ACSBlog

by Eva Paterson, President, Equal Justice Society

Latino and Black students and their families and local community groups reached a settlement with the Kern High School District (KHSD) about their disproportionate discipline and transfer policies. However, the plaintiffs are appealing the dismissal of the California Department of Education from the lawsuit, arguing that the CDE failed in its independent oversight responsibilities by not acting to remedy the disproportionate discipline.

The state allowed the school district to suspend and expel Latino and Black students in disproportionate numbers. The school reported the highest number of expulsions of any district in the state of California, including school districts with much larger enrollment. KHSD’s average expulsion rate for White students was 18.70 per 1,000 students; for Latino students, 65.85 expulsions per 1,000 students (20.84% higher than the average rate for all students and 352% higher than the average rate for White students); and for African-American students, 110.21 expulsions per 1,000 students (102% higher than the average rate for all students and 589% higher than the average rate for White students).>

by Kara Gotsch, Director of Strategic Initiatives, The Sentencing Project

Thanks to President Trump, Attorney General Sessions and some in Congress, the opioid crisis has kick-started a War on Drugs reboot.  In March Trump outlined his administration’s blueprint for confronting the public health emergency instigated by skyrocketing opioid overdose deaths, emphasizing a highly punitive response: “If we don’t get tough on the drug dealers, we’re wasting our time… and that toughness includes the death penalty.”

There is no doubt that we are in the eye of a drug crisis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 63,632 people died in 2016 from a drug overdose, a 21 percent increase from 2015. Since 1999, the death toll from drug overdoses has grown to over 600,000. About two-thirds of these deaths involved an opioid. These stark statistics deserve national attention and action by the nation’s leaders, but the tragic consequences of the opioid crisis are an indictment of failed drug policies that for too long have emphasized investments in incarceration over treatment.