News & Commentary

A groundbreaking consent decree will help to prevent the Madison County Sheriff’s Department from engaging in the racially motivated policing practices that have historically been its hallmark. The class-action lawsuit initially filed by us along with our partners at the American Civil Liberties Union and the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP aimed to challenge Madison County’s unconstitutional policing tactics. “The Court’s order affirms the simple but fundamental proposition – that in America police must treat everyone the same regardless of race,” said Joshua Tom, Legal Director and Interim Executive Director of the ACLU of Mississippi. Brown vs. Madison County is groundbreaking, in that it is one of the first consent decrees in the state of Mississippi to address racialized policing. At the time of the suit’s filing, black individuals were almost five times more likely than white people to be arrested in Madison County. 

Ari Rosmarin, Deputy Director, ACLU Campaign for Smart Justice This

Despite comparable usage rates, blacks are almost four times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana. Unequal enforcement of drug laws combined with over-reliance on policing and incarceration as a cure-all for crime, poverty, mental illness, and addiction have resulted in America’s mass incarceration crisis that disproportionately impacts black and brown people. Mississippi is one the nation’s leading incarcerators with the third highest rate in the nation. The need to change these ineffective and destructive policies is clear. Many states have moved in the right direction by legalizing marijuana either for medical or recreational use and decriminalizing some marijuana possessions. While Mississippi remains entrenched in its tough-on-crime mentality, there is reason for hope. Hattiesburg passed on ordinance decriminalizing first-time possession of marijuana, following a similar ordinance enacted in Jackson. Mississippi voters will decide whether to permit medical marijuana via ballot initiative in 2020.

In the largest workplace raid in American history, ICE rounded up and detained more than 680 members of our communities, putting families in immediate crisis. Hundreds of children returned from their first day of school only to find that their parents had been locked up. We, along with more than two dozen organizations, formed the Mississippi Immigration Coalition to help the families affected by the raids. The Coalition’s help includes legal advice and representation; community, family, and mental health services; and humanitarian aid. As of November 2019, $298,905 has been sent to help 223 families with rent, utilities, medicine, and health care. The devastation that resulted from these raids is a direct result of the Trump administration’s extreme immigration policies, which make no one safer in Mississippi and came at no Mississippian’s urging.

In recent months, at least seven children have either died in custody or after being detained by federal immigration agencies at the border. These children came to the United States desperate for shelter and safety, but found inhumanity and suffering, under our government’s care, instead.Their deaths reveal just how dire the conditions are under which U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are holding hundreds of children. Detention facilities are dangerously overcrowded, where migrants are forced to wear soiled clothes for days at a time. To make matters worse, CBP also appears to be holding children for extended periods of time in direct conflict with the Flores agreement, a set of legal guidelines that provide humane conditions for immigrant children in detention — guidelines the Trump administration is now attempting to dismantle, 

The ACLU of Mississippi and our Transgender Education & Advocacy Program (TEAP-MS) are thrilled to participate in the first-ever base-wide Keesler Air Force Base LGBTQ Observance. This education and resource event is a follow-up to a more intimate workshop we hosted at the base back in April. 

Recently, the ACLU released Cops and No Counselors: How the Lack of School Mental Health Staff is Harming Students, an analysis of federal data that examines the first state-level student-to-staff ratio comparison of mental health personnel and law enforcement in schools. The data is not surprising.

In response to the block of Mississippi’s 6-week abortion ban in federal court, Joshua Tom, legal director of the ACLU of Mississippi, had the following statement: