{"id":1188862,"date":"2020-11-02T23:43:55","date_gmt":"2020-11-02T23:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kpfa.org\/?p=346947"},"modified":"2020-11-02T23:43:55","modified_gmt":"2020-11-02T23:43:55","slug":"reform-groups-and-prison-abolitionists-diverge-on-californias-prop-25-trading-bail-for-anti-black-algorithms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/11\/02\/reform-groups-and-prison-abolitionists-diverge-on-californias-prop-25-trading-bail-for-anti-black-algorithms\/","title":{"rendered":"Reform groups and prison abolitionists diverge on California\u2019s Prop 25: Trading bail for anti-Black algorithms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This story aired on UpFront on Monday, November 2, 2020.<\/em><\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode wp-block-audio\" id=\"audio-346947-6\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/kpfa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/BOONE-prop-25.mp3?_=6\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/kpfa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/BOONE-prop-25.mp3\">https:\/\/kpfa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/BOONE-prop-25.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\t\t<script>\n\t\t\tjQuery(document).ready(function($) {\n\t\t\t\tvar media = $('#audio-346947-6');\n\t\t\t\tmedia.on('canplay', function (ev) {\n\t\t\t\t\tthis.currentTime = 0;\n\t\t\t\t});\n\t\t\t});\n\t\t<\/script>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>By Ariel Boone (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/arielboone\">@arielboone<\/a>), KPFA election reporter<\/p>\n\n<p>In the final days of the 2018 California legislative session, the push to eliminate cash bail went through massive revisions that lost it support from a lot of groups working to end mass incarceration. It passed \u2014 narrowly. The day after Governor Jerry Brown signed it into law in 2018, the bail industry filed paperwork expressing their intent to challenge SB 10 by bringing it before California voters. That\u2019s Prop 25.<\/p>\n<p>Activists fighting against mass incarceration agree that the money bail system is racist and should be abolished. But they\u2019re split on whether voters should approve SB 10, by voting for Prop 25.<\/p>\n<p>Mohamed Shekh is national campaigns director of Critical Resistance, a prison abolitionist organization that\u2019s opposing Prop 25, because they\u2019re opposed to what it uses to replace cash bail: algorithmic tools that assess an arrested person\u2019s risk of either failing to return for trial, or getting arrested again before trial.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cYes, it does remove cash bail,\u201d Shekh says of Prop 25, \u201cbut the underlying problem with cash bail is not just that money\u2019s involved. It\u2019s the fact that people are being locked up before trial.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce you\u2019re deemed a risk, then there\u2019s actually no way for you to be released pretrial, even though you have not yet been convicted of anything. Prop 25 is really a wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing of a reform bill.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The question facing voters is whether that\u2019s worse than the cash bail system we currently have.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe current system spends about $5 million a day across California, just caging people pre-trial simply because they cannot afford cash to pay for their bail,\u201d says\u00a0John Bauters of <a href=\"https:\/\/safeandjust.org\/\">Californians for Safety and Justice<\/a> \u2014 one of the organizations that helped get SB 10 passed, and is campaigning to get Prop 25 approved so it can go into law.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWe would not want to exchange one harmful system for one that is even worse.\u201d \u2013 Andreya Garcia-Ponce De Leon<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Bauters cites research that indicates anywhere from 50,000 to 150,000 more people could be released more quickly pretrial, if Prop 25 is passed.<\/p>\n<p>Most of the releases would be people charged with non-serious misdemeanors who would get automatic release under prop 25. The open question is what would happen to everyone else \u2013 people charged with felonies, or people who are charged with misdemeanors but have criminal records, or are on probation, or if they\u2019ve missed any court dates. They would then undergo risk assessment, and a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ppic.org\/publication\/reforming-pretrial-justice-in-california\/\">key study<\/a> admits Proposition 25 would not reduce racist outcomes for Black people caught in the system.<\/p>\n<p>And some advocates warn things could be worse for those undergoing risk assessment under Prop 25.<\/p>\n<p>Andreya Garcia-Ponce De Leon is with the <a href=\"https:\/\/noonprop25ca.com\/\">End Pre-Trial Racism Committee<\/a> \u2014 it\u2019s the smaller No on 25 campaign that\u2019s not bankrolled by the bail industry, but supported by activist groups like Essie Justice Group and Color of Change. Andreya\u2019s organization in San Bernardino county, Free Them All, supports people who get out of jail with housing, food and job help.