Posts tagged California
Prisoners Unlearn The Toxic Masculinity That Led To Their Incarceration

“During the trainings, inmates open up about their traumatic experiences, such as sexual assault, abandonment by their family and domestic violence inflicted by loved ones. Revisiting what they call this “original trauma” is an integral part of their work. It’s the experiences they had as young boys that formed the basis of their coping mechanisms and survival tactics.“

Huffington Post

July 31, 2019

Read More
California court ruling could change the culture of fining defendants who can’t pay

“The ruling by the Second District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles, in a case called People vs. Dueñas, is rippling through the state. Defense attorneys are holding up the case in arguments for their low-income clients, while lawmakers are looking to enshrine its legal underpinning — that imposing fines without considering defendants’ ability to pay tends to punish them for being poor — into state law. “

San Francisco Chronicle

April 22. 2019

Read More
California’s historic overhaul of cash bail is now on hold, pending a 2020 referendum

“Bail groups fought the legislation since it was first proposed three years ago, saying it would result in the release of violent offenders to the streets and decimate a $2-billion national industry, including 3,200 bail agents registered in the state. A day after Brown signed the law, a national coalition of bail agency groups launched its referendum drive, raising about $3 million and collecting more than enough signatures to qualify the measure in just two months.“

LA Times

January 16, 2019

Read More
So Much for The Great California Bail Celebration

"Under the old system, defendants were given a bail amount to post, and those who could afford it could be released. Judges could order that defendants be held without bail if they represented a public threat or a flight risk. The new system includes a presumption against release for people accused of violent felonies and for those who score high on a risk assessment tool."

The Marshall Project

August 30, 2018

Read More
Cash bail must be eliminated, but 'risk assessments' aren't the tool to do it

"Rather than reduce the number of innocent people sitting in jail cells, the new system has the potential to increase it, while entrenching racial disparities and hiding them behind the rhetoric of science. Taken together, these factors could create a system that is worse than what California had, in the heartbreaking name of bail reform."

USA Today

August 30, 2018

Read More
California Gov. Jerry Brown signs overhaul of bail system, saying now 'rich and poor alike are treated fairly'

"The legislation virtually eliminates the payment of money as a condition of release. Under last-minute changes to the proposal, judges will have greater power to decide which people are a danger to the community and should be held without possibility of release in a practice known as 'preventive detention'."

LA Times

August 28, 2018

Read More
Bill to end cash bail passes California Assembly amid heavy opposition

"The American Civil Liberties Union of California and other groups that were supporters of the bill changed positions on Monday, saying amendments last week give courts too much power in deciding who should be released and will further exacerbate 'racial biases and disparities that permeate our justice system'."

San Francisco Chronicle

August 20, 2018

Read More
What it’s like to be a California inmate fighting wildfires

"Within a penal system that in its other features was more likely to degrade and reduce human development, Michael accidentally fell into a program that, but for the exploitative pay, is an excellent example of a response to wrongdoing that seeks to make the victim whole, seeks to make the community whole and seeks to help the wrongdoer prepare for positive relations with the broader society."

Washington Post

August 8, 2018

Read More