Reports and White Papers
(Click on the report's title to download the document. Documents
are in PDF Format.)
This July 2011 White Paper was authored by Nahal Zamani, Ian Head, Amanda Alexander, and Darius Charney of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR).
The CCR has long been active in the movement to address racial profiling, particularly in New York City. CCR has been combating systematic racial profiling by the New York City Police Department through both litigation and advocacy since the 1990s, and has worked with community groups, attorneys and activists both in New York and around the country on issues of police abuse and targeting of youth, people of color and other minority communities.
In the summer of 2011, CCR interviewed civil rights and police accountability lawyers, advocates, grassroots activists and academics across the United States to inquire about their work addressing police misconduct, abuse and racial profiling practices. The Center also conducted background research on successful models for police accountability, transparency and oversight throughout the country.
Have you been stopped by the NYPD? Tell CCR your story. Contact CCR to set up an interview: 347.574.7723 (call or text) stopandfrisk@ccrjustice.org
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)* is collecting testimonies from New Yorkers who have been stopped by the NYPD. This collection of stories will appear in an upcoming report that documents the impact of stop-and-frisk on peoples’ lives, highlights data regularly provided by the NYPD (CCR receives this data regularly as part of our legal action against the NYPD) and discusses relevant human rights standards.
To learn more about CCR click here.
The September 2011 report by the ACLU of Southern California and the ACLU National Prison Project demands that the federal government conducts a swift and thorough investigation into the systemic brutal abuse of inmates in the LA County Jail system.
To view an ACLU video about the reign of terror and abuse, condoned at the highest level of the LASD, click here.
To learn more about the ACLU's National Prison Project click here.
This 2011 report by the Arizona based organization No More Deaths details rampant
U.S. Border Patrol abuse of immigration detainees, deportees and migrants apprehended on the U.S.-Mexico Border.
To learn more about No More Deaths, click here.
This 2011 report by the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at NYU Law School illustrates three high-profile terrorism prosecutions in which the government used paid, untrained informants to infiltrate Muslim communities and incite and devise 'terror plots' for which community members where later prosecuted. The report questions the legitimacy and efficacy of these practices and makes recommendations how to address the resulting human rights violations.
To learn more about the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice click here.
This June 2011 publication by the Justice Policy Institute discusses how the business interests and the political clout of the private prison industry contervail criminal and juvenile justices reform efforts.
To learn more about the Justice Policy Institute, click here.
This January 2011 publication by The Advocates for Human Rights is a step-by-step manual for social justice advocacy. It contains a primer on human rights and their application in the U.S. and three practice-oriented sections detailing the monitoring of abuses, the process of documentation, and strategies for advocating for and creating improved human rights.
For more information about The Advocate for Human Rights, click here.
This August 2010 survey was complied by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. The survey reveals the prevalence of sexual victimization and what facilities have the highest rates of reports of it. The survey also reports on who is being victimized and the circumstances surrounding these acts.
For more information about the Department of Justice, click here.
For more information about the Bureau of Justice Statistics, click here.
For more information about the Office of Justice Programs, click here.
This March 2010 report by the U.S. Human Rights Fund and Public Interest Projects is a volume of case studies that are grouped under four main themes. These themes are the changing of institutional policies that threaten human rights, the vindication of victims of abuses, the building of strong activist networks and creating government accountability to human rights.
For more information about Public Interest Projects, click here.
This April 2009 report is authored by Marc Mauer, Executive Director of The Sentencing Project. While African-Americans and Latinos are still incarcerated for drug offenses at rate greatly disproportional to their actual use and sale of drugs, there have been significant demographic changes in population of people incarcerated for drug offences in state prisons. The number of African-Americans in state prisons for drug offenses is declining while the number of whites in state prisons for drug offenses is rising significantly. Mr. Mauer explores explanations for these changes and assesses the implications of these changes for both substance abuse policy and considerations of racial justice.
