U.S.-based Civil Society Organizations Demand International Attention and Action to the Systemic Anti-Black Racism in the Criminal Legal System

In advance of the upcoming Universal Periodic Review of the United States on November 9, 2020, and in this critical period of mass uprising and global reckoning with anti-Black racism, the ACLU joined over 20 other civil society organizations in drafting this statement for UN Missions to pay explicit attention to the structures of oppression in our country that marginalize and criminalize people of African descent, and violate both their human rights as well as their civil rights under the U.S. Constitution.

This statement is a follow up to the October 20, 2020 briefing for UN member states, available here, where fourteen people delivered testimony on key aspects of a fundamentally racist criminal legal system: police violence, cruel and excessive sentencing, conditions of confinement, and political prisoners.