美国国家公共电台 NPR California's Bail Overhaul May Do More Harm Than Good, Reformers Say

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Last summer, California became the largest state to abolish cash bail¹. At the time, Governor Jerry Brown declared that rich and poor alike will be treated fairly. He has long argued the bail system favors the wealthy and punishes the poor. It turns out, though, the story's more complicated. Many of those who pushed hardest for bail reform now say the new system may be making the problem worse. NPR's Eric Westervelt reports.

ERIC WESTERVELT, BYLINE²: In the downtown San Francisco Public Defender³'s Office, you might think attorney Chesa Boudin would be excited about the recently signed California Senate bill, or SB 10, which abolishes money bail in America's most populous⁴ state. After all, Boudin and fellow public service lawyers have long called money bail an unconstitutional pillar of a biased⁵ system. The size of your bank account often determines who gets out of pretrial custody⁶, and the poor and people of color often end up on the losing end. But this deputy public defender is not in a celebratory mood.

CHESA BOUDIN: I was disappointed, and I felt betrayed. The new SB 10 doesn't actually change the racist⁷ system of mass incarceration⁸. It just expands it.

WESTERVELT: The new law was in response to a state court decision declaring that the cash bail system unconstitutionally denied people due process. Now under the new law, which takes effect next year, instead of setting bail, a judge will use a computer program as part of his or her determination whether a suspect is a low, medium or high risk for flight or to public safety. Boudin believes this will dramatically expand the number of people who will be detained pretrial. He points to one section in particular - deep in the bill, section 1320.18A subsection 5. That section's so broadly worded, Boudin argues, it could encompass⁹ anyone for any offense¹⁰. That, he says, will tilt¹¹ the power ever more into the hands of prosecutors¹², police and judges.

BOUDIN: Under SB 10 now, prosecutors can seek detention¹³ for virtually any crime, regardless of whether it's violent or involves weapons or whether the person accused has a prior history. Under this law, prosecutors have the discretion¹⁴ to seek pre-emptive detention of a person with no criminal record charged with a low-level misdemeanor.

WESTERVELT: And then there's its impact on plea deals. Currently across the U.S., more than 90 percent of criminal cases are settled in a plea deal that could include dismissal or a diversion program, not a trial. John Raphling with Human Rights Watch says he's deeply concerned this bill simply replaces one coercive tactic¹⁵ for another - bail for pretrial detention - that is, he says, to use detention to pressure people of color and the poor to plead guilty to lesser¹⁷ crimes, often regardless of their actual guilt¹⁶.

JOHN RAPHLING: This is pervasive¹⁸ in the criminal justice system. This happens every single day. The new bail reform law in California does not address that problem. Now you're just giving them a whole other mechanism¹⁹ to keep people in.

WESTERVELT: The ACLU and more than a dozen other legal groups have raised similar concerns. The bill also mandates²⁰ the use of pretrial assessment²¹ tools. Essentially²², it's a computer program that aims to measure risk after putting in arrest and conviction history and other data. That algorithm gives the bill a veneer²³ of objective science, attorney Raphling says, but in fact becomes a kind of feedback loop merely reflecting social biases²⁴.

RAPHLING: It's a pretty well-documented fact that police stop, search, detain, arrest black people more than white people, poor people more than wealthy people and that the courts treat people of color and treat poor people worse are the very factors that these risk assessment tools are looking at to judge who's higher risk.

WESTERVELT: And it's not yet clear just what data would actually go into the algorithm. The bill doesn't say. Cherise Fanno Burdeen, CEO of the nonprofit Pretrial Justice Institute, admits the new law is far from perfect, but she says some of these concerns are a bit alarmist. Fanno Burdeen notes that discretion to detain or release pretrial has always resided with judges. This new law, she thinks, will simply help judges get it right more consistently.

CHERISE FANNO BURDEEN: All that the new system will do is help courts make better decisions. It should also result in the right people being identified as a threat to public safety, and it should result in fewer people being needlessly incarcerated²⁵ pending²⁶ trial.

WESTERVELT: Meantime, the bail industry, which will be put out of business under the new law, hopes to overturn it at the ballot²⁷ box. An industry coalition²⁸ is currently collecting signatures to try for a statewide ballot initiative. That may put bail bondsmen in an awkward de facto alliance with scores of progressive legal groups who say they'll be ready to challenge the law's constitutionality in court as soon as it takes effect next year.

Eric Westervelt, NPR News, San Francisco.

1 bail   

v.舀（水），保释；n.保证金，保释，保释人

参考例句：

• One of the prisoner's friends offered to bail him out.犯人的一个朋友答应保释他出来。
• She has been granted conditional bail.她被准予有条件保释。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 defender   

n.保卫者，拥护者，辩护人

参考例句：

• He shouldered off a defender and shot at goal.他用肩膀挡开防守队员，然后射门。
• The defender argued down the prosecutor at the court.辩护人在法庭上驳倒了起诉人。

4 populous   

adj.人口稠密的，人口众多的

参考例句：

• London is the most populous area of Britain.伦敦是英国人口最稠密的地区。
• China is the most populous developing country in the world.中国是世界上人口最多的发展中国家。

5 biased   

a.有偏见的

参考例句：

• a school biased towards music and art 一所偏重音乐和艺术的学校
• The Methods: They employed were heavily biased in the gentry's favour. 他们采用的方法严重偏袒中上阶级。

