FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 20, 2018

CONTACT: Elliot Levy, [email protected], 202-800-7409

Sacramento, CA – Following the addition of harmful amendments to the California Money Bail Reform Act (SB10), Anjuli Kronheim Katz, Field Organizing Manager of Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, released the following statement:

“The current system of money bail and pretrial detention is unjust, predatory and disproportionately harmful to Black, Brown and low-income communities. Unfortunately, the Money Bail Reform Act (SB10), a bill that was originally designed to address this moral crisis in California, has been transformed into legislation that entrenches the discrimination and bias of the current system while granting even more power to the judges that oversee it. As a result of these troubling changes, we at Bend the Arc: Jewish Action are withdrawing our support for this measure.

We remain committed to acting in solidarity with our partners to demand real, meaningful reform that reduces, not expands, the use of pre-trial incarceration and the injustice of money bail. We now call on California lawmakers to reject this harmful proposal and instead work toward a new vision for pretrial justice that ends the harm caused by the greed of the bail industry.”

Bend the Arc: Jewish Action is a leading voice in California on the issue of money bail reform. Activists from chapters in the Bay Area, South Bay, Southern California, and San Luis Obispo have engaged local lawmakers with in-district visits, petition gathering, public actions, phone banks to mobilize constituents, aseries of op-eds and letters to the editor, screenings of Brave New Films’ “The Bail Trap,” and organizing of other Jewish groups in support of meaningful bail reform.