2 years into Nebraska’s prison overcrowding emergency, ACLU says not much has been done

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – This month marked the second-year anniversary of Gov. Pete Ricketts declaring a state emergency because of overcrowding problems in Nebraska’s state prisons.

Organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union say not much that has been done since and are raising their voices to let politicians know they’re paying attention to the situation.

“For two solid years our prisons have been dangerously overcrowded,” said Spike Eickholt, the ACLU of Nebraska’s government liaison.  “Last legislative session, the Legislature and the governor had an opportunity to implement some of those recommendations when the CJI group came to Nebraska and offered some concrete solutions that would reduce the prison population problems.”

The Crime and Justice Institute conducted a study on the Nebraska prison population and handed it over to a group of Nebraska stakeholders, who came up with 21 policy solutions.

But the Legislature failed to pass LB 920, which was born out of the CJI study, in the last session.

ACLU board member Jason Witmer was in the correctional system long before he became an advocate.

“The problem with the overcrowding in our state has come from this hard on crime policy,” he said. “And it’s not working. In fact, it’s doing the opposite of working. It’s doing more harm than good for everybody.”

The latest available quarterly report from the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services shows the state’s prisons are collectively at 152% of design capacity.

Numbers also show that there are disparities when it comes to race and ethnicity.

“Black people make up 5% of the Nebraska population, but they almost make 30% of the prison population,” Eickholt said. “It’s the same trend with overrepresentation of Native Americans and Hispanics.”

The ACLU of Nebraska is hopeful that the next Legislature passes policies to lower the prison population.