ICYMI: Los Angeles Times Editorial Board Endorses Prop. 25 to “End Bail and the Poverty Penalty...a Stain on Our Justice System”

“Proposition 25 is an important step toward better justice.”

On Wednesday morning, the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board endorsed Proposition 25 - joining a coalition of seventeen other newspapers throughout the state in calling out the injustice of a money bail system that rewards the wealthy while preying on the poor, and urging voters to overturn that system in November by voting YES on Prop. 25.

The editorial board paints an accurate picture of California’s justice system, plagued by a for-profit industry that favors wealth and privilege over safety and justice. “There is something repugnant, and corrosive to our collective notion of justice, about allowing people without money to stay locked up in jail while others, accused of the same crimes but with money to spend, can buy their way out….It’s a mechanism to divide the privileged from the punished in the earliest phase of a criminal proceeding, long before any judge or jury makes a finding of guilt or innocence.” 

Highlighting a recent study that shows the Los Angeles Police Department levied some $19 billion in bail on defendants between 2012 and 2016, the LA Times identifies the crux of the bail system’s injustice - “millions of dollars extracted from the city’s poorest communities, and largely its Black and Latino families.” That’s why the time is right to end money bail, according to the Times, as it is “the ultimate insult to our justice system’s claim that all stand equal before the law, and that all are presumed innocent until proved guilty.”

In urging California voters to end money bail, the Los Angeles Times lauds the safeguards written into Prop. 25 that aim to mitigate the existing racial and economic disparities in the justice system. “The mandate to analyze pretrial detention data will provide a long-overdue examination of California court operations and disparities among counties.”

Editorial boards that have endorsed YES on Prop. 25 include:

The Los Angeles Times

The San Francisco Chronicle

The San Diego Union-Tribune

The Mercury News

The East Bay Times

The Orange County Register

The Los Angeles Daily News

The Press-Enterprise 

The Long Beach Press-Telegram 

The Torrance Daily Breeze

The Pasadena Star-News

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune

The Whittier Daily News

The San Bernardino Sun

The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

The Redlands Daily Facts

The Bakersfield Californian

 The Bay Area Reporter

Read the full Los Angeles Times editorial board endorsement here.

Visit https://yesoncaprop25.com to learn more about Proposition 25.

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