Ohio is ripe for criminal justice reform. Our prison population nearly quadrupled between 1980 and 2016, giving Ohio the fifth largest prison population in the country in 2016. Each year legislators talk a big game on sentencing reform, yet introduce and pass bills that send more people to our overcrowded prisons and jails and for longer periods of time. During the 2017 – 2018 legislative session 12% of all bills introduced across chambers included a sentencing enhancement.
Compounding these numbers, two out of three people in Ohio jails are held pretrial. The ACLU of Ohio is determined to end Ohio’s dependence on cash bail, which has created a two-tier system of justice in which wealthier people accused of a crime go free, while poorer people accused of the same crime stay behind bars. Legislation is one of the ways that can fix this criminalization of poverty and bi-partisan momentum exists to make it happen!
We’re advocating for comprehensive criminal justice reform measures and testifying against bills that will worsen our mass incarceration problem. Check out our Bail Reform resource center.