in Men's Prison

NEWARK - In dual actions challenging the incarceration of 40 women in a men's maximum security prison, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of New Jersey filed a civil rights lawsuit and joined more than a dozen other advocacy organizations in support of the women at a demonstration in front of the prison.

"For over half a year these women have been subjected to cruel and inhumane conditions," said Ed Barocas, ACLU of New Jersey Legal Director. "This is yet another consequence of the over-incarceration in our state that we desperately need to address."

In March 2007, the Department of Corrections arbitrarily pulled 40 women out of the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility, New Jersey's only women's prison, and put them in lock-down conditions in New Jersey State Prison, the highest-security men's prison in the state. Unlike other prisoners incarcerated for similar crimes at Edna Mahan and the New Jersey State Prison, the 40 women are confined in their cells for up to 22 hours a day and denied basic movement within the prison. They are also deprived of access to the prison law library and the prison school. When given time outdoors, the women are barred from the prison's main yard and placed instead in a small pen overlooked by the men's yard, where they are subjected to catcalls and harassment. The women prisoners are also denied access to basic hygiene, including sufficient toilet paper and sanitary napkins, and cannot send their undergarments to be washed because they will be stolen by the male prisoners who do the laundry.

The ACLU's lawsuit charges, that by subjecting the women prisoners to more repressive conditions than male prisoners in the same prison, the Department of Corrections is violating the state constitution's guarantee of equal protection and the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination. The lawsuit also alleges that in several ways the department's treatment of the women prisoners is so atrocious that it violates the Constitution's ban against cruel and unusual punishment.

"The women prisoners are getting a raw deal just because they're women," said Mie Lewis, a staff attorney with the ACLU Women's Rights Project and lead counsel in the case. "The Department of Corrections has a moral and legal duty to provide these women with humane conditions and a chance at rehabilitation."

The ACLU has attempted since October to negotiate with the Department of Corrections for relief for the women prisoners but the department has refused even to discuss transferring the women to an appropriate custodial environment or to discuss its overall plan for women in the system.

"The failure of the state to plan for the number of women being imprisoned and ensure their health, safety and appropriate level of confinement has caused great suffering and harm," said Jean Ross, a member of the People's Organization for Progress, the group that brought the issue to the attention of the ACLU on behalf of the women prisoners.

New Jersey, like many other states, incarcerates an ever growing proportion of women with grossly inadequate planning. Between 1977 and 2004, the number of women in prison in New Jersey grew by 717 percent to a total of 1,470.

Today's demonstration was organized in partnership with the Women's Committee of the New Jersey Prison Justice Coalition, the People's Organization for Progress, National Organization for Women, American Friends Service Committee Prison Watch Project, Women Who Never Give Up, Women in Support of the Million Man March, Elizabeth Branch NAACP, Sagewriters, the Anti-Lynching Campaign, Black Cops Against Police Brutality, Redeem-Her, Doorway to Hope, the Million Women March of Essex County, United Muslim Inc. Prison Ministry, Newark Pride Alliance, the Center for Family, Community and Social Justice, and Lutheran Office of Governmental Ministry in New Jersey.

Attorneys on the case are Lewis and Lenora Lapidus from the ACLU Women's Rights Project and Barocas from the ACLU of New Jersey.

The complaint and profiles of the incarcerated women can be found at: http://www.aclu.org/stand4justice

Help Make the Death Penalty History

The death penalty is the ultimate denial of civil liberties. Over the past 30 years, over 100 wrongfully convicted people were released from death row. The legislature is expected to vote on S163 to abolish the death penalty and replace it with life without parole before the end of the year.

State officials and opinion leaders have finally acknowledged what advocates have said for years, the death penalty is a public policy disaster that is expensive, discriminatory, cruel and immoral. In January, the New Jersey Death Penalty Commission issued a report that found that the death penalty costs more than life in prison and doesn't deter crime.

New Jersey reinstated the death penalty in 1982 but hasn't executed anyone since 1963. Currently eight people sit on New Jersey's death row. The Legislature imposed an execution moratorium in December 2005 when it formed the commission that studied the death penalty.

If approved by lawmakers and Governor Corzine, New Jersey would be the first state to legislatively abolish capital punishment since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated it in 1976. Capital punishment is in force in 38 states. If the measure passes, New Jersey would be the 13th state with no death penalty.

Contact your legislators and Governor Corzine today to support an end to the death penalty in New Jersey.

End the Racist "Drug Free School Zone"

Ask your legislators and Governor Corzine to support an amended version of S4573, which reduces the so-called "drug free school zone" from 1000 feet to 200 feet. The "drug free school zone" law requires a three-year sentence for those convicted of distributing or possessing with intent to sell drugs within 1,000 feet of school property or a school bus, regardless of whether minors were involved or the individuals knew they were in a school zone.

The drug free school zone law is a poster child for criminal justice policies that are costly, ineffective and racially biased. This perspective is shared by people who have studied the law from across the political spectrum.

