The purpose of the #REUNITE campaign is simple: Reunite families impacted by mass incarceration. Severe Sentencing does not make us safe. There are extra penalties added onto a base charge that make a person’s sentence longer. We call on all prosecutors and elected officials to stop the use of gang and gun enhancements that do not keep us safe or prevent crime. Show your support for reuniting families and ending severe sentencing by signing our petition below.
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#REUNITE: A CAMPAIGN TO END SEVERE SENTENCING & ABOLISH CALIFORNIA’S GUN AND GANG ENHANCEMENTS
We the undersigned encourage all elected officials to commit to ending severe sentencing, including the use of gun and gang enhancements. A legacy of California’s failed “tough on crime” era, sentencing enhancements add penalties onto criminal charges. Gun enhancements and gang enhancements have directly contributed to California’s discriminatory and expensive mass incarceration system and have endangered the public.
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Below are the reasons why we must abolish California’s use of gun and gang enhancements:
1. Enhancements Contribute to a Costly Mass Incarceration System
California’s enhancement laws can multiply an individual’s prison or jail sentence by up to ten times. About 80% of incarcerated individuals in the state received a sentencing enhancement. California currently incarcerates more than 115,000 people and spends over $80,000 per year to incarcerate each person.
2. Enhancements Harm and Do Not Promote Public Safety
Prison overcrowding and longer sentences endanger the community by increasing barriers for rehabilitation and reentry. One study showed that each additional sentenced year increased recidivism by 4 to 7 percent.
3. Gun And Gang Enhancements Create Structural Racism
Gun and gang enhancements invite racial bias in policing, prosecution, jury-deliberation, and sentencing. While white youth comprise the majority of gang-affiliated youth, African-Americans and Latinos make up 90% of incarcerated youth with gang enhancements. African-American men face an incarceration rate ten times higher than white men. Gang enhancements have resulted in the false convictions of people, who simply lived in inner-city neighborhoods that police designated as gang territory.
4. Mass Incarceration Kills
Mass incarceration creates inhumane conditions for incarcerated people. In 2011, the California Supreme Court found prison conditions so deficient that it ordered the release of tens of thousands of individuals. Due to overcrowding and a lack of social-distancing, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in 49,212 cases and 217 deaths in the state prisons between March 2020 and March 2021.