Coalition letter to the chairs of the Virginia State Crime Commission regarding the need to implement statewide counsel at first appearance and support public defense systems to ensure its effectiveness.

NACDL letter to the Virginia State Crime Commission regarding the need to implement statewide counsel at first appearance and support public defense systems to ensure its effectiveness.

Issues of racial bias and racial disparity are pervasive in the criminal legal system. One of the most pronounced is the disproportionate number of persons of color who are detained pretrial. Steps must be taken to address these disparities on both the individual case level and the systemic level.

Written Statement of Bryan A. Stevenson, Founder and Executive Director Equal Justice Initiative and Professor of Clinical Law New York University School of Law Before the House Committee on the Judiciary Over-Criminalization Task Force Re: “Penalties”

Coalition letter to the California Assembly Appropriations Committee regarding a proposal to repeal mandatory minimums and allow for more judicial discretion in sentencing for certain drug offenses, as outlined in SB 73 (2020).

Coalition letter to California Assemblymember Ed Chau regarding disparities and discrimination, abuse, accuracy, information sharing, and other issues in the proposed bill AB 2261 on facial recognition technologies.

Race matters in our criminal legal system. It affects how likely you are to be pulled over by police, how likely you are to be released or detained pretrial, how likely the state is to seek the death penalty, and how severely you are sentenced.

NACDL has been committed to examining race as an issue within the criminal justice context.

Additional resources on racial disparities in the criminal legal system.

The combined impacts of biased policing, discretionary charging decisions, sentencing enhancements, and the continuing impacts of the tough-on-crime movement have created and bolstered a criminal legal system in which people of color, particularly Black people, are more likely to be sentenced to prison and are subject to lengthier periods of incarceration.  

Racially biased policing takes many different forms, from elevated police presences in the neighborhoods of marginalized communities, to disproportionate street and vehicle stops and searches, to use of force, to outright expressions of racism within some police departments.

Prosecutors play a significant role in determining the trajectory of individual cases and shaping system-wide outcomes in the criminal legal system. NACDL partnered with Fair & Just Prosecution to host a discussion about racial disparities in prosecution, how to reduce these disparities, and ways to center racial equity in prosecutorial reform efforts.

Approximately 13 million misdemeanor charges are filed each year in the U.S., representing around 80% of all cases. Law enforcement’s unchecked discretion allows them to use the extensive collection of misdemeanor offenses to stop, search, and arrest individuals—disproportionately Black and Latinx individuals—for behaviors unrelated to public safety. In serving as the justification for these stops, misdemeanors often provide a gateway to police violence, as in the cases of Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Daunte Wright, and George Floyd, each of whom was stopped for a suspected misdemeanor.

This discussion examines the roles of race, power, and engagement in the attorney-client relationship.