IMPORTANT NEWS ABOUT BAIL REFORM
Bend the Arc has spent the past two years working painstakingly with the Ella Baker Center, Essie Justice Group, ACLU, affected communities, and our other partners to end California’s current cash bail system. Toward that end, we have promoted specific legislation, SB10 (Hertzberg), which originally contained important language that would decrease the number of people held unjustly and inequitably in pretrial detention.
After this much time and effort, we are sad to report that behind-the-scenes negotiations among the bill’s authors, the Governor, State Judicial Council, and others, have resulted in significant modifications whereby many of the provisions of the original bill were removed or modified substantially. From what we understand from our organizational partners, the bill would no longer support a decrease in detention, and would potentially cause more people to be detained pretrial, for longer periods of time. For that reason, after deep discussion among Bend the Arc staff, our partners, and involved regional and local leaders, Bend the Arc has decided to oppose SB 10 in its revised form.
