Justice

(No unsolicited proposals)

By its example and through its foreign policies, the U. S. plays a leadership role in addressing human rights abuses globally. However, its credibility and moral authority is undermined when human rights abuses continue its own back yard. The U. S. criminal justice system violates basic tenets of international human rights law and the U.S. Constitution by widely discriminating on the basis of race and income, failing to provide adequate legal representation to low-income people, dispensing one-size-fits-all mandatory prison sentences rather than individualized justice, routinely imprisoning the mentally ill and the drug addicted without providing rehabilitative services, and imposing the death penalty against juveniles and people who are overwhelmingly poor, minorities or suffering from deficits of education, mental disease or severe childhood abuse. The Fund supports public policy reform in these areas.

2005 Grants »