News & Commentary

This flawed technology threatens core constitutional rights, and endangers people of color and other marginalized groups.

Access to abortion shouldn't depend on who you are, where you live, or how much money you make.

Investing in communities that have been historically under-resourced and over-criminalized is a long overdue and critical piece to achieving public safety.

By Tony Mason, President & CEO of the Indianapolis Urban League and Jane Henegar, Executive Director of the ACLU of Indiana

The U.S. policing system has been entwined with racism since its inception during the slavery era. The first municipal police department in the country was conceived as a slave patrol to monitor and surveil the Black enslaved population.  

In just the first week of the 2021 Indiana Legislative Session, several pieces of legislation have been introduced in an attempt to take power and oversight of local police departments away from the very communities' police departments are meant to serve.  

Last Thursday, IMPD proposed its 2021 budget to the Indianapolis City-County Council Public Safety and Criminal Justice Committee. During the committee meeting, IMPD leadership broke down their $261,245,103 budget line by line. The main takeaway being that IMPD seeks more officers and more equipment.  

When students are sick, stressed, acting out, or may hurt themselves or others, counselors, nurses, social workers, and psychologists—not police—should be on the frontlines helping these students. Typical adolescent misconduct is not criminal behavior, but when schools lack adequate resources, teachers may call on police for behavioral support. This results in hyper-criminalization of our youth, particularly students of color. Students of color experience an incre

The ACLU of Indiana was encouraged by Mayor Hogsett’s recent press conference in which Indianapolis officials discussed the importance of restructuring policing in our city. Recognizing that the underlying problem with policing isn't the result of a few failed policies or a couple of bad apples, but rather the problem is the outsized and ever-expanding scale of policing that leads inevitably to officers’ unlawful use of excessive force – is an important first step.