News & Commentary

None of our communities are safe when the police can murder people with impunity or when routine encounters escalate into deadly shooting sprees.

The ACLU of Louisiana recently launched an initiative called Justice Lab to enlist for-profit law firms and law school clinics in an intensive effort to put racist policing on trial.

Face surveillance is the most dangerous of the many new technologies available to law enforcement.

For the health and safety of New Orleanians, it is imperative that the city direct NOPD to do less, and make room in the city budget for our community to thrive.

Across the country and especially here in Louisiana, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a stark reminder that mass incarceration is not only deeply antithetical to our values, it is also a deadly accelerant for this disease. 

The images are as chilling as they are familiar: a Black person is killed by a white police officer who is never held accountable or punished for the crime.

As COVID-19 began to sweep through Louisiana, officials knew immediately that parish jails could be a vector for infection in surrounding communities, due to correctional staff moving freely between the jail and the community and the regular flow of people in and out of custody. 

What makes COVID-19 so deadly for Black communities is not race – it’s racism, and hundreds of years of systemic discrimination in housing, health care, and employment.

As the COVID-19 outbreak continues to spread through Louisiana prisons, jails, and detention facilities, a new ACLU report shines a spotlight on the brutal and inhumane conditions in ICE detention facilities even before this crisis hit.