For more information about The Sentencing Project, click here.
This 2006 report was written by Radley Balko and published by the Cato Institute. Balko’s paper presents a history and overview of the issue of paramilitary drug raids and provides an extensive list of abuses and raids on the wrong people. It also provides recommendations for reform.
For more information about Mr. Balko, click here.
For more information about the Cato Institute, click here.
The report by Prison Legal News (PLN) released on April 10, 2011, is based on several years of research that included submitting public records requests in all 50 states, and found that prison phone companies routinely provide kickbacks – euphemistically known as “commissions” – to contracting government agencies, based on a percentage of the revenue earned from prisoners’ phone calls. “This has been a major concern for prisoners’ families, who are unfairly exploited by telephone companies and the government agencies that receive kickbacks from those companies,” said PLN associate editor Alex Friedmann. “This is an issue of fundamental fairness.”
To read the entire report click on the link above. To learn more about PLN click here.
With its long history of systematic egregious violations of civil rights, the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) has the reputation of being among the most troubled police departments in the country. This March 2011 investigative report by the US Department of Justice Civil Rights Division describes the profound systemic deficiencies within the NOPD and offers recommendations to achieve comprehensive and sustainable reform.
This February 2011 report by the Texas Civil Rights Project provides a detailed insight into the extent and arbitrary nature of book censorship in Texas prisons. The banned books list contains 11,850 titles many of them by Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners, New York Times bestsellers, and books by Nobel Peace Prize nominees, National Public Radio correspondents, Ivy League professors and civil rights leaders.
To read the press release click here
To learn more about the Texas Civil Rights Project click here
This July 2009 report by the National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP)and the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) includes information about 273 cities nationwide that target the homeless with laws making it illegal to sleep, eat or sit in public spaces. It also ranks the top 10 U.S. cities with the worst practices.
For information on the NLCHP click here
For information on the NCH click here
This June 2009 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) decribes how the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), passed by Congress in 1996, denies equal access to the courts to the more than 2.3 mio. incarcerated persons in the US, including children in prisons and youth detention facilities, and makes recommendations how to amend the legislation.
To learn more about Human Rights Watch click here
This June 2009 paper by the Center for American Progress is directed at advocates, policymakers and legislators and argues that the international human rights framework provides a powerful instrument in advancing domestic social justice.
For information on the Center for American Progress click here
This
December 2007 report was prepared for the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination on the occasion of its review of the United States of America’s Second and Third Periodic Report to the Committee. The report, endorsed by many organizations and individuals including the NPAP, addresses the U.S. government’s failure to comply with its obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination to prevent and punish acts of excessive force, rape sexual abuse, and racial profiling committed by law enforcement officers against people of color. The report examines why existing police training programs are ineffective and current legislative and judicial remedies are failing to afford victims of racially discriminatory law enforcement practices vindication of their human rights, financial compensation, or systemic change. It concludes by offering concrete recommendations to bring the U.S. into compliance with the Convention.
To read appendices to the report click here
To read the Supplementary Torture Report of 10/29/08 click here
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Enhancing Civilian Participation in the Review of Complaints and Use of Force in the Boston Police Department
This report was prepared in 2005 by Northeastern University’s Institute on Race and Justice in partnership with the Boston Police Department (BPD) to enhance integrity within the BPD. The researchers conducted a historical analysis of civilian review and identified best practices in civilian review across the country. In addition to reviewing best practices nationally, the researchers analyzed the complaint and use of force investigation and review processes that were in place at the time in Boston and made recommendations to improve these processes and introduce external civilian oversight.
Unfortunately, the Community Ombudsman Oversight Panel (COOP) that was established in 2007 by executive order of Boston Mayor Thomas Menino falls short of the recommendations made by the report. A coalition of civil rights and community organizations, among them the NPAP, is currently working on improving civilian oversight in Boston.
To visit the website of the COOP click here
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