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe would not want to exchange one harmful system for one that is even worse,\u201d Andreya says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am directly impacted in this. I have a failure to appear, which was not in any part my fault. That was actually on the fault of the judicial system. And my attorneys of record were never noticed.<\/p>\n<p>And even though it was an error of the court, the computer doesn\u2019t know that. The computer\u2019s going to read \u2013 \u2018Failure to appear? That is high risk. So, therefore, you are going to stay in incarceration.'\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There are two basic concerns about these algorithmic risk-assessment tools,<\/p>\n<p>The first is the data that goes into them: For instance, Black people are more likely than whites to be charged for crimes, and more likely to get booked into jail for a crime instead of cited and released. That means they\u2019re more likely to have a record. That means they\u2019re more likely to be subject to the algorithm \u2014 and that an algorithm\u2019s more likely to flag Black people as having a risk of getting arrested again before trial. Additionally, algorithms could include inputs like ZIP code, codifying the criminalization of people from unwanted neighborhoods.<\/p>\n<p>The second concern is how judges will use what the algorithm tells them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOften we\u2019ve found is even when people have low risk, the judges are overriding the low risk and still detaining people,\u201d says\u00a0John Raphling.<\/p>\n<p>Raphling is a senior researcher on the criminal legal system for Human Rights Watch, which is opposing Prop 25. He also used to be a deputy public defender in Los Angeles County.<\/p>\n<p>Raphling says the courts are motivated to keep individuals locked up longer to obtain convictions. \u201cThis is a really important thing to understand what motivates judges and prosecutors is, people plead guilty quickly when they\u2019re locked up, people in pretrial detention.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.harvard.edu\/files\/19-fat.pdf\">2019 study by researchers at Harvard<\/a> showed participants summary information about a person\u2019s race, criminal record, and what an algorithm predicted their chances were of either failing to appear or getting arrested before trial. Then it asked participants to make their own call on what each person\u2019s risk was. On average, participants increased the risk assessment of Black people, and decreased it for white people.<\/p>\n<p>But Prop 25 proponents say judges can already do the same with bail. \u201cThey can currently put their thumb on the high end of the bail schedule, if they just don\u2019t like the neighborhood the person comes from or the way they look,\u201d says John Bauters. \u201cWhereas under SB 10, the vast majority of people who are misdemeanants don\u2019t ever see a judge they\u2019re actually released on their own recognizance.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bauters disagrees that voters should reject Prop 25 if they are concerned about the algorithms. \u201cThis is a binary choice for voters,\u201d he says. Do you wish to get rid of the cash bail system: Yes or no?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A third point of conflict is whether passing Prop 25 makes it easier or harder to get something better into law.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLegislators are not going to pick up and suddenly do a, quote-unquote, \u2018more progressive\u2019 version of bail reform,\u201d Bauters says. \u201cWhen the bail industry is still in the room with all its money and they spent $3 million over the past three years, lining the pockets of legislators in Sacramento to make sure that they could keep their industry intact, and they lost by one vote in the Assembly \u2014 This passed by one vote.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bauters campaigned hard for SB 10 and fought with the bail industry in the halls of the state capitol. His argument: pass Prop 25 to break the political power of the bail industry now. Then it will be easier to pass amendments that make it better. SB 10 already requires an evaluation within five years and a report to the governor and legislature in one year identifying any problems. And another bill already requires the risk assessment algorithms be made public.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe hardcore reality here today is that this bill was a compromise in the end between all three branches of government,\u201d he says. \u201cDoes it have every single thing I want in it? No. Absolutely not. But I know as an advocate that you have to have the bail industry out of the picture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Prop 25\u2019s anti-carceral opponents worry that taking out the bail industry will increase spending in the criminal system, redirecting power and resources to the institution they fight against. It\u2019s the opposite of abolition, they say.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s going to expand funding and power of probation departments. It\u2019s going to expand the power and scope of the judicial system to give judges more discretion to lock people up pre-trial, and going to overall expand this system that we understand is fundamentally racist, controlling, and harmful,\u201d Mohamed Shekh says.<\/p>\n<p>If Californians pass Prop 25, we won\u2019t be the first state to eliminate cash bail. New Jersey ended their cash bail system in 2017, adopting a point-based risk test system. Alaska did something similar in 2018.