The American Civil Liberties of Arizona is a leader in the ACLU’s Campaign for Smart Justice, a multiyear initiative aimed at reducing the U.S. jail and prison population by 50 percent and combating racial disparities in the criminal justice system.
The United States incarcerates too many people for too long and for the wrong reasons.
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. For the last four decades, this country has relentlessly expanded the size of its criminal justice system, needlessly throwing away too many lives and wasting trillions of taxpayer dollars.
Arizona simply cannot afford the current approach any longer. The result of incarceration is destabilization. Arizona families and communities suffer the consequences.
