The 2020 election cycle offers a unique inroad to achieve monumental justice reform policy. Now more than ever, voters around the country and across the political spectrum recognize that gross inequities and failed policies are significant features of the American criminal-legal system. They want to see meaningful policy proposals that tackle and remedy those problems. Rather than incremental steps, we need a bold approach: ideas for reform should move us toward decarceration; address and dismantle the harm done by the War on Drugs/tough-on-crime era, especially for communities of color; center the voices of justice-involved individuals; and be rooted in human dignity.
At the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera), we are committed to securing equal justice, ending mass incarceration, and strengthening families and communities. That is why Vera has created this blog series: to share the solutions & policy recommendations that we believe will provide fundamental change to a variety of issue areas, such as expanding access to counsel, creating alternatives to money bail, transforming conditions of confinement, and much more.
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Series: Target 2020
The Tipping Point for Universal Representation for Immigrants
With attacks on the safety and dignity of immigrant communities ramping up ahead of Election Day, the threats and injustices they face have reached a tipping point. Immigrants have already been confronted with the disproportionate impacts of the COVID-19 pande ...
Series: Target 2020
Voters in Battleground States Favor Restoring Pell Grants for People in Prison
For years, Vera and many of our partners from across the corrections, higher education, and criminal justice spectrum have been calling for the reinstatement of Pell Grant eligibility for students in prison. And for good reason. The Pell ban is a relic of the ...
Series: Target 2020
Justice is on the Ballot
As voters, we have the power and responsibility to shape how justice is served in our communities. We elect federal leaders, district attorneys, mayors, local legislators, and sheriffs—leaders who shape how our communities ensure public safety and secure justi ...
Series: Covid-19
Policymakers Must Lift the Veil on COVID-19 in Jails and Prisons
COVID-19 is raging through U.S. jails and prisons—places disproportionately populated by poor people and those from communities of color, especially Black and Latinx communities. In fact, the 15 largest COVID-19 clusters in the country are in jails and prisons ...
Series: Target 2020
Postsecondary Education in Prison is a Racial Equity Strategy
The recent protests against police violence have led to calls to divest from law enforcement and invest in communities of color. At the same time, college students across the county are grappling with how to safely pursue their education and what the implicati ...
Series: Target 2020
Data-Backed Outrage: Police Violence by the Numbers
The United States and its thousands of law enforcement agencies have a historic opportunity to end our nation’s crisis of over-enforcement and over-criminalization. The worst abuses in policing—including killings of unarmed civilians—disproportionately affect ...
Series: Target 2020
The Party Platforms Must Address the Urgent Need to Transform American Criminal Justice
The 2020 Democratic and Republican party platforms offer a unique opportunity to address some of the most pressing justice issues that face communities across the United States—from major urban hubs to small- and medium-sized cities to struggling rural areas i ...
Series: Covid-19
Use this Data to Hold Your Local Jail Accountable During the Pandemic
On Monday, America crossed the threshold of 10,000 deaths from COVID-19. As bad as things are on the outside, the pandemic pales in comparison with the horrors that are being faced by people behind bars right now. “Prisons are kill-boxes. Incarcerated people a ...
Series: Covid-19
COVID-19 Imperils People in Rural Jails
People in jails and prisons are among the most at risk for contracting COVID-19—and rural America is home to a large number of prisons and crowded jails. As the number of COVID-19 deaths grows rapidly in rural counties, people who reside and work in jails are ...
Series: Target 2020
Responding to COVID-19: Focusing on People in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Systems
As the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus, or COVID-19, skyrocket in the United States, we are just beginning to see cases in jails, prisons, and immigration detention facilities. These populations are uniquely vulnerable because of the crowding typical ...
Series: Target 2020
Getting Rid of Private Prisons Isn’t Enough
As the field of presidential nominees narrows, the candidates have been honing their policy recommendations. Across most issues, we’re seeing the shift from high-level talking points to more detailed, tangible ideas.
Series: Target 2020
Federal Leadership Needed to Transform Conditions of Confinement
Six hundred thousand—that’s the approximate number of people in the United States who will return to their community from prison every year. Another way to look at it is that 95 percent of those who are currently incarcerated will be released. How then are pri ...
Series: Target 2020
The Shocking Lack of Due Process for Immigrants
After Mariana, a mother of three, was detained by ICE, she described the experience as “horrible, so, so stressful. . . . When I was first detained with ICE there were so many thoughts in my mind. . . . I was so, so stressed out . . . because I put my whole li ...
Series: Target 2020
Time for a New Federal Commitment on Rural Jail Incarceration
Across America, in rural communities and small cities, jail incarceration is rising at an alarming rate. We are learning more and more about the federal role in local jail growth. Yet this crisis at mass incarceration’s front door—local jails—has failed to cap ...
Series: Target 2020
A Monumental Missed Opportunity for Criminal Justice
In this Democratic primary season, justice reform has been a prominently and refreshingly competitive topic. Conspicuously, during the debate, there was almost zero concrete or illuminating discussion of reforming or transforming the American criminal legal sy ...