Racial Profiling

Recently, a group of community organizations released Facing Race, a report that assesses that the voting records of Washington state legislators in promoting racial equity. Notably, the report recognizes ending the death penalty is one change that our state representatives should make to advance the goal of racial justice in Washington.

A recent report prepared by the Marijuana Arrest Research Project sheds light on the tremendous amount of resources Washington State has devoted to marijuana law enforcement over the last 25 years. There have been over 240,000 arrests for adult marijuana possession, consuming over $300 million in taxpayer money, since 1986. And people of color are the more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession in Washington state. Disturbingly, racially disproportionate enforcement is getting worse. Using data from the Marijuana Arrest Research Project report, the ACLU of Washington has produced an infographic that visualizes this increasing disparity,

The Dept. of Justice and the City of Seattle have agreed on a proposed consent decree with a  court-appointed monitor to improve policing in Seattle. The agreement is an historic opportunity for Seattle to ensure all residents receive equal and fair treatment by its police force.

The ACLU-WA’s Shankar Narayan joined immigrant rights allies and elected officials in speaking out against Arizona’s racial profiling law, SB 1070, a press conference on the steps of the federal courthouse in Seattle. He pointed that such laws fly in the face of our fundamental values.

Earlier today, the ACLU of Washington joined a number of allies in the immigrant rights community, including El Comite Pro-Reforma Migratoria and CASA Latina, at a press conference in opposition to the ever-expanding Secure Communities (S Comm) program. The press conference was a response to the federal government's move last week, with very little fanfare or publicity, to activate the program for all counties in Washington. Here's why that's bad news for every community in Washington.

An important statewide Latino organization in Washington State has weighed in against gang injunction legislation in the state legislature. Here's what Latino Civic Alliance has to say.