Group Calls U.S. Report to U.N. a Whitewash

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 10, 2007
CONTACT: Will Matthews, ACLU (212) 549-2582 or (212) 549-2666;[email protected] or Whitney Potter, ACLU of New Mexico (505) 266-5915 ext. 1003 or (505) 507-9898
NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union today released a comprehensive analysis of the pervasive institutionalized, systemic and structural racism in America. The report, Race & Ethnicity in America: Turning a Blind Eye to Injustice, is a response to the U.S. report to the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) released earlier this year. The U.S. report, which the ACLU called a “whitewash,” swept under the rug the dramatic effects of widespread racial and ethnic discrimination in this country.
“The America we believe in is one where people are treated fairly regardless of their race and ethnicity. But unfortunately, the U.S. government is not living up to our ideals,” said Dennis Parker, Director of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program. “We will continue to press this administration to pursue wide-ranging and rigorous measures to enforce this treaty and to end racial discrimination.”
The U.S. government submitted its report in April to the CERD committee, an independent group of internationally recognized human rights experts that oversees compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, a treaty signed and ratified by the U.S. in 1994. All levels of the U.S. government are required to comply with the treaty’s provisions, which require countries to review national, state and local policies and to amend or repeal laws and regulations that create or perpetuate racial discrimination. The treaty also encourages countries to take positive measures, including affirmative action, to redress racial inequalities.
In its “shadow report” to the U.N., compiled jointly by the ACLU’s Human Rights and Racial Justice Programs and based on information provided by the ACLU affiliates in more than 20 states, the ACLU documents the U.S. government’s failure to fully comply with CERD in numerous substantive areas affecting racial and ethnic minorities. The report closely examines policies and practices at the federal, state and local levels which place a disproportionate burden on those most vulnerable in society – including women, children, incarcerated persons and immigrants and non-citizens.
Since its ratification, U.S. reporting on compliance has been inadequate, and this most recent report is no exception – it is a combination of two overdue reports spanning the years 2000-2006. The government’s report is riddled with misrepresentations and inaccuracies and fails to honestly assess the ways in which racial and ethnic discrimination and inequality persist.
The ACLU’s report details the setbacks in the promotion of racial and ethnic equality, including the government’s attack on affirmative action and the courts’ curtailment of civil rights and remedies for discrimination. The ACLU report finds that discrimination in America permeates education, employment, the treatment of migrants and immigrants, law enforcement, access to justice for juveniles and adults, court proceedings, detention and incarceration, the death penalty, and the many collateral consequences of incarceration including the loss of political rights.
The ACLU report also criticizes major shortcomings in the U.S. government’s report including: a minor mention of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (and only in the housing discrimination context) and a total omission of the “school to prison pipeline” phenomenon, which involves the overzealous funneling of students of color out of classrooms and into the criminal justice system. The report also suffers from a complete lack of information on the dramatic increase in hate crimes and the escalating problem of police brutality.
The ACLU report examines human rights violations that took place before, during and after Hurricane Katrina, a crisis that exposed to the world the persistence of racial and economic inequalities in America, and their impact on African-American and other minority communities. It also documents the epidemic of minorities being subjected to racial profiling, a practice most often associated with African-Americans and Latinos, but one which also affects other minority communities, and since 9/11, has increasingly been directed at Arabs, Muslims, and South Asians.
In addition, the report highlights the government’s failure to protect immigrants and non-citizens, and particularly low-wage workers, from racially discriminatory policies and acts like governmental crackdowns and workplace raids.
Despite the treaty’s clear requirement to provide state-level information, the U.S. government’s report comprehensively reports on only four states – Oregon, South Carolina, New Mexico and Illinois – and fails to provide adequate information on some of the most racially diverse states such as California, Texas, New York and  Florida, or on the Gulf Coast states devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
December 10th is celebrated worldwide as International Human Rights Day. Today the ACLU and many of its affiliates across the country will hold events as part of the ACLU’s National Day of Action Against Racial Discrimination.
A copy of the ACLU’s report on the U.S. government’s report to CERD can be found online at: http://www.aclu.org/cerd
More information on the ACLU’s Human Rights Program can be found online at: www.aclu.org/intlhumanrights/gen/30079pub20070612.html
More information on the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program can be found online at: www.aclu.org/racialjustice/index.html

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FOR IMMIDIATE RELEASE: November 20, 2007

