Bail industry pins its hopes on state voters
SACRAMENTO — One day after Gov. Jerry Brown signed landmark legislation overhauling the state’s money bail system, the California bail industry is fighting back.
A coalition of bail industry associations, crime victims groups and other opponents has launched a voter referendum drive in an attempt to block the implementation of the new law. They have roughly three months to collect and submit an estimated 366,000 signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot.
If they are successful, the law would be put on hold and weighed on the November 2020 ballot. The law, which will go into effect Oct. 1, 2019, is expected to dismantle a bail-bond industry that includes bounty hunters, surety companies and about 3,200 registered bail agents.
The legislation virtually eliminates the payment of money as a condition of release and replaces the money bail system with one that grants judges greater power to decide who should remain incarcerated without possibility of release in a practice known as “preventive detention.”
“Senate Bill 10 has brought together scores of individuals and groups from across the political spectrum — conservative to progressive — to agree on one thing: They all hate it and think it’s a terrible law,” Jeff Clayton, a spokesman for the coalition, said in a statement.
Top state officials, judges and activists on Tuesday hailed the new law, which puts California at the forefront of a national push to stop courts from imposing a heavy financial burden on defendants who have not been convicted of a crime and have yet to face a jury. But questions remain about its effect on the criminal justice system, and even some of its most passionate supporters worry it could lead to the incarceration of more people for longer periods of time.
The blowback continued Wednesday as the national civil rights nonprofit Color of Change released a statement urging other states not to copy California’s legislation.
“Across the country, politicians are hijacking meaningful efforts to end money bail, led by black and brown communities, and turning them into empty reforms that uphold the status quo,” said Scott Roberts, the organization’s senior campaign director.
Under Senate Bill 10, counties will have to establish their own pretrial services agencies, which would use “risk-assessment tools,” or analysis, to evaluate people arrested to determine whether, and under what conditions, they should be released.
Only people charged with certain low-level, nonviolent misdemeanors — a list of charges that can be further narrowed by each county — would be eligible for automatic release within 12 hours of being booked into jail. Judges and pretrial offices will weigh the release of all other defendants sorted into low-, medium- or high-risk categories based on criminal history and other criteria.
Bail agents and bounty hunters on Wednesday vowed to continue fighting the law, saying bail was needed to hold people accountable and adding that members of the industry provide vital services to counties. Some clients cycle in and out of jail, bailing out with different companies, they said, arguing that county pretrial agencies won’t have the resources to bring them back to court.
But complaints against the bail industry in California have significantly increased, as bail agents and bounty hunters undergo little training and face limited oversight. Supporters of the new law say the system is ready for an overhaul.
“By eliminating cash bail, we are saying that those with the least ability to pay should not be released or incarcerated solely on the basis of their wealth or poverty,” Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) said in a statement after Brown signed the legislation. “SB 10 is only one leg of the long journey toward perfecting our justice system, but it is an important one.”