The Dangers of Bail Reform in California Are Very Real | Here’s Why
In 2018, then California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill known as the “California Money Bail Reform Act”. This bill, known as “Senate Bill 10” (or SB 10) was designed to end the court practice of allowing those charged with a crime to go free (pending trial) through the payment of a cash amount that is determined by the courts. Brown’s argument for the abolishment of the practice was that the bail system was biased in favour of the wealthy and that it penalized the poor.
The new law is on hold pending a referendum in November.
Bail reform could be challenging for society, for a number of reasons.
Abolishing bail means that those who are out awaiting court dates have less incentive to actually show up for trial. Money is a powerful motivator and skipping out on bail can mean the forfeiture of serious money, which can be in the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.
The bail system is set to be replaced by “risk assessment” algorithms, which categorizes people accused of crimes as low, medium or high flight risks. There’s a lot of discussion about how fair these algorithms can possibly be. This is because they will not factor in an individual’s character or personal circumstances, only measurable items like their age, employment status, previous criminal convictions and the areas in which they live. Then, a profile will be developed that is automatically compared to people of other similar profiles. This may mean that suspects who have every intention of showing up for their court date could be categorized as a higher risk and jailed, while those who plan on fleeing could be released out on the streets to commit more crimes.
This type of profiling means the new bail reform act will not eliminate bias at all, rather it’s likely to result in unfair incarceration for minorities. Sadly, these people often end up pleading guilty even when they’re not, just to get out of jail sooner. This is why the American Civil Liberties Union of California, an original supporter of the bill, has decided to no longer back it. The ACLU found that the bill “is not the model for pretrial justice and racial equity that the ACLU of California envisioned, worked for, and remains determined to achieve.”[1]
The bill is not without precedent; there are other states we can learn from. Consider New York state, whose bail reform package came into effect on January 1st of this year. Almost immediately they saw a spike in major crimes, and the Governor had to introduce a new bill to roll back many of the changes. That bill passed quickly.
The issue of bail reform in California is so hotly debated that a coalition against it was able to get well over the required signatures it needed to force a referendum on the issue (it needed almost 366,000 signatures, it got close to 600,000). This delayed the bill from going into effect last October as originally planned. This means the decision of whether Senate Bill 10 can go ahead or not will be put directly to California voters this coming November.
Considering the discriminatory nature of SB 10, and the challenges bail reform poses to public safety, one cannot help but hope for the bill’s veto in this referendum.
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