Prison system costs now account for 1 out of every 15 state general fund discretionary dollars. Criminal justice is the second-fastest-growing category of state budgets, behind only Medicaid, and 90 percent of that spending goes to prisons. We are wasting trillions of dollars on an ineffective and unjust criminal justice system. We have more effective tools for preventing and responding to crime than prisons.

Alternatives To Incarceration

Problems like mental illness, substance use disorders, and homelessness are more appropriately addressed outside of the criminal justice system altogether. Services like drug treatment and affordable housing cost less and can have a better record of success. It’s time we got serious about pulling our money out of incarceration and putting it into systems that foster healthy communities.

With almost 50% of prisoners in federal prison for a drug offense and multitudes of severely mentally ill people imprisoned, it is time for the criminal justice system to begin exploring alternatives to incarceration.

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Over the past 30 years, the number of women and girls caught in the criminal justice system has skyrocketed. Many have been swept up in the War on Drugs and subject to increasingly punitive sentencing policies for nonviolent offenders. There are now more than 200,000 women behind bars and more than one million on probation and parole.

Many of these women struggle with substance abuse, mental illness, and histories of physical and sexual abuse. Few get the services they need. The toll on women, girls, and their families is devastating.

Furthermore, the overincarceration and overconviction of women has devastating effects on them and their families because of the barriers women face as a result of their criminal records. These barriers include employment discrimination (compounded by the trend among employers of conducting background checks), exclusions from certain occupations (including some traditionally dominated by low-income women, such as home health care and childcare), exclusions from housing, and bans on receiving public assistance.

The ACLU is working to reduce the overincarceration of women and girls, ensure equal rights and dignity while in confinement, and eliminate barriers imposed as a result of having a criminal record.