MEDIA
See and hear members of our team discuss the importance of ending poverty jailing, the devastating impacts of private probation, alternatives to financial bail, and the process of investigating and building a case. Read media coverage of our cases.
Bonded for Life – The Fight for Cash Bail Reform-tHE rUNDOWN WITH ROBIN THEDE
BET Networks - February 16, 2018
Watch Civil Rights Corps Founder and Executive Director Alec Karakatsanis talk about ending money bail in Harris County.
WHY ARE PROSECUTORS PUTTING INNOCENT WITNESSES IN JAIL?
Sarah Stillman, The New Yorker - October 17, 2017
"In parts of the country, prosecutors are using these orders to put crime victims—especially poor victims, and, in cities like New Orleans, victims of color—in jail in order to get swift victories in court, sometimes, puzzlingly, in minor cases. A lawsuit filed today in federal court by the American Civil Liberties Union and Civil Rights Corps, a legal nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., seeks to challenge what it calls 'the Orleans Parish District Attorney Office’s unconstitutional policy of using extrajudicial and unlawful means to coerce, arrest, and imprison crime victims and witnesses.' The suit alleges that the office’s practices “ensure these victims and witnesses are trapped in jail.”
ALEC KARAKATSANIS, THE JOHNSON INSTITUTE FOR RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP
Watch Civil Rights Corps Founder and Executive Director Alec Karakatsanis talk about our urgent work after being awarded the Emerging Leader Award by the Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership at the University of Pittsburgh.
KATHERINE HUBBARD, AIRTALK
Civil Rights Corps attorney Katherine Hubbard discusses how California's bail system keeps people in jail simply because they cannot pay.
In Texas coURT: yOUR bOND jUST WENT UP
Susan Joan Archer & Michael Hardy, The New York Times March 9, 2017
Keeping the Poor Out of Jail
Kassie Bracken & Jessica Naudziunas, The New York Times October 23, 2015
JUSTICE, NOT PROFIT
A look at the investigative process behind our case against the private probation company, Providence Community Corrections in Rutherford County, Tennessee. The case was begun by Civil Rights Corps staff when they were leading the organization Equal Justice Under Law.
WHY WON'T THE COUNTY SETTLE THE LAWSUIT OVER THE BAIL SYSTEM?
Lisa Falkenberg, Houston Chronicle
"Why are Harris County officials wasting millions in taxpayer money on high-dollar lawyers to defend a bail system that has now been declared unconstitutional by a federal judge?
"The county's handling of a class action lawsuit, which is intended to stop criminal court at law judges from jailing people simply because they're poor, continues to intrigue and outrage. But an exchange late Tuesday with two top county offices left me more baffled than ever."
LAWSUIT: TENNESSEE DRIVER'S LICENSE LAW PUNISHES POOR
Stacey Barchenger, The Tennessean
"Nashvillian James Thomas can't drive to see his doctor or get to his volunteer work each week because he owes $290 for a trespassing conviction, a crime the formerly homeless man faced for sheltering under a bridge.
"Thomas and more than 146,000 Tennesseans have had their driver's licenses revoked since 2012 because of a state law that says court fines that go unpaid for a year result in automatic revocation, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Nashville on Wednesday."