AB 1869 eliminates 23 adult criminal fees, cancels $16 billion in existing debt, and divests our state’s precious resources from an inherently violent criminal legal system.

Breonna Taylor lived as a beloved family member, an essential healthcare worker, and a community builder. Photos of her reveal how much she had to offer the world. The mural tributes of her in downtown Oakland and across the country evince that she has changed it.

Every day, we partner with undocumented students, essential workers, parents and community members, to take on a legal system entrenched in racism and dehumanization. Thus, we emphatically condemn reports of immigrant women enduring coerced hysterectomies in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers.

The legislature’s budget action proposes to permanently repeal 23 fees, including various probation-related fees and public defender fees, across California, in AB 1869/SB 824!

In making its eviction ban one of the longest and strongest in the United States, Alameda County will prevent a tidal wave of evictions and protect the low-income Black and Brown families most impacted by COVID-19 from losing their homes during the pandemic.

Varying degrees of protection exist throughout California, depending on the jurisdiction. “There’s very, very little that’s been done on a statewide level,” said Marc Janowitz, a staff attorney with the East Bay Community Law Center. “Counties have responded in a much better way, and cities in a much better way.”

The 11 grant partners are: Black Organizing Project, Urban Peace Movement, Young Women’s Freedom Center, East Bay Community Law Center, Youth Law Center, Dignity in Schools Campaign California, Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice, Justice Reinvestment Coalition, Flourish Agenda, Burns Institute and Forward Change.

The money is intended to help these grantees, led by people of color, keep working to cultivate the power of youth and families who have been “criminalized by the education and juvenile justice systems” — and to hold public officials to account.

“Since Friday, more than 10,000 people have signed a petition asking Gov. Gavin Newsom to release prisoners to stop the COVID-19 infections racing through San Quentin and other state prisons…. Other signers include the American Civil Liberties Union, the California Public Defenders Association, California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, East Bay Community Law Center…”

EBCLC Consumer Justice Clinic student, Jessica Williams, breaks down Senate Bill 616 for the Daily Journal.

Today, we share in the community’s celebration upon hearing the U.S. Supreme Court’s momentous ruling that the Trump administration’s attempt to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was unlawful. The decision, which stems from a legal challenge filed by the Regents of the University of California, the state Attorney General, and others, means that DACA will remain in effect for now…