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The ACLU of Northern California is not making an endorsement on Prop 25. The ACLU of Southern C<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">alifornia endorses a \u201cNo\u201d vote on Prop 25. And separately, the bail industry has raised about $8 million dollars to oppose Prop 25 \u2014 they\u2019re in a battle for their own survival.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/kpfa.org\/featured-episode\/reform-groups-and-prison-abolitionists-diverge-on-californias-prop-25-trading-bail-for-anti-black-algorithms\/\">Reform groups and prison abolitionists diverge on California\u2019s Prop 25: Trading bail for anti-Black algorithms<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/kpfa.org\/\">KPFA<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/kpfa.org\/?p=346947\">KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This story aired on UpFront on Monday, November 2, 2020.<br \/>\nhttps:\/\/kpfa.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/BOONE-prop-25.mp3<br \/>\n\t\t\tjQuery(document).ready(function($) {<br \/>\n\t\t\t\tvar media = $(&#8216;#audio-346947-4&#8217;);<br \/>\n\t\t\t\tmedia.on(&#8216;canplay&#8217;, function (ev) {<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\tthis.currentTime = 0;<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t});<br \/>\n\t\t\t});<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<br \/>\nBy Ariel Boone (@arielboone), KPFA election reporter<br \/>\nPhoto from Coalition to End Money Bond<br \/>\nIn the final days of the 2018 California legislative session, the push to eliminate cash bail went through massive revisions that lost it support from a lot of groups working to end mass incarceration. It passed \u2014 narrowly. The day after Governor Jerry Brown signed it into law in 2018, the bail industry filed paperwork expressing their intent to challenge SB 10 by bringing it before California voters. That\u2019s Prop 25.<br \/>\nActivists fighting against mass incarceration agree that the money bail system is racist and should be abolished. But they\u2019re split on whether voters should approve SB 10, by voting for Prop 25.<br \/>\nMohamed Shekh is national campaigns director of Critical Resistance, a prison abolitionist organization that\u2019s opposing Prop 25, because they\u2019re opposed to what it uses to replace cash bail: algorithmic tools that assess an arrested person\u2019s risk of either failing to return for trial, or getting arrested again before trial.<br \/>\n\u201cYes, it does remove cash bail,\u201d Shekh says of Prop 25, \u201cbut the underlying problem with cash bail is not just that money\u2019s involved. It\u2019s the fact that people are being locked up before trial.<br \/>\n\u201cOnce you\u2019re deemed a risk, then there\u2019s actually no way for you to be released pretrial, even though you have not yet been convicted of anything. Prop 25 is really a wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing of a reform bill.\u201d<br \/>\nThe question facing voters is whether that\u2019s worse than the cash bail system we currently have.<br \/>\n\u201cThe current system spends about $5 million a day across California, just caging people pre-trial simply because they cannot afford cash to pay for their bail,\u201d says\u00a0John Bauters of Californians for Safety and Justice \u2014 one of the organizations that helped get SB 10 passed, and is campaigning to get Prop 25 approved so it can go into law.<br \/>\n\u201cWe would not want to exchange one harmful system for one that is even worse.\u201d \u2013 Andreya Garcia-Ponce De Leon<br \/>\nBauters cites research that indicates anywhere from 50,000 to 150,000 more people could be released more quickly pretrial, if Prop 25 is passed.<br \/>\nMost of the releases would be people charged with non-serious misdemeanors who would get automatic release under prop 25. The open question is what would happen to everyone else \u2013 people charged with felonies, or people who are charged with misdemeanors but have criminal records, or are on probation, or if they\u2019ve missed any court dates. They would then undergo risk assessment, and a key study admits Proposition 25 would not reduce racist outcomes for Black people caught in the system.<br \/>\nAnd some advocates warn things could be worse for those undergoing risk assessment under Prop 25.<br \/>\nAndreya Garcia-Ponce De Leon is with the End Pre-Trial Racism Committee \u2014 it\u2019s the smaller No on 25 campaign that\u2019s not bankrolled by the bail industry, but supported by activist groups like Essie Justice Group and Color of Change. Andreya\u2019s organization in San Bernardino county, Free Them All, supports people who get out of jail with housing, food and job help.<br \/>\n\u201cWe would not want to exchange one harmful system for one that is even worse,\u201d Andreya says.<br \/>\n\u201cI am directly impacted in this. I have a failure to appear, which was not in any part my fault. That was actually on the fault of the judicial system. And my attorneys of record were never noticed.<br \/>\nAnd even though it was an error of the court, the computer doesn\u2019t know that. The computer\u2019s going to read \u2013 \u2018Failure to appear? That is high risk. So, therefore, you are going to stay in incarceration.