Latest From ACLU of Washington

On September 2, 2010, the Seattle Times ran an op-ed discussing startling details about longstanding racial disparities in Washington’s criminal justice system. The op-ed is written by NAACP Legal Defense Fund attorneys John Payton and Ryan Haygood. Way back in 1980, Washington state “officials asked themselves a hard question about why the state led the nation in the disproportionate incarceration of African Americans.”  Fast forward to 2007 and you can see how the problem still exists. The state’s own Sentencing Guideline Commission reported in 2007 that African Americans were 3% of the state’s population, but “received 14.91% of all felony convictions and were the most over-represented racial group ….” Read more

  With the end of August came the finale of national Hispanic Heritage Month. To celebrate, the Hispanic Business and Professional Association of Spokane sponsored a daylong festival. Amid the music, dancing, and delicious food was an ACLU-WA booth – part of the effort by our activists around the state to speak with people in-person and help them understand their rights. Staffing the booth were students from the ACLU-WA’s Gonzaga University Law School Club, bringing their knowledge about civil liberties into the community.  “The students took the opportunity to inform the Latino community about the ACLU-WA’s work and offer educational resources,” said ACLU-WA Field Director Liezl Tomas Rebugio.  “In particular, they wanted to talk about rights with law enforcement, immigrant rights, and how to protect personal privacy.”  As fall approaches, ACLU-WA student clubs at colleges and universities are gearing up for action. We currently have clubs on campus at Whitman College in Walla Walla, the University of Washington in Seattle, UW in Tacoma, Western Washington U. in Bellingham, and the law schools at Gonzaga, and Seattle University. There’s also a club at Seattle’s Garfield High. Participating in a club is a great way to learn more about – and be an activist for – civil liberties, meet other students, and just plain have fun. Get involved on your campus!  

Gangs present a serious public safety challenge to our communities.  But the approach that our state has instinctively turned to in the past—relying on arresting and jailing those believed to be involved in gangs—fails to get to the root causes of the issue, and likely makes it worse.  To be sure, for Washington cities dealing with violent crime, such as those in the Yakima Valley, meeting this challenge means appropriately punishing violent offenders.  But it is equally critical to find avenues through which individuals can leave gangs and reenter the community.  Simply imprisoning gang members and telling them to leave gangs doesn’t work if there’s nothing else for them to do, and no resources to help them get out. Read more

In considering alternatives to arrest and incarceration for reducing substance abuse, it is useful to note that smoking rates continue to decline in Washington state -- and to understand how that decline came about. In 1997, almost 25% of adults were current smokers. By 2009, this number has decreased to less than 15%. In fact, we now have the third lowest smoking rate in the U.S. Well done Washington! What's even more exciting is that we didn't have to arrest, prosecute, or incarcerate any adults for smoking to achieve this result. Read more

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Under Fire: As the case of ACLU-WA client Major Margaret Witt moves toward trial on Sept. 13, two of our state’s major dailies weigh in against the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy – with Spokane’s Spokesman-Review castigating it as “asinine and counterproductive," and Tacoma’s The News Tribune declaring flatly “it needs to go.”  Meanwhile, a new CBS poll finds the public has moved far ahead of Congress on the issue: nearly two-thirds of Americans support having lesbians and gays serve openly in the military.  The Medical Marijuana Mess: This week’s cover story in Tacoma’s Weekly Volcano provides a very in-depth look at the daunting problems patients sometimes encounter in trying to use pot under Washington’s medical marijuana law, as currently written.