CONTACT: (505) 266-5915 ext. 1003

ALBUQUERQUE—The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico sued the New Mexico Children Youth and Families Department (CYFD) today for failing to ensure safe living conditions and essential rehabilitation services for young people in state juvenile justice facilities.  The lawsuit charges CYFD with breaching the terms of a contract that it signed with the ACLU in February 2006 requiring the agency to establish minimally adequate mental health services and protect youth from physical assaults and threats of violence.  CYFD entered into the 2006 agreement in order to avoid being sued for rights violations at that time. “This lawsuit seeks to make sure that youth in our juvenile justice system get a fair shot at redirecting their lives and overcoming mistakes they made in their past,” said ACLU Executive Director Peter Simonson.  “New Mexico puts its most troubled kids in prison because we don’t have adequate mental health services.  Kids are unnecessarily incarcerated and our juvenile detention facilities become training grounds for lifelong criminals instead of centers of genuine rehabilitation.” Filed in Santa Fe District Court, the ACLU’s lawsuit seeks two basic reforms: Establish minimally adequate community mental health services for the 3,000 children and youth on probation or parole due to delinquent acts, in order to avoid the unnecessary incarceration of youth due to their mental illness; and Fundamentally improve the safety, medical care and mental health care provided to the approximately 300 children and youth held in delinquency facilities. The suit cites several instances of guard-on-youth violence, including a March 2007 incident in which staff at the Santa Fe County Juvenile Detention Center assaulted a 17-year old resident who is developmentally delayed and suffers from auditory hallucinations.  Guards picked the youth up by his armpits and repeatedly slammed his head into a metal classroom door.  CYFD rejected a complaint that the ACLU filed on the resident’s behalf, except to criticize staff for failing to videotape the ‘take down.’ Simonson said, “Hopefully your children don’t wind up in one of these facilities.  But if they do, you want to know that the staff is going to protect them, not brutalize them.  You want to know that they’re going to get the tools they need to address emotional problems and make productive behavioral adjustments.” Representing the ACLU are attorneys Daniel Yohalem and Lee Hunt of Santa Fe, ACLU Co-Legal Director Phil Davis of Albuquerque, and Alice Bussiere and Maria Ramiu ofthe Youth Law Center of San Francisco.  Yohalem is former Legal Director for the Children’s Defense Fund. ### The mission of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico is to maintain and advance the cause of civil liberties within the state of New Mexico, with particular emphasis on the freedom of religion, speech, press, association, and assemblage, and the right to vote, due process of law and equal protection of law, and to take any legitimate action in the furtherance and defense of such purposes. These objectives shall be sought wholly without political partisanship. Related documents: CYFD Complaint

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE November 7, 2007
CONTACTS: Whitney Potter, ACLU of New Mexico (505) 266 5915 ext. 1003, Cell (505) 507 9898 or Nancy Koenigsberg, P&A (505) 256-3100
LAS CRUCES, NM—Civil rights groups sued the Dona Ana County Detention Center today for failure to provide adequate mental health services to inmates in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and constitutional prohibitions on “cruel and unusual punishment.”  The class action suit charges county officials with “deliberate indifference to [inmates’] serious mental health needs,” including failure to provide adequate mental health screening, monitoring, and care.  On behalf of plaintiffs, Protection and Advocacy System, Inc. (P&A), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico, and private attorneys Michael Lilley of Las Cruces and Peter Cubra and Lisa Schatz-Vance of Albuquerque seek an effective program for mental health screening and treatment for all detainees and policy changes prohibiting the unnecessary incarceration of people with mental illness.
“Local officials have chosen to arrest and incarcerate people with serious mental disabilities instead of providing them with the treatment they require,” said P&A Executive Director, Jim Jackson.  “After incarcerating them, the county does not provide them with needed treatment at the jail, either.  We gave County officials multiple chances to fix the situation and they ignored our efforts.  We felt litigation was our only recourse.”
In December, 2006, a jail conditions expert, hired by P&A, inspected the jail and sent a memo to detention center Director Chris Barela recommending improvements in the jail’s program for mental health screening.  When their letter went ignored, P&A sent a second letter in June, 2007 requesting that specific problems regarding inadequate mental health care be corrected.  The letter followed an attempted suicide by a person held in the jail who is a named plaintiff in the civil rights suit.  In May and September 2007 P&A visited with jail officials and reiterated their concerns.
None of these contacts prompted significant improvements in mental health programming.
ACLU Executive Director Peter Simonson said, “By ignoring inmates’ mental health problems, the county has created a lose-lose situation.  The inmates suffer.  The jail suffers, because it faces possible suicides and violence within the facility.  And ultimately the citizens of Doña Ana county lose, because eventually some of these inmates will return to society in worse mental states than when they entered the jail.  It’s high time the situation was resolved for all concerned.”
The lawsuit was filed in state court.  In addition to policy changes, it seeks punitive and compensatory damages.

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Related Documents:

Dona Ana County Complaint

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