For two years, the ACLU of Louisiana gathered and analyzed thousands of jail records and interviewed people directly affected by pretrial incarceration to compose a snapshot of who Louisiana incarcerates pretrial, for how long, and at what cost.
April 3, 2020
The ACLU of Louisiana today released a report outlining a series of reforms to reduce the number of people incarcerated in the state by half by 2025 – saving taxpayers more than $800 million that could be reinvested in making communities stronger and safer.
September 21, 2018
Courts across Louisiana routinely jail people for no reason other than their inability to pay court-ordered fines, even though that practice was deemed unconstitutional more than thirty years ago.
August 4, 2015
Neighborhoods are not war zones, and our police officers should not be treating us like wartime enemies. However, the ACLU encountered this type of story over and over when studying the militarization of state and local law enforcement agencies.
June 23, 2014
In an in-depth study of people serving life without parole for nonviolent offenses in the United States, the ACLU found that at least 3,278 prisoners fit this category in federal and state prisons combined.
September 13, 2013
Between 2001 and 2010, there were over 8 million pot arrests in the U.S. That’s one every 37 seconds and hundreds of thousands ensnared in the criminal justice system. Marijuana use is roughly equal among Blacks and whites, yet Blacks are 3.73 times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession.
June 4, 2013