Reducing our prison population was necessary to save lives from COVID-19. Keeping our prison population down is necessary to save lives from an unjust criminal legal system.
By Amol Sinha
In the last year, ACLU-NJ Senior Staff Attorney Karen Thompson has worked on cases that speak to the national moment in civil rights. She shares her perspective on working toward racial justice and police accountability in New Jersey through the legal system and changes in the law.
The New Jersey Department of Corrections recently agreed to adopt a system-wide policy to help protect transgender, intersex, and non-binary people in prisons. This was the result of an agreement settling a civil rights suit brought by a woman who was forced to live in men’s prisons for a year and a half, represented by the ACLU of New Jersey and attorney Robyn Gigl of Gluck Walrath LLP. The new policy includes housing in line with gender identity, appropriate use of pronouns, access to gender-affirming property, and more.
The ACLU-NJ and Garden State Equality wrote every county jail urging new policies mirroring changes in NJ prisons respecting the rights of transgender people, the result of a civil rights settlement.
No number of words can do justice to what Frank Askin did in service to the cause of justice itself.
Juneteenth is clearly a celebration of freedom for Black people in America. It is also a glaring example of obstructed information being released and thus serves as a cautionary tale for this moment.
By Karen Thompson
Incarcerated people, including immigrants in detention, are among the most vulnerable when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 16, 2020, the ACLU of New Jersey sent a letter to every county jail in New Jersey with recommendations to prevent an outbreak and minimize the virus’s impact.
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