The ACLU Campaign for Smart Justice is an unprecedented, multi-year effort to reduce the U.S. jail and prison population by 50% and to combat racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Oklahoma holds the shameful title highest females incarceration rate in the world. The racial disparities of Oklahoma prisons are staggering, as black men are five times as likely to serve time as their white counterparts.
Imprisonment is a brutal and costly response to crime that traumatizes incarcerated people and hurts families and communities. It should be the last option, not the first. Yet the U.S. incarcerates more people, in both absolute numbers and per capita, than any other nation in the world. The Campaign for Smart Justice is fighting in the legislatures, the courts, and in the streets to end mass incarceration.
