News & Commentary

On July 1, hundreds of new laws passed by the Virginia General Assembly earlier this year went into effect. The Virginia legislature made great strides and greenlit a handful of important reforms that had been rejected time and time again in the past. Rather than attacking people’s rights and freedoms, lawmakers passed legislation that made it easier for people to vote, expanded abortion access, protected LGBTQ+ people from discrimination and started chipping away at the countless injustices in our criminal legal system.

No longer should we wait until women are gripped by the claws of the criminal legal system, but take action before their backs are pressed against trying walls.

It's time for Commonwealth's Attorney Collette McEachin to show up, lead, and do the right thing, right now. Demand she drop all charges against protesters, set standards for police in calling an unlawful assembly, and make sure Marcus-David Peters' case is re-opened and gets an independent investigation.

Instead of seeking peace, the governor has doubled down on police use of force. He can help stop the violence by lifting regulations on state property, telling state police to allow people to gather undisturbed, and ending his order expanding police power.

Now is not the time for escalation of violence against Black people and Black communities by deploying military force of any kind. Even our own military commanders recognized that laws “prohibiting direct military involvement in law enforcement [are] in keeping with long-standing U.S. law and policy limiting the military’s role in domestic affairs". We must oppose resolutely any use of the military to police our communities.

It is clear that Virginians are impacted by this virus at every level, and among the most vulnerable are Black and brown people, including the disproportionate number held in Virginia’s custodial facilities.

The ACLU of Virginia joins the call to end the exploitation of the labor of people living in prisons. Not everything that may be legal is right.

The Commonwealth of Virginia has a responsibility to protect all Virginians, and that includes the thousands of men, women and children being held in Virginia’s prisons, jails and correctional facilities.

The ACLU of Virginia commends the Governor of Virginia Ralph Northam for signing criminal legal reform legislation that would help reduce Virginia’s overdependence on incarceration and bring more justice to our system.