The ACLU's Criminal Law Reform Project (CLRP) focuses its work on the “front end” of the criminal legal system—from policing to sentencing— seeking to end excessively harsh criminal justice policies that result in mass incarceration, over-criminalization, and racial injustice, and
ACLU National Prison Project
The ACLU National Prison Project is dedicated to ensuring that our nation’s prisons, jails, and other places of detention comply with the Constitution, domestic law, and international human rights principles, and to ending the policies that have given the United
Advancement Project
Advancement Project is a next generation, multi-racial civil rights organization. Rooted in the great human rights struggles for equality and justice, it exists to fulfill America’s promise of a caring, inclusive and just democracy. It uses innovative tools and strategies
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Amelia Caramadre
Amelia Caramadre is a 2022-2023 Justice Catalyst Fellow working on access to medication for opioid use disorder within the carceral and rehab industrial complexes with Northeastern University’s Health in Justice Action Lab.
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Andrew Ntim
Andrew Ntim is a 2022-2023 Justice Catalyst Fellow leading an organizing campaign to demand justice for those subjected to abusive practices within restrictive gang units in California prisons with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children.
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Chrysanthemum Desir
Chrysanthemum Desir is a 2018-2019 Justice Catalyst Fellow at FreeState Justice developing queer and trans* youth advocacy projects.
Civil Rights Clinic at Yeshiva University's Cardozo Law School
The Civil Rights Clinic focuses on the intersection between civil rights and the criminal justice system, shedding light on important but too often-overlooked issues such as unconstitutional prison conditions and police brutality.
Civil Rights Corps
Civil Rights Corps (CRC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to challenging systemic injustice in the United States’ legal system- a system that is built on white supremacy and economic inequality.
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Connor McCleskey
Connor McCleskey is a 2019-2020 Justice Catalyst Fellow at Worth Rises working to empower incarcerated people and pro se litigants to fight against financial exploitation in the criminal legal system.
Dream Defenders
Today, the Dream Defenders is organizing Black and Brown youth to build power in Floridian communities to advance a new vision they have for the state
Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel
Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP is a litigation boutique that focuses on civil rights, commercial, criminal, and ethics matters.
Flex Your Rights
Flex You Rights educates people on their rights when interacting with the police.
Human Rights Defense Center
The Human Rights Defense Center advocates on behalf of the human rights of people held in U.S. detention facilities.
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Ian Stringham
Ian Stringham is a 2019-2020 Justice Catalyst Fellow and Executive Director at California Legal Research working to expand access to law libraries for people in California prisons and jails.
JC Fellow Marisol Dominguez-Ruiz collaborates on federal class-action lawsuit to prevent the transfer of children to Notorious Angola Prison
JC Fellow Marisol Dominguez-Ruiz collaborates on federal class-action lawsuit to prevent the transfer of children to Notorious Angola Prison.
Justice Catalyst Partner Worth Rises Wins Major Victory in Battle for Prison Phone Justice
Justice Catalyst Partner Worth Rises has just won a major victory in the battle for prison phone justice. Yesterday, industry behemoth Securus pulled out of its agreement to purchase ICSolutions.
Justice Catalyst Partner Worth Rises Publishes Groundbreaking Report on The Prison Industry
Worth Rises, a Justice Catalyst partner organization, published a comprehensive report on the prison industry entitled “The Prison Industry: How It Started. How It Works. How It Harms.” in early December
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Lee Ann Felder-Heim
Lee Ann Felder Heim is a 2021-2022 Justice Catalyst Fellow at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area working to stop private, for-profit prison corporations from harming detained immigrants in their custody, hold them accountable
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children
Legal Services for Prisoners with Children organizes communities impacted by the criminal justice system and advocates to release incarcerated people, to restore human and civil rights, and to reunify families and communities.
ECBAWM and ’20-’21 Fellow Sonya Levitova Gain Class Certification for Detention Center Blackout Plaintiffs
Sonya Levitova is a ’20-’21 Justice Catalyst Fellow at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel, where she focuses on holding federal officials accountable for their violations of incarcerated people’s constitutional rights. Throughout her fellowship, Levitova contributed to a motion for class certification in a federal lawsuit against the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn for
On Using Private Law to Shut Down Private Prisons
This article by Sonya Levitova, a ’20-’21 Justice Catalyst Fellow at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP, was originally published by the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project
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Liza Weisberg
Liza Weisberg is a 2017-2019 Justice Catalyst Fellow at the ACLU of New Jersey focusing on challenging the abuses of civil asset forfeiture.
