LA’s Men’s Central Jail as seen in this file photo from 2020. When it started last fall, Los Angeles County’s experiment with “zero bail” immediately led to fury and concern: With the Superior Court launching an effort to shift away from its traditional money bail system, some in local law enforcement, as well as elected leaders from around the region, said the plan had gone too far.
“This was a big change,” Slayton said. “ is the way we’ve been doing this for decades. It’s all people really know.” Suddenly, offenses like drug possession, petty theft and trespassing carried no bail, instead becoming citations with a promise to appear at a future court date. Some more serious crimes still categorized as misdemeanors would land arrestees in booking at a police station, but after completing paperwork, they were also free to go with the same promise.
While he stayed behind bars, he lost access to his prescription medication. His girlfriend, whom he lived with in his pick-up truck, was forced to stay in their truck with no money for gas, according to Riff’s ruling. In that group, those subject to money bail again represented 58%, or 936 people, all of whom paid their way out of jail only to be rearrested
But she also called that step a “modest” one. That’s because she said her students and other court watchers have found the new system still looks somewhat like the old one. The sample size of the cases court watchers observed was small, around 230 arraignments at two courthouses out of the thousands heard across the county that month. But in their observations, the court watchers said they believed around two out of every five defendants were still being transported to the courthouse in handcuffs despite facing charges that they said should have allowed them to be released.
The court watchers’ numbers through February show the magistrates have reviewed a total of 9,120 arrestees to determine if they could be released pre-arraignment. So far through February, the judges have held 8,184 of them in jail, releasing just 490. An additional 446 were released by law enforcement.
A Superior Court spokesman said the types of offenses being faced by those arrestees subject to magistrate reviews are not being collected as data.