Overcriminalization significantly undermines human flourishing and social well-being by harming the family, social networks, and social citizenship. Additionally, it prevents capable men and women from utilizing their creative capacities in the marketplace. This creates vast issues involving relations with family while incarcerated and reintegration into society after release. On the economic side, draconian cash bail systems undermine justice through basing someone's ability to attain pre-trial release upon their wealth, not their actual threat to society.
“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“About 8 million Californians, or 1 in 5 people throughout the state, have such records — and they’re subject to thousands of restrictions, large and small, imposed on freed people with a criminal history, the report says.“
San Francisco Chronicle
September 13, 2018
Read More"The point is to lift the financial burden from people leaving the criminal justice system, many of whom have low incomes and can’t afford the fees. While not punitive, the fees were intended to cover the costs of criminal justice programs. But the Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector found that more than 80 percent of the bills went unpaid, so the city received minimal benefit. San Francisco was the first city and county in the country to waive such fees."
San Francisco Chronicle
August 23, 2018
Read More"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
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