Our Issues Must Be Part of Criminal Justice Reform

Laura Durso and Naomi Goldberg discuss why lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender—or LGBT—people and advocates must ensure that their calls for reform, justice, and accountability for LGBT people in the criminal justice system are heard.

Congress is riddled with partisanship, now even more than usual, with the upcoming election and the recent vacancy on the Supreme Court. Yet in the midst of this contention, there’s an issue that is unifying the parties: the need for criminal justice reform. As Congress and our country grapple with the specifics of how best to ensure justice for all and reform the criminal justice system, we must ensure that reform efforts are inclusive of the needs of everyone trapped in this broken system, including the disproportionately high number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people interacting with police, housed within prisons and jails, and reentering communities often hostile to their identities.

The above excerpt was originally published in The Advocate. Click here to view the full article.

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