6 custody   

n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留

参考例句：

• He spent a week in custody on remand awaiting sentence.等候判决期间他被还押候审一个星期。
• He was taken into custody immediately after the robbery.抢劫案发生后，他立即被押了起来。

7 racist   

n.种族主义者，种族主义分子

参考例句：

• a series of racist attacks 一连串的种族袭击行为
• His speech presented racist ideas under the guise of nationalism. 他的讲话以民族主义为幌子宣扬种族主义思想。

8 incarceration   

n.监禁，禁闭；钳闭

参考例句：

• He hadn't changed much in his nearly three years of incarceration. 在将近三年的监狱生活中，他变化不大。 来自辞典例句
• Please, please set it free before it bursts from its long incarceration! 请你，请你将这颗心释放出来吧！否则它会因长期的禁闭而爆裂。 来自辞典例句

9 encompass   

vt.围绕，包围；包含，包括；完成

参考例句：

• The course will encompass physics,chemistry and biology.课程将包括物理、化学和生物学。
• The project will encompass rural and underdeveloped areas in China.这项工程将覆盖中国的农村和不发达地区。

10 offense   

n.犯规，违法行为；冒犯，得罪

参考例句：

• I hope you will not take any offense at my words. 对我讲的话请别见怪。
• His words gave great offense to everybody present.他的发言冲犯了在场的所有人。

11 tilt   

v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜

参考例句：

• She wore her hat at a tilt over her left eye.她歪戴着帽子遮住左眼。
• The table is at a slight tilt.这张桌子没放平，有点儿歪.

12 prosecutors   

检举人( prosecutor的名词复数 )； 告发人； 起诉人； 公诉人

参考例句：

• In some places,public prosecutors are elected rather than appointed. 在有些地方，检察官是经选举而非任命产生的。 来自口语例句
• You've been summoned to the Prosecutors' Office, 2 days later. 你在两天以后被宣到了检察官的办公室。

13 detention   

n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下

参考例句：

• He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
• He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。

14 discretion   

n.谨慎；随意处理

参考例句：

• You must show discretion in choosing your friend.你择友时必须慎重。
• Please use your best discretion to handle the matter.请慎重处理此事。

15 tactic   

n.战略，策略；adj.战术的，有策略的

参考例句：

• Reducing prices is a common sales tactic.降价是常用的销售策略。
• She had often used the tactic of threatening to resign.她惯用以辞职相威胁的手法。

16 guilt   

n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责

参考例句：

• She tried to cover up her guilt by lying.她企图用谎言掩饰自己的罪行。
• Don't lay a guilt trip on your child about schoolwork.别因为功课责备孩子而使他觉得很内疚。

17 lesser   

adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地

参考例句：

• Kept some of the lesser players out.不让那些次要的球员参加联赛。
• She has also been affected,but to a lesser degree.她也受到波及，但程度较轻。

18 pervasive   

adj.普遍的；遍布的，(到处)弥漫的；渗透性的

参考例句：

• It is the most pervasive compound on earth.它是地球上最普遍的化合物。
• The adverse health effects of car exhaust are pervasive and difficult to measure.汽车尾气对人类健康所构成的有害影响是普遍的，并且难以估算。

19 mechanism   

n.机械装置；机构，结构

参考例句：

• The bones and muscles are parts of the mechanism of the body.骨骼和肌肉是人体的组成部件。
• The mechanism of the machine is very complicated.这台机器的结构是非常复杂的。

20 mandates   

托管（mandate的第三人称单数形式）

参考例句：

• Individual mandates would require all people to purchase health insurance. 个人托管要求所有人都要购买健康保险。
• While I agree with those benefits, I'm not a supporter of mandates. 我同意上述好处，我不是授权软件的支持者。

21 assessment   

n.评价；评估；对财产的估价，被估定的金额

参考例句：

• This is a very perceptive assessment of the situation.这是一个对该情况的极富洞察力的评价。
• What is your assessment of the situation?你对时局的看法如何？

22 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

23 veneer   

n.(墙上的)饰面，虚饰

参考例句：

• For the first time her veneer of politeness began to crack.她温文尔雅的外表第一次露出破绽。
• The panel had a veneer of gold and ivory.这木板上面镶饰了一层金和象牙。

24 biases   

偏见( bias的名词复数 )； 偏爱； 特殊能力； 斜纹

参考例句：

• Stereotypes represent designer or researcher biases and assumptions, rather than factual data. 它代表设计师或者研究者的偏见和假设，而不是实际的数据。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• The net effect of biases on international comparisons is easily summarized. 偏差对国际比较的基本影响容易概括。

25 incarcerated   

钳闭的

参考例句：

• They were incarcerated for the duration of the war. 战争期间，他们被关在狱中。 来自辞典例句
• I don't want to worry them by being incarcerated. 我不想让他们知道我被拘禁的事情。 来自电影对白

26 pending   

prep.直到，等待…期间；adj.待定的；迫近的

参考例句：

• The lawsuit is still pending in the state court.这案子仍在州法庭等待定夺。
• He knew my examination was pending.他知道我就要考试了。

27 ballot   

n.（不记名）投票，投票总数，投票权；vi.投票

参考例句：

• The members have demanded a ballot.会员们要求投票表决。
• The union said they will ballot members on whether to strike.工会称他们将要求会员投票表决是否罢工。

28 coalition   

n.结合体，同盟，结合，联合

参考例句：

• The several parties formed a coalition.这几个政党组成了政治联盟。
• Coalition forces take great care to avoid civilian casualties.联盟军队竭尽全力避免造成平民伤亡。