News & Commentary

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.

The exponential spread of COVID-19 has made one thing clear: America is jailing way too many people in substandard, dangerous conditions that are highly susceptible to outbreaks of contagious illnesses.

We are asking our community leaders and law enforcement to recognize, however, that now is the time to rethink how our jails and prisons are not effective ways to address the social and community ills of poverty and drug use.

In light of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic now spreading through America and across the Commonwealth, we have closed our physical office temporarily and are continuing our work remotely. 

In early January, Gov. Ralph Northam introduced his agenda, which included “marijuana decriminalization,” giving the illusion that Virginia is moving toward actual criminal legal reforms. Unfortunately, HB 972 would cause more harm to Black and brown people and criminalize youth,

The only way to stop the harm of marijuana laws against people of color is to repeal the prohibition on marijuana possession and use from the code completely.This is the first step in the right direction to eliminating racist drug enforcement.

By Valerie Slater, executive director, RISE for Youth