CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 2017, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 2017, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“DETAILS A PROBLEM FOR NEEDED BAIL
SYSTEM CHANGES”
There are plenty of problems with the
kind of one-party government California now has, with every statewide office in
the hands of Democrats, who also hold two-thirds majorities in both houses of
the Legislature.
It’s easier to pass taxes this way and
budget discipline can be hard to find, to name just two. But the one-party
dominance also allows for addressing some rank injustices after they’ve spent
years as festering societal wounds.
Cash bail is one of those. Get
arrested, whether you’re guilty of a crime or not, and there’s a good chance
you’ll have to put up thousands of dollars in cash, real estate or other
valuables to avoid spending many months in jail. One springtime report from the
non-profit Human Rights Watch found that 459,847 persons were jailed in
California for felony offenses between 2011 and 2015 – but never found guilty
of any crime. They accounted for just under one-third of all arrests during
that time and it cost California counties an average of $114 per day to keep
them in custody, a total of more than $1 billion.
While a large majority of arrests were
for good cause, hundreds of thousands were detained for days, weeks or months
without good reason.
The average bail set in those cases
approximated $50,000, with variances by county and by the type of crime
involved. For many persons unable to come up with such a sum, bail bond agents
are an answer. The agents often put up 10 percent of the bail amount for an
accused person, and are responsible for the rest if the suspect jumps bail or
does not turn up for scheduled court dates.
The accused (or friends and
relatives) must pay that 10 percent, or $5,000 when bail is set at the typical
$50,000. That money is not returned.
“With a lot of low income families,
$500 can be a lot to come up with – so $5,000?” San Francisco City and County Treasurer
Jose Cisneros told a reporter. “Particularly $5,000 they are never going to see
again.” That’s why many prisoners don’t make bail and languish for months
before trial.
This, in turn, can cause them to lose
jobs and see their children put into foster case, often for months or years
after their eventual release.
So bail can be a punishment just for
being poor. That reality got little attention in Sacramento until this year,
but now Democratic state Sen. Robert Herzberg of Los Angeles (a former state
Assembly speaker) and Assemblyman Rob Bonta of Alameda, another Democrat, want
to rectify the frequent injustices.
A Bonta reform measure died in the
Assembly in June, but Hertzberg’s virtually identical bill to ease bail passed
the Senate. Now making its way through various Assembly committees, it’s an
attempt to ensure no one now jailed and awaiting trial is held merely because
of finances.
Counties would have to set up an
evaluation system to make sure no one gets an “own-recognition” release if there’s
any threat to the community or any flight risk. There’s an apparent consensus
that prior criminal records will have to be considered. But no cost figure is
yet attached to the new bureaucracy that would result.
Said the normally ultra-liberal San
Diego Democratic Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, “I don’t see how this
works without spending a lot of money.”
So, like the single-payer health
insurance bill that passed the Senate earlier this year only to die in the
Assembly for lack of financial details, this equally humanitarian effort at
equalizing bail treatment for all suspects leaves a lot of questions
unanswered.
No one now questions the essential
inequality of today’s bail setup, where the wealthy usually walk free while
most poor suspects stay in jail. But no one also doubts the assertion of the
Golden State Bail Agents Assn. that reform would see “the mass release of
defendants.”
For sure, any fix for this flawed
system will see plenty of would-be defendants freed. The trick will be to make
sure as many of the newly-freed as possible are among the one-third of all
arrestees who will never be convicted of anything. Sadly, no one right now
knows how to make those judgments.
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Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net
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