Event 1

March Fourth for March 4th

Cynthia Davila 

3-19-14

Sociology 

While I had to sit out at our booth for March 4th, I represented my group C.A.P.E. which stands for Citizens Advocating for Pre-trail Expansion. As I was sitting at my table many people came around to see what our problem was and were very interested to see what we were focusing on. Our problem is that more serious crimes can merit higher bail but this isn't always the case. The biggest issue surrounding bail and it's problems is the fact that regardless of the crime, anyone who can make bail can spend the money and go free until his or her trial. When people saw this they seemed to be very concerned because many of them could very much relate ! Looking at out flyer we were handing out they were really shocked to see how it affects the community. Criminal justice reformers point out that this situation costs the taxpayers about $100 a day per prisoner and that is a huge problem because all of us are getting charger for people in prison that we don't even know and probably don't even support what they are in there for. We want to be able to lower the cost of bail bones and alternatives to the Monterey bail system. If we were to release people on electronic monitoring it will be likely to change as California enters it's second year of realignment in the fall. Counties will be left with the option of overcrowding or even just letting people be free because they can't handle them in the system anymore which I think is very unsafe. I was really surprised and impressed with the outcome because we got many people to sign our petition and many people were totally interested to see our flyers! It was a good turn out and It was my first time doing it so I was so excited about it.