News & Press https://cacj.org/news/default.asp Thu, 4 Jun 2026 19:25:57 GMT Thu, 8 Oct 2020 17:42:47 GMT Copyright © 2020 California Attorneys for Criminal Justice California voters referendum end cash bail system proposition-25 https://cacj.org/news/news.asp?id=529826 https://cacj.org/news/news.asp?id=529826 A growing national discussion about inequities in the criminal justice system spurred by the Black Lives Matter movement has focused new attention on Proposition 25, a referendum on the November ballot to decide whether California’s money bail system is unjust and should be replaced.

 

The measure was qualified for the ballot by the bail industry as it attempts to overturn a 2018 state law that would replace the current cash bail system with one allowing pretrial release from jail based on a determination of public safety or a defendant’s flight risk. The law also would restrict pretrial detention for most misdemeanors.

 

The 2018 law is not yet in effect pending the referendum vote, which comes more than two years after a bitter legislative fight that pitted the multibillion-dollar bail industry, criminal defense attorneys and some civil liberties advocates against Democratic leaders, including then-Gov. Jerry Brown, who signed the law saying it will make sure “rich and poor alike are treated fairly.”

 

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In addition to the bail industry, the new law is also opposed by groups including criminal defense attorneys and some civil rights advocates, such as the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which says Proposition 25 replaces money bail “with risk assessment tools that are racially and socioeconomically biased.”


The issue of risk assessments has divided critics of the existing money bail system. During its consideration in the Legislature, the law, Senate Bill 10, was opposed by the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, which represents criminal defense attorneys.


“SB 10 expands the category of persons who can be held without bail,” said Eric Schweitzer, the association’s president. “If your client is presumed to be unsafe because of a computer algorithm that can’t be trusted, he can’t get out.”


Proposition 25’s opponents also include Human Rights Watch, which has pressed for bail reform but said the law “exchanges money bail for a system that uses racially biased risk assessment tools [and] gives judges nearly unlimited discretion to incarcerate.”

 

Read more from the LA Times Article link

]]> Thu, 8 Oct 2020 18:42:47 GMT Prop. 25, banning money bail, does not promote justice https://cacj.org/news/news.asp?id=529824 https://cacj.org/news/news.asp?id=529824 Prop. 25, banning money bail, does not promote justice

By Bobbie Stein Oct. 8, 2020

I admit that I often look at who supports a ballot measure before reading the measure itself. Predisposed to support or reject, I generally find my ultimate analysis aligns with my original bias. Occasionally, however, I find myself at odds with trusted political allies, and a deeper dive is in order.

Proposition 25 is one of those strange bedfellow kinds of propositions. Placed on the ballot by petition by the American Bail Coalition, which stands to lose a lot of money if the old system is eliminated, it is a referendum on California’s Senate Bill 10. If SB10 takes effect, it would replace the state’s cash bail system with a risk assessment-public safety system, using an algorithm to determine whether a suspect should be released.

While SEIU and the League of Women Voters support Prop. 25, as do Indivisible SF and the California Public Defenders Association, most if not all would agree that this law has its problems. The NAACP, Human Rights Watch and California Attorneys for Criminal Justice strongly oppose replacing our current flawed system with one that stands to create even more inequities. The ACLU pulled its support of SB10 prior to the final vote on the bill, recognizing that it would give judges too much discretion and could promote the same kind of racial bias inherent in the cash bail system. The Northern California chapter of the ACLU is publicly neutral on this proposition, presumably not wanting to align itself with the bail industry. The Southern California chapter, however, urges a No vote.

Proposition 25 creates categories of presumptive incarceration for certain offenses. This includes a variety of misdemeanors. While Prop. 25 will bring relief for some arrestees, it will impose greater restrictions on many others when compared to current law. Most defendants will be brought before a judge who will use algorithms to determine if the they are likely to appear for later hearings and stay out of trouble while awaiting trial. The algorithms relied upon to assess risk and assign conditions of release might not look like they are based on race, wealth or poverty, but their zip code-based reality tell a different, more racist story.

Twenty-seven prominent researchers from MIT, Harvard, Princeton, NYU, UC Berkeley and Columbia have signed an open statement of concern regarding the use of actuarial risk assessment as a means of lowering pretrial jail populations. The predictive models used to assess a defendants’ riskiness have been shown to be racially biased. They rely on circumstances that put Black and Latino defendants at a distinct disadvantage, such as the amount of crime in their neighborhoods and previous encounters they’ve had with police.

Until new race-neutral risk assessment tools can be developed and pretrial alternatives to detention can be implemented, Californians will have the protection of the recent Supreme Court ruling that imposes individualized bail levels that are tailored to the economic situation of those facing criminal charges. California’s high court ruling also broadens the use of alternatives to pretrial detention.

Voting no on Proposition 25 along with the for-profit bail industry might seem odd, but rest assured there is a great deal of money to be made on the other side of the equation as well. Those who develop these risk assessment tools stand to gain vast sums of money from the judicial branch should SB10 survive the referendum.

Moving away from a cash bail system is the right thing to do, but SB10 is not the model to promote pretrial justice and racial equity. The risk assessment algorithm that will replace the injustice of money bail will create an even more discriminatory pretrial system. As John Ralphing, senior researcher on the criminal legal system for Human Rights Watch, observed, “Californians have rightly fought to end the overuse of pretrial incarceration, but SB10 hijacked that call for change and created a new, even more unfair system.”

Vote No on Proposition 25.

Bobbie Stein, a member of the board of governors of California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, is a Bay Area criminal defense and civil rights lawyer.]]> Thu, 8 Oct 2020 17:57:21 GMT