ALBUQUERQUE, NM—Today, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico filed an Inspection of Public Records Request (IPRA) with the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy (NMLEA) seeking the training standards and lesson plans used to train officers. This records request comes after the academy director publicly vowed to “burn” any training materials before releasing them to the public.

“Officer training materials are public records and the academy has a legal obligation to release this information,” said ACLU of New Mexico Peter Simonson. “The rash of officer involved shootings in our state has left many New Mexicans calling for more accountability and oversight of law enforcement. Attempting to conceal public records from concerned citizens only damages trust and does nothing to make the public safer.”

Concerns about the NMLEA training standards arose after the Santa Fe New Mexican reported that NMLEA director Jack Jones had instituted a curriculum that puts less restraint on officers in deciding when to use deadly force. This training curriculum is now truncated from 22 to 16 weeks and includes questionable use of force training such as live-fire vehicle stops.
The records requested pursuant to the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act include:

The approved training standards and lesson plans of the New Mexico law enforcement academy for the 16-week base curriculum approved by the NMLEA board during the December 2013 board meeting, including any and all diagrams, explanations, charts, images, revisions and updates, notes to agencies adding to the 16-week course, and any policies, procedures and regulations that accompany the 16-week program.

Under New Mexico IPRA, the New Mexico Law Enforcement Academy has 15 business days to produce the requested records.

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Deaths and Injuries in CBP encounters from January 2010  to Feb. 19, 2014 (including off-duty incidents and when CBP was acting as backup)

SANTA FE, N.M.—Today, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico pledged to continue to fight the injustices caused by the criminalization of marijuana in New Mexico after Senate Joint Resolution 10, a proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize marijuana in New Mexico, died in committee.

“The criminalization of marijuana creates far more problems in our society than the drug itself,” said ACLU of New Mexico Executive Director Peter Simonson. “A new study from the ACLU shows that although people of color do not use marijuana at rates higher than white people, they make up the vast majority of marijuana arrests. We cannot afford to continue wasting millions of dollars arresting and incarcerating people on the basis of race and for possessing a substance that’s safer than alcohol.”

In June of 2013, the national ACLU released an exhaustive report, The War on Marijuana in Black and White,  that showed that laws criminalizing marijuana were overwhelmingly enforced with racial bias against people of color. Some of the major findings include:

• Marijuana arrests are on the rise in the U.S.
• Marijuana arrests now account for 52% of all drug-related arrests, the vast majority of these for mere possession
• Although people of color and white people use marijuana at the same rates, people of color are dramatically more likely to be arrested for possession than white people (on average a black person is 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person)

The report concludes that  the War on Marijuana, like the larger War on Drugs of which it is a part, is a failure. It has needlessly ensnared hundreds of thousands of people in the criminal justice system, had a staggeringly disproportionate impact of African-Americans, and comes at a tremendous human and financial cost.

“We will continue to seek ways to lessen the negative impacts of the destructive War on Marijuana,” said ACLU-NM Director of Public Policy Steven Allen. “This racially biased policy of prohibition hurts our families and our communities. We need to legalize or decriminalize marijuana and start treating drug abuse as a public health problem, not a criminal justice problem.”

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