&#8217;\u201d<br \/>\nThere are two basic concerns about these algorithmic risk-assessment tools,<br \/>\nThe first is the data that goes into them: For instance, Black people are more likely than whites to be charged for crimes, and more likely to get booked into jail for a crime instead of cited and released. That means they\u2019re more likely to have a record. That means they\u2019re more likely to be subject to the algorithm \u2014 and that an algorithm\u2019s more likely to flag Black people as having a risk of getting arrested again before trial. Additionally, algorithms could include inputs like ZIP code, codifying the criminalization of people from unwanted neighborhoods.<br \/>\nThe second concern is how judges will use what the algorithm tells them.<br \/>\n\u201cOften we\u2019ve found is even when people have low risk, the judges are overriding the low risk and still detaining people,\u201d says\u00a0John Raphling.<br \/>\nRaphling is a senior researcher on the criminal legal system for Human Rights Watch, which is opposing Prop 25. He also used to be a deputy public defender in Los Angeles County.<br \/>\nRaphling says the courts are motivated to keep individuals locked up longer to obtain convictions. \u201cThis is a really important thing to understand what motivates judges and prosecutors is, people plead guilty quickly when they\u2019re locked up, people in pretrial detention.\u201d<br \/>\nA 2019 study by researchers at Harvard showed participants summary information about a person\u2019s race, criminal record, and what an algorithm predicted their chances were of either failing to appear or getting arrested before trial. Then it asked participants to make their own call on what each person\u2019s risk was. On average, participants increased the risk assessment of Black people, and decreased it for white people.<br \/>\nBut Prop 25 proponents say judges can already do the same with bail. \u201cThey can currently put their thumb on the high end of the bail schedule, if they just don\u2019t like the neighborhood the person comes from or the way they look,\u201d says John Bauters. \u201cWhereas under SB 10, the vast majority of people who are misdemeanants don\u2019t ever see a judge they\u2019re actually released on their own recognizance.\u201d<br \/>\nBauters disagrees that voters should reject Prop 25 if they are concerned about the algorithms. \u201cThis is a binary choice for voters,\u201d he says. Do you wish to get rid of the cash bail system: Yes or no?\u201d<br \/>\nA third point of conflict is whether passing Prop 25 makes it easier or harder to get something better into law.<br \/>\n\u201cLegislators are not going to pick up and suddenly do a, quote-unquote, \u2018more progressive\u2019 version of bail reform,\u201d Bauters says. \u201cWhen the bail industry is still in the room with all its money and they spent $3 million over the past three years, lining the pockets of legislators in Sacramento to make sure that they could keep their industry intact, and they lost by one vote in the Assembly \u2014 This passed by one vote.\u201d<br \/>\nBauters campaigned hard for SB 10 and fought with the bail industry in the halls of the state capitol. His argument: pass Prop 25 to break the political power of the bail industry now. Then it will be easier to pass amendments that make it better. SB 10 already requires an evaluation within five years and a report to the governor and legislature in one year identifying any problems. And another bill already requires the risk assessment algorithms be made public.<br \/>\n\u201cThe hardcore reality here today is that this bill was a compromise in the end between all three branches of government,\u201d he says. \u201cDoes it have every single thing I want in it? No. Absolutely not. But I know as an advocate that you have to have the bail industry out of the picture.\u201d<br \/>\nBut Prop 25\u2019s anti-carceral opponents worry that taking out the bail industry will increase spending in the criminal system, redirecting power and resources to the institution they fight against. It\u2019s the opposite of abolition, they say.<br \/>\n\u201cIt\u2019s going to expand funding and power of probation departments. It\u2019s going to expand the power and scope of the judicial system to give judges more discretion to lock people up pre-trial, and going to overall expand this system that we understand is fundamentally racist, controlling, and harmful,\u201d Mohamed Shekh says.<br \/>\nIf Californians pass Prop 25, we won\u2019t be the first state to eliminate cash bail. New Jersey ended their cash bail system in 2017, adopting a point-based risk test system. Alaska did something similar in 2018.<br \/>\nThe ACLU of Northern California is not making an endorsement on Prop 25. The ACLU of Southern California endorses a \u201cNo\u201d vote on Prop 25. And separately, the bail industry has raised about $8 million dollars to oppose Prop 25 \u2014 they\u2019re in a battle for their own survival.\u00a0<br \/>\nThe post Reform groups and prison abolitionists diverge on California\u2019s Prop 25: Trading bail for anti-Black algorithms appeared first on KPFA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23950,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23950"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1188862"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1537043,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1188862\/revisions\/1537043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1188862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1188862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1188862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}