New Jersey's Sentencing Commission members, including prosecutors and public defenders alike, concluded that the drug free school zone doesn't reduce drug crime and has a discriminatory effect because of the density of school and other drug-free zones in urban areas, where more people of color live, compared to the suburbs. In 2004, over 96 percent of all people imprisoned with school-zone violations were African-American or Latino.

We have numerous policies that cost society a lot of money, but do little to keep people safe or rehabilitate those who enter criminal justice system. The saying "Jail costs more than Yale," really gets to the heart of the matter. We need policies that are smart on crime and will make a real difference in creating a safe society.

The ACLU shares the opinion of the Sentencing Commission members that the drug free school zone does not serve us well. Contact your legislators and Governor Corzine today to support legislation to eliminate the drug free school zone, or at least reduce it to 200 feet.

Contact Information

Governor Jon Corzine

http://www.state.nj.us/governor/govmail.html

Find your legislator

http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/legsearch.asp

ACLU-NJ Urges AG to Revisit Flawed Directive

Comments on Attorney General Directive No. 2007-3 Concerning Local Police Engagement in Immigration Law By Deborah Jacobs, ACLU-NJ Executive Director.

After months of consideration and meeting with countless interested parties - including immigrant and civil rights groups, law enforcement professionals, and advocates who work with domestic violence victims - last week New Jersey's Attorney General finally issued a long-awaited directive on the issue of what role local police can play in federal immigration enforcement. (Background at: AG's Guidance Needed On Cops and Immigrants).

In a nutshell, the directive says that local police must inquire about immigration status upon arrest of a suspect for an indictable offense, and report individuals suspected of being undocumented to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It also says that police may not ask witnesses, victims or people seeking assistance about their status.

The directive includes strong statements about immigration enforcement being the primary duty of the federal government, about the counterproductive consequences of entangling local police in immigration enforcement, and about the state's commitment to combating racial profiling.

Nevertheless, for police professionals and community advocates alike, the directive raises more questions than it answers. The problem is what the directive doesn't say.

For example, it doesn't explicitly prohibit local police from inquiring about immigration status prior to arresting an individual. This omission gets to the heart of the concerns of law enforcement professionals who have spoken out against local police engaging in immigration enforcement: acting as immigration enforcers makes it more difficult for police to serve and protect their communities. The Major Cities Chiefs Association expressed this sentiment in a 2006 report, stating that, "Such a divide between the local police and immigrant groups would result in increased crime against immigrants and in the broader community, create a class of silent victims and eliminate the potential for assistance from immigrants in solving crimes or preventing future terroristic acts."

The directive's failure to explicitly prohibit officers from asking about immigration status prior to arrest jeopardizes trust between police and community, and consequently threatens public safety.

The directive is also inconsistent; it does not limit local police from making pre-arrest inquiries about status unless they have established a formal relationship with ICE allowing them to act as a federal immigration officer (287g status), in which case they cannot make inquiries unless and until an arrest takes place. This has inspired the Morristown mayor (whose efforts to have town police officers deputized under 287g brought this issue to the forefront), to threaten in a letter to US Attorney Chris Christie to have local police start asking for the immigration status of everyone stopped for ticketing.

Another problem is that the directive, while very specific on some details (such as the means - telephone, fax, etc. - with which reports can be transmitted to ICE), does not provide critical guidance that police need. For example, it says that police must make an inquiry about status upon arrest, but it does not provide any guidance on what that inquiry might entail - asking the individual? - document review? - database checks?

The directive further requires that police notify ICE when they have "reason to believe" that an arrested individual may be undocumented. The directive does not indicate what information should be used, or standards applied, in forming that belief. And, with no specifics on the parameters of the inquiry on which the "reason to believe" should be based, the procedure is further confused and open to abuse.

This lack of guidance increases the potential for racial profiling or discrimination. While the directive repeatedly cautions against racially motivated enforcement, by failing to elaborate on the inquiry with specific guidelines or tools, it leaves the door wide open for discriminatory assumptions based on race or ethnicity. Racism is something that each of us must fight to reject as we breathe it in the air. It functions at both the conscious and subconscious levels, and to protect against it we must have strong policies and procedures in place that will help ensure that it doesn't have a role in policing, or any other arena of government, business or public life.

The directive boasts that "New Jersey has taken a leadership position in eliminating racially-influenced policing, or racial profiling." This is hardly the case; most actions that the state has taken have been forced upon it, such as the public demanding hearings, or the federal government requiring a consent decree. This directive, unless amended, represents perpetuation of the "more talk than walk" that New Jersey has demonstrated again and again when it comes to reforming police practices related to racial profiling.

Finally, even the section of the directive that seeks to protect witnesses and victims raises issues. In many incidents and disputes, including domestic violence situations, it's not always clear who is the victim and who is the perpetrator, potentially leaving police unable to comply with the directive.

The directive falls short of what New Jersey police departments need to guide policies and practices on involvement with questions of immigration status. Rather than providing sound and clear policies that would spare hundreds New Jersey towns and cities from the battling these issues out on the ground, this directive muddies the water by offering incomplete and inconsistent guidance. Before this issue further inflames towns like Morristown and cities like Newark, the AG should revise her first directive to make it right.