The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law’s Criminal Justice Project (CJP) investigates and challenges disparities found in sentencing, incarceration rates, the jailing of indigent defendants, and discrepancies in the right to counsel. The CJP secures criminal justice reform through impact litigation, public education, programming, and policy advocacy around issues, including debtors’ prisons, the criminalization of poverty, mass incarceration, and barriers to reentry. Our other core criminal justice issues concern the collateral consequences of incarceration that returning citizens face in housing, education, voting, and economic opportunities.
As part of our criminal justice portfolio, the Lawyers’ Committee is taking major steps toward dismantling indigent incarceration in Arkansas and Oklahoma and toward helping to drum up support for fines and fees reform across the United States. As our growing Criminal Justice Project expands its efforts to challenge indigent incarceration, we also continue litigation in our case against Louisiana’s inadequate public defender system. In addition, we are substantially expanding our work to combat barriers to reentry, and we are actively seeking funding to further our work on bail reform.
In reaction to the rise in demonstrations against police brutality, the Lawyers’ Committee also created Know Your Rights, a formalized partnership with the National Bar Association that seeks to mobilize members of the private bar to serve as legal observers and provide individual-level representation for protesters who are detained or arrested during mass demonstrations against police misconduct. Another important aspect of our criminal justice work, Know Your Rights supports citizens’ freedom to exercise their first amendment rights.
Our CJP team is working tirelessly as the need for our work persists and our growing recognition in this space increases demand for our contributions. Expanding our CJP staff will significantly increase our capacity for moving America toward justice through transforming the criminal justice system.
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