An Orange County nonprofit that focuses on criminal justice reform recently shared its latest quarterly report, revealing an increase of pretrial detentions during the last few months of the pandemic.
“We think that how much money you have shouldn’t really determine whether you sit in jail before your trial,” said Kimberly Brewer, chair of the nonprofit. “Before your trial you’re still presumed innocent – that’s the way our justice system works.”
In the Orange County Bail/Bond Justice Project’s latest report, Brewer said they saw great progress in terms of criminal justice reform from March to mid-September but a regression of that progress later in the year.
“What we saw last year was a drastic reduction in detentions and some really good new reforms adopted by Orange County,” Brewer said.
During the county’s COVID-19 lockdown, from March to June, the detentions were at an “artificial low,” according to stakeholders in the county criminal justice system.
“What they said is during the lockdown there were fewer people outside their homes, that law enforcement officers were interacting with fewer people and they were only stopping people and interacting with them if it was a dangerous situation,” Brewer said.
During the early months of the pandemic, magistrates were requiring a cash bond for fewer people than policy dictates and judges issued no order for arrests for not appearing in court.
In non-pandemic times, the Bail/Bond Justice Project reports that magistrates require a secured bond, or cash bail, in 79 percent of cases involving only misdemeanors, and judges for 38 percent of cases.
“What we see often, in many cases, is that a person is jailed one day by the magistrate and then released the next day at their bond hearing by the judge – and even one day in jail can have a huge impact on someone’s life,” Brewer said. “So, let’s really reduce the number of people who are actually jailed.”
Despite a decrease of detentions for the majority of 2020, in the last quarter of the year the Orange County Bail/Bond Justice Project saw a reversal of those trends.
After the lockdown period, when the court reopened and began its normal operations, delayed orders for arrests and new orders for arrests began to be served on individuals.
Looking ahead, Brewer said she hopes Orange County courts officially adopt some of their pandemic practices to keep pretrial detentions low.
“We want to go back and look at those things that were happening during the pandemic and say, ‘which of those emergency procedures could be adopted permanently if they’re not going to cause any danger to our community,’” Brewer said. “We think that we showed a drastic reduction in detentions – we showed it possible – so let’s build on that.”
Listen to Kimberly Brewer’s full conversation with 97.9 The Hill here.
