UNDER A NEW LAW, juvenile offenders now should not have to pay restitution to the victims of crime in California.
Assemblywoman Mia Bonta, D-Oakland, authored California’s REPAIR Act, which frees juvenile offenders from the burden of paying restitution to victims and places it within the arms of the California Sufferer Compensation Board. (Photograph courtesy of Mia Bonta/Twitter)
“The REPAIR Act makes our youth restitution system work better for everyone,” mentioned Assemblymember Mia Bonta, D-Oakland, upon studying AB 1186 was signed. “I am proud to have authored this crucial bill and to promote effective legislation promoting accountability, rehabilitation, and healing in our criminal legal system.”
UC Berkeley Legislation printed a 2017 report documenting the observe of charging what it known as “harmful, unlawful, and costly” juvenile charges to youth and households throughout California. “Because youth of color are disproportionately arrested, detained, and punished in the juvenile system, fee amounts are especially burdensome for families of color,” the report mentioned.
The UC Berkeley Legislation Coverage Advocacy Clinic discovered that solely 13% of restitution orders by California courts truly receives a commission. This new restitution regulation will clear the debt of 1000’s of incarcerated and previously incarcerated people.
A 2016 report from the group Human Rights Watch discovered that over 6,500 individuals in California prisons had been beneath the age of 18 and had been as younger as 14 on the time of their crime. Over 5,000 had been sentenced to greater than 10 years, with greater than 2,000 of these receiving indeterminate sentences.
‘I have no ability to pay it’
Demiantra Maurice Clay is an African American man who was tried and convicted of homicide at age 15. He mentioned he was ordered to pay a number of restitution fines that exceed $40,000.
“I have no ability to pay it,” Clay mentioned. “I wasn’t even old enough to legally work in California when I committed my crime.”
Over the a long time he has been in jail, Clay has had monies deducted from his jail pay numbers, that are pennies on the greenback. The state additionally took a proportion of the cash deposited into his belief account that his household struggles to ship him.
(Photograph illustration by Glenn Gehlke/Native Information Issues. Picture by Richard Harvey/Flickr, CC BY-NC)
At one time, the jail took over 50% of Clay’s belief deposits, leaving him with $45 from a $100 deposit.
“The prison went from taking 22% to 33, 44 and then 55% of my family’s money they sent for me to buy toothpaste, deodorant, scented soap, and food supplements,” he mentioned. “They could barely make the ends meet and were trying to help me survive.”
Clay mentioned the system is about up in a method that fuels a felony surroundings.
“We have to survive,” he mentioned. “Some people sell stuff they make in prison. Others sell pruno or drugs.”
The UC Berkeley Legislation report discovered that massive money owed positioned on poor Black and brown youth might improve the probability of recidivism. That is one motive why the East Bay assemblymember Bonta supported the invoice.
“It puts a lot of pressure on people to potentially go for the quick dollar, which is potentially committing another crime,” mentioned Bonta.
Inform us the place it hurts
The REPAIR Act would require the court docket to find out the quantity of financial loss suffered on account of the minor’s conduct and subject a restitution order, which will probably be despatched on to the California Sufferer Compensation Board.
The board will compensate victims from cash appropriated by the Legislature. The brand new regulation additionally makes any excellent stability of any restitution or positive ordered by the court docket unenforceable and uncollectible 10 years after the date of imposition of an order for a restitution positive.
Grownup offenders are additionally reporting that their restitution fines have been eradicated for the reason that new regulation went into impact. Michael Moore obtained a $10,000 restitution positive greater than 10 years in the past that he mentioned he had no potential to pay.
“I woke up on Jan. 1 debt-free,” Moore mentioned. “It feels good not to have to worry about a debt I can’t pay.”
Moore, who’s serving an indeterminate sentence and has been incarcerated for greater than 20 years, mentioned, “It feels like a heavy weight has been lifted off of me.”
As for the minors, the regulation requires the court docket to get them organized to make amends for his or her crimes by taking part in restorative justice applications, neighborhood service, instructional employment or youth growth applications.
“I feel good knowing I will not have this huge debt following me back to society,” Clay mentioned.