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Mackenzie Halter
Mackenzie Halter is a 2020-2021 Justice Catalyst Fellow at the Debt Collective designing and implementing a Bail Debt Dispute Tool.
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Marisol Dominguez-Ruiz
Marisol Dominguez-Ruiz is a 2022-2023 Justice Catalyst Fellow working to enforce underused disability laws in carceral settings with ACLU's National Prison Project.
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Maya Ragsdale
Maya Ragsdale is a 2020-2021 Justice Catalyst Fellow at Dream Defenders providing legal, policy, and strategic support to abolitionist organizers fighting to end pretrial detention and close jails in Miami-Dade County.
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Michael Saavedra
Michael Saavedra is a 2020-2021 Justice Catalyst Fellow at Youth Justice Coalition working to remove barriers that block many formerly incarcerated individuals from becoming lawyers.
NYU Policing Project
The NYU Policing Project works with communities and police to promote public safety through transparency, equity, and democratic engagement.
Orleans Indigent Defender Program
Orleans Public Defender defends indigent people in the New Orleans criminal justice system.
Partners for Justice
Partners for Justice places advocates in public defender offices across the country to empower low-income people in the criminal justice system.
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Peter Steffensen
Peter Steffensen is a 2017-2018 Justice Catalyst Fellow at Texas Civil Rights Project focusing on algorithmic risk assessment tools within the state's criminal justice system.
Justice Catalyst Fellow Maya Ragsdale named Best Activist in Miami New Times’ Best of 2020 List
Maya Ragsdale, a ’20-’21 Justice Catalyst Fellow working at Dream Defenders, was named Best Activist in the Miami New Times’ “Best of 2020” list.
Restoring Justice
Restoring Justice provides holistic and client-centered representation to marginalized members of the community facing criminal charges.
Rights Behind Bars
Rights Behind Bars works with incarcerated individuals to challenge the cruel and inhumane conditions of their confinement.
Justice Catalyst Fellow ’20-’21 Michael Saavedra Discusses Decarceration in LA with the ACLU
Michael Saavedra, a ‘20-‘21 Justice Catalyst Fellow at Youth Justice Coalition (YJC), along with Nalya Rodriguez, sat down with the ACLU in mid-March for an interview about their work with YJC to free people from jails and prisons in Los
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Samuel Kuhn
Samuel Kuhn is a 2021-2022 Justice Catalyst/Public Rights Project Joint Fellow serving as the first in-house specialist designated to support the New York State Attorney General’s Office in exercising its newly-expanded authority to structurally reform police in the state.
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Sonya Levitova
Sonya Levitova is a 2020-2021 Justice Catalyst Fellow with Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel focusing on holding federal officials accountable for their violations of incarcerated people's rights.
Southern Center for Human Rights
The Southern Center for Human Rights works for equality, dignity, and justice for people impacted by the criminal legal systemin the Deep South.
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TJ Grayson
TJ Grayson is a 2021-2022 Justice Catalyst Fellow at the Advancement Project using the practices of movement lawyering to help abolitionist organizers address the influences of police unions in pursuit of their goal.
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Wally Hilke
Wally Hilke is a 2018-2019 Justice Catalyst Fellow at Community Activism Law Alliance challenging police misconduct in Chicago alongisde grassroots organizers.
Justice Catalyst Fellow Liza Weisberg Urges Government to Reform Civil Asset Forfeiture System
Justice Catalyst Fellow Liza Weisberg writes about her report witht the ACLU-NJ on the civil asset forfeiture system in New Jersey.
Worth Rises
Worth Rises is an organization dedicated to dismantling the prison industry and ending the exploitation of those it touches.
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Yazmine Nichols
Yazmine Nichols is a 2020-2021 Justice Catalyst Fellow at ACLU's Criminal Law Reform Project challenging unjust pretrial conditions of release and eliminating pretrial profiteering through a targeted campaign centering women of color.
Youth Justice Coalition
The Youth Justice Coalition (YJC) is working to build a youth, family, and formerly and currently incarcerated people’s movement to challenge America’s addiction to incarceration and race, gender and class discrimination in Los Angeles County’s, California’s and the nation’s juvenile