Criminal Justice Reform

Over the last four decades, this country has relentlessly expanded the size of our criminal justice system, needlessly throwing away too many lives and wasting trillions of taxpayer dollars. Montana is no exception. Our criminal justice system is unproductive, wasteful, and dominated by racial disparities.

The ACLU of Montana advocates for smart justice reform in the legislature, in the courts, and by working in collaboration with key stakeholders including formerly incarcerated people. We work to end mass incarceration, combat the criminalization of poverty, decrease racial disparities, and ensure constitutionally protected treatment for people with disabilities.

See the ACLU’s Campaign for Smart Justice Montana State Blueprint project for more about mass incarceration and our recommendations for positive change.

We also work to improve conditions for those who are currently incarcerated. In our 2015 report, “Locked in the Past,” we found that county jails were crowded, understaffed, and failing to meet the medical, mental health, and substance abuse treatment needs of the people incarcerated there.

In order to end mass incarceration, we researched why people are incarcerated, and how hard it is to escape from the criminal justice system. In 2018, we investigated community supervision, publishing “Set Up to Fail,” a report on Probation & Parole.