News & Commentary
Latest Event
NextGen Meeting: Find your voice. Create change.
The goal of this program is to provide students with a place to meet other young advocates, connect with community leaders, and learn new skills and information that will allow them to be better advocates in their schools and communities.
The purpose of this first meeting is for students to get to know each other and meet community organizing leaders in OKC. Students will also have a chance to brainstorm ideas on how to approach pressing issues in their communities.
For my grandmother: A receipt
An essay about poverty, hunger and Oklahoma City's anti-panhandling ordinance
By
Legislature Should Stop Trying To Undermine Supreme Court Ruling, ACLU's Kiesel Says
OKLA
By
Legislature Should Move To Expand Medicaid, ACLU OK Executive Director Says
One way to do that, he said, was to expand Medicaid coverage. Kiesel pointed to a 2013 ACLU study that called on states to expand Medicaid coverage as a way to make communities safer. In the study, entitled Healthcare Not Handcuffs, the ACLU called for Medicaid expansion under the federal Affordable Care Act.
“By dramatically expanding and funding healthcare coverage to millions of currently uninsured people, the ACA represents a remarkable opportunity for criminal justice and drug policy reform advocates to advance efforts for policies promoting safe and healthy communities, without excessive reliance on the criminal justice solutions that have become so prevalent under the War on Drugs,” the study said.
According to the study, the expansion of the federal Medicaid programs represents an opportunity to “recast substance use disorders and drug use as a matter for public health rather than criminal justice.”
“This could be a huge tool to help fight crime and combat drug-related crimes,” Kiesel said.
He said a dramatic expansion of healthcare coverage would allow Oklahomans struggling with drug use to obtain community-based care and treatment, instead of incarceration.
Kiesel said state officials could harness the power of the ACA as low-cost and effective alternative to incarceration for defendants with substance use or mental health disorders.
A report, released by the Tulsa-based Oklahoma Policy I
By
ACLU OK 'Disappointed' By Council Action, Will Monitor Enforcement of Ordinance
ACLU Oklahoma Executive Director Ryan Kiesel said his organization would continue to oppose the ordinance and was in the process of evaluating their next steps.
“All options are on the table right now,” Kiesel said. “We will be monitoring closely how the ordinance is implemented and enforced. We have serious concerns that the city of Oklahoma City can enforce this ordinance and still comply with the 1st and 14th Amendments of the United States Constitution.”
By
Anti-panhandling Ordinance An Attack On The Poor, ACLU Leader Says
Last Friday, the City of Oklahoma City released a revised version of its proposed anti-panhandling ordinance. A provision of the ordinance would prevent panhandling on medians less than 30 feet wide. The ordinance would make an exception if the median was more than 200 feet away from an intersection. A vote on the proposal is set for Tuesday.
ACLU Oklahoma Legal Director Brady Henderson said the ordinance is unnecessary. Existing laws, he said, already regulate panhandling that poses a public safety risk. He said the new ordinance was an attempt by city officials to hide poverty from the public.
“All the city is trying to do is sweep poverty under the rug,” Henderson said. “Instead of helping individuals, like the vendors of the Curbside Chronicle, do everything they can to escape poverty, the city is trying to simply force them out of view.”
Kiesel said the ACLU O
By
Stay Informed
Sign up to be the first to hear about how to take action.
By completing this form, I agree to receive occasional emails per the terms of the ACLU’s privacy statement.
By completing this form, I agree to receive occasional emails per the terms of the ACLU’s privacy statement.