COLUMBUS – Today the ACLU of Ohio released the latest version of their biennial report, Ohio’s Statehouse-to-Prison Pipeline: 135th General Assembly (2023-2024). These reports demonstrate the sheer volume of bills introduced and passed by the Ohio General Assembly that would pack more people into our overcrowded prisons and jails. This publication is the ACLU of Ohio’s fifth full legislative session review and is the culmination of ten years’ worth of data to analyze every single bill for its “pipeline qualities.”
Specifically, Statehouse-to-Prison Pipeline bills earn that designation by any combination of:
- Creating a new criminal offense;
- Enhancing punishments and penalties for current criminal offenses;
- Expanding and tweaking the reach of current laws to include new actors and similar scenarios; and/or
- Removing or altering time limits for prosecution of certain offenses.
“Of the past ten years, the 135th General Assembly shows general improvement; 79 total Pipeline bills (7.5%) introduced is the lowest in five sessions; however, the most recent session also had less bills passed in general, due to political and power dynamics at the Statehouse,” said Gary Daniels, chief lobbyist for the ACLU of Ohio. “When we look back to 2015, the effects of continually doing what doesn’t work are well-documented, and the purpose of this report is to highlight the role and responsibility of the Ohio General Assembly in maintaining our state’s ongoing, mass incarceration crisis.”
“One alarming new frontier in this year’s research is the pivot to criminalizing democracy. We were concerned to find that Ohio legislators began pushing for more election-related conduct to be illegal and subject to criminal penalties – a trend we will be watching closely in this new legislative session,” added Daniels.
The ACLU of Ohio urges legislative leaders to:
- Introduce and pass legislation that ends the reliance on mass incarceration for problems only made worse by jail, prison, and felony records;
- End the unnecessary introduction of bills and passage of laws that ultimately make Ohioans less safe, not more.
