Every year, the ACLU of RI lobbies on hundreds of bills during Rhode Island's annual Legislative Session. Below are some of the bills we have tracked and testified on before the General Assembly. For more info on advocating for the issues you care about, check out our Advocacy 101 Guide. To see how your Reps and Senators voted on various bills over the past few years, visit our Legislative Scorecards page.
We supported this bill which would prohibit police from employing threats, deception, or psychologically manipulative interrogation tactics during the custodial interrogation of a juvenile.
We strongly supported legislation which would require that the parental status of a defendant be taken into account as a component of the sentencing process.
As an important piece of criminal justice reform legislation, this bill would slightly redefine in two ways the definitions of “felony” and “misdemeanor” in Rhode Island law.
We opposed a provision in this bill that could allow police officers to recoup disability benefits if they allege to suffer from PTSD from misconduct that they have themselves inflicted on a civilian.