News & Commentary

While some gun regulations raise Second Amendment concerns, a ban on carrying weapons at a protest does not.

Protecting people in prison and jail is a matter of public health, law, and basic humanity.

As our board’s second call for Trump’s impeachment makes clear, our allegiance has always been, and remains, with the Constitution.

Winn’s story highlights why pregnant people should never be shackled. She is fighting to ensure they aren’t.

Secret police forces patrolling our neighborhoods in response to protests is unacceptable.

Prison, jail, and detention administrators have consistently failed to take the necessary steps to prevent outbreaks that endanger both the people inside and outside their facilities, as the virus does not stop at the prison walls.

In the middle of the 2020 pandemic, America was shaken by the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and the protests that erupted in the aftermath. But the disturbing trends we see today in police violence are the same patterns we’ve seen over the last 100 years. Again and again, commissions convened to examine why police brutality sparks unrest have come to the same conclusion: We must address the poverty and systemic racism that go hand in hand with policing communities of color. This week, we launched a series of four short films taking a critical look at what we’ve learned from the last 100 years of racism in policing. The solution to healing this long-standing problem is clear: It’s time to divest from the police and reinvest in communities of color.

The State of Hawai‘i Organization of Police Officers (SHOPO), Hawaii’s state police union, has sued to invalidate a new police transparency law. The newly passed law finally puts police officers on a level playing field with all other government employees by making public the names and disciplinary records of police officers who have been suspended or fired for misconduct.

As of now, we know the status of two of the three branches of the federal government. We have President-elect Joe Biden in the executive, and an even more conservative majority in the Supreme Court with the appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. The future of Congress is still unknown as we await the results of two runoffs in Georgia that could hand control of the Senate to either party.