Research & Publications

Under the government’s “behavior detection” program, thousands of TSA officers at airports around the country watch passengers for behaviors that the TSA claims are associated with stress, fear, or deception. The officers then flag certain people for additional inspection and questioning.

The program has long been criticized as unscientific, ineffective, and wasteful, and it has been blamed by passengers and TSA officers themselves for racial and religious profiling – but still it continues.

This report, based on documents the ACLU obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, reveals that materials in TSA’s own files discredit this junk-science program.

The report’s key findings include:

The TSA expanded the scope of the behavior detection program and its use of surveillance techniques.
Academic research and other documents in the TSA’s own files reinforce that behavior detection is unscientific and unreliable.
The TSA repeatedly overstated the scientific validity of behavior detection in communications with members of Congress and the Government Accountability Office.
Materials in the TSA’s files raise further questions about anti-Muslim bias and the origins and focus of the TSA’s behavior detection program.
The TSA’s documents reveal details of specific instances of racial or religious profiling that the TSA concealed from the public.

The report recommends that Congress discontinue funding the TSA’s behavior detection program and that the TSA implement a rigorous anti-discrimination training program for its workforce.

About the case

TSA Behavior Detection FOIA Database

This report provides a first-ever national ACLU account of the suffering prisoners with physical disabilities experience in solitary confinement. It spotlights the dangers for blind people, Deaf people, people who are unable to walk without assistance, and people with other physical disabilities who are being held in small cells for 22 hours a day or longer, for days, months, and even years. Solitary confinement is a punishing environment that endangers the well-being of people with physical disabilities and often violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. The report’s revelations about the particular harms of solitary on people with physical disabilities shows the urgent need for far better accounting of the problems they face and the development of solutions to those problems.

The American Civil Liberties Union released an analysis of Sen. Jeff Sessions’ record on civil liberties issues ahead of the Jan. 10-11 confirmation hearings as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for attorney general. The ACLU report looks at Sessions’ handling of police reform, voting rights, immigration, mass incarceration, religious liberty, LGBT equality, privacy and surveillance, torture, abortion, and sexual assault issues.

This report documents the failures of parole systems across the United States and how these systems fail prisoners who were young when convicted of serious crimes and are serving decades or their lives in prison.

Executive Summary
Recommendations
Methodology

I. MASS INCARCERATION, EXTREME SENTENCES, AND HOW WE TREAT YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE U.S. CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
A. Long Sentences (Getting Longer) in the United States
B. Longer for Some: Racial Disparities in Sentencing
C. Youth and Long Sentences in the United States
1. Why Youth Should Be Treated Differently
2. Youth in the U.S. Adult Courts and Prisons
3. Youth in the U.S. Criminal Justice System: A Human Rights Outlier

II. THE POST-MILLER WORLD: STATE REFORMS FOR YOUNG OFFENDERS AND THE WORK THAT REMAINS
A. The U.S. Supreme Court and Punishments for Youth: Roper Through Montgomery
B. State Reforms for Youth in the Criminal Justice System—and Their Limits
C. The Post-Miller World: The Persistence of Long Sentences for Youth

III. PAROLE: LEGAL BACKGROUND AND NATIONAL OVERVIEW OF A SYSTEM DESIGNED TO FAIL
A. Who Is the Parole Board?
B. Parole and/vs. Due Process
C. Parole as a Second Sentencing
D. Lack of Judicial Review/Independent Oversight
E. Parole Grant Rates
F. Parole and Young Offenders
1. Youth-Specific Guidelines and Their Impact on Parole
2. Youth as an Aggravating Factor

IV. PAROLE IN PRACTICE: HUGE DISCRETIONARY POWER, NO TRANSPARENCY, AND LIMITED RIGHTS
A. Paltry Process with Significant Consequences
1. Parole Review in the Absence of a Hearing
2. Hostile Hearings
3. No Legal Assistance
B. A Closed System: The Lack of Transparency in the Parole Process
1. Uncertainty About the Factors Considered in a Parole Decision
2. Lack of Transparency in Parole Denial

V. DENIED FOR THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE OFFENSE
A. The Severity of the Crime: An Explicit, Required, and Deciding Factor
B. Where the Offense Rules, Parole Is Foreclosed
C. Challenges for Innocent Prisoners

VI. EXTERNAL IMPEDIMENTS TO PAROLE
A. Judicial Veto in Michigan
B. Governor Veto Power in Maryland, California, and Oklahoma

VII. REHABILITATION: THE THWARTED PATH TO PAROLE
A. Access to Programming for Youth Serving Long Sentences
B. Reentry Planning and Assistance
C. Denied Rehabilitation and Now, Denied Parole

VIII. COSTS OF DELAY
A. Medical Parole: A Squandered Opportunity
B. First In, Last Out: Young Prisoners Waiting for Geriatric Release

IX. INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW PERSPECTIVE
A. Human Rights Law, Proportionality, and Extreme Sentences
B. Parole and the Meaningful Opportunity for Release
C. Rights of the Child in the Criminal Justice System
D. Children, Courts, and Punishment
E. Children in Prison
F. The Right to Rehabilitation

X. SELECTED STORIES OF INDIVIDUALS SERVING EXTREME SENTENCES SINCE THEIR YOUTH, WAITING FOR RELEASE ON PAROLE

Acknowledgements
Appendix A: For prisoners serving a life sentence, when is the first parole review? State by state
Appendix B: If a person is denied parole (discretionary release), when will they be reviewed again? State by state
Appendix C: Sample FOIA Request
Endnotes