Commentary
One of the worst bills introduced this year is Assembly Bill 852. It’s by Assemblymember Reggie Jones-Sawyer (D-Los Angeles), the chair of the Assembly Public Safety Committee. In the bill’s language, it “would require courts, whenever they have discretion to determine a sentence, to consider the disparate impact on historically disenfranchised and system-impacted populations.” That is, translating from the jargon, judges would have to consider race in criminal sentencing.
