In an interview with the Vanguard, Alex Frank, Race Forward’s Director of Root Solutions for Public Safety, said the California Racial Justice Act (RJA) represents a meaningful step toward addressing racial discrimination in the criminal legal system but remains inadequate as a tool for confronting what she describes as deeply rooted structural inequities.
Frank’s critique emerges from nearly two decades of work in criminal justice reform and her own experience with incarceration.
She recalled being 18 when she was briefly jailed, describing that moment as pivotal. “Once you see it, you can’t unsee it,” she reflected, adding that “as a white woman, it was stark the way that my whiteness protected me.”
That experience set the stage for a career in which she has held roles at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Vera Institute of Justice and as an assistant commissioner at Rikers Island Jail. Her work has included overseeing policy, collaborating with journalists on transparency efforts, and teaching at Vermont Law School. Throughout, she identified a consistent focus: “what is it going to take to advance racial equity in the criminal legal system.”
Her analysis of the RJA centers on the divide between individual case remedies and systemic causes.
She argued the act “attempted to solve what is a deep seated historical systemic issue through a solution that targeted individual case level decisions,” noting that proof of racial discrimination in single prosecutions—while important—does not disrupt the broader structures that drive disparities.
California’s incarceration rates illustrate the scale of the problem, in Frank’s view. The state is “the second highest incarcerator in the country,” which she said demonstrates how entrenched mass incarceration remains.
Policies like three strikes and gang enhancements continue to shape sentencing patterns, particularly affecting Black and Latino communities, she noted. “We know that gang enhancements have a huge impact on the incarceration of black and brown people,” she said, pointing to charging practices that predate and exist outside the RJA.
Frank also said social conditions—housing, employment and access to services—serve as significant drivers of incarceration, especially as violent offenses make up a relatively small portion of the system. When only 13 percent of cases fall into that category, she argued, the roots of the crisis become more evident.
Despite declining prison populations, she noted that probation and parole numbers have climbed, accompanied by increases in public spending. In her view, those investments have not been redirected toward communities as they should be.
The RJA’s rollout has also been slow. Frank referenced the early landmark Bailey case and said it “shouldn’t have taken five years for that to happen since it’s passing.” That timeline, she concluded, underscores the gap between passing legislation and implementing it—particularly when judges must be trained and systems adapted.
Retroactivity is another area where Frank sees limits. Because the law’s early version did not grant relief to already sentenced defendants, she argued that many of the individuals most affected by discriminatory practices were initially excluded. While she acknowledged political realities, she said the narrow approach constrained the law’s early reach.
Even when discrimination can be shown, she emphasized that sentencing enhancements and mandatory minimums still shape outcomes.
“You can prove all this, but if it’s still your third quote strike, you’re screwed,” she stated. The RJA did not alter three strikes, leaving what she considers a structural driver untouched.
Frank stressed that transparency and data are essential to any reform effort, arguing that California’s reporting systems obscure statewide trends. According to her, county-by-county variation “rolls up into California’s Maine in a skewed kind of way,” complicating efforts to evaluate progress.
Her experience at Rikers Island shaped her belief in access and oversight. She recalled partnering with journalists and described the approach bluntly: “We believed in sunlight as the best antiseptic.”
She also pointed to research supporting visitation policies and said family access influences safety behind bars and transition success after release.
Frank outlined several areas where she believes change must occur—far beyond individual litigated relief—highlighting budget processes, community-driven planning, and historical context.
In her own work, she has taken policymakers to sites associated with histories of colonization, mission systems and enslavement, connecting those legacies to modern incarceration. She described the project as a “truth telling and healing process at the policy and system level.”
At the same time, she cautioned against framing reform as a choice between individual and systemic change. “We need wins and we need to celebrate the wins when we get them,” she acknowledged, but she warned that “the best programs in the context of a system designed around punishment and retribution is ultimately not going to have the impact that it’s intended.”
Frank argued that the RJA alone cannot rewrite sentencing frameworks, restructure public budgets or transform policing and supervision. She said community organizations—especially those led by system-impacted people—should be central to shaping next steps.
She pointed to the MILPA Collective, a grassroots group founded by formerly incarcerated Californians and based in Watsonville and Salinas, as an example of advocates positioned to address gang enhancements and lived experience inside.
While the RJA has opened pathways for relief—particularly in charging, jury selection and racially biased conduct—Frank suggested the most significant opportunities lie ahead. She described a forthcoming Race Forward publication that outlines eight systemic actions and said it is designed to shift analysis away from isolated cases.
The project, she noted, builds on her tenure in one of the country’s largest jail systems, where she saw how entrenched structures can overwhelm individual interventions. “If a system is still designed and functioning in a systemically racist way,” she said, “it will outdo any individual level effort.”
Frank cast the RJA as a beginning rather than an end point. She said its successes—though limited—offer political and cultural momentum for broader reforms, but cautioned that advocates should prepare now for future opportunities to revisit mandatory sentencing laws, funding models and data oversight.
Her remarks reflect a broader debate occurring across California as public defenders, civil rights groups and lawmakers pursue RJA motions while also facing questions about capacity, judicial interpretation and appellate rulings. Court challenges continue to test the law’s reach, and advocates on both sides of the issue are watching early cases for signals about how trial courts will apply the act’s evidentiary standards.
Frank did not dispute that the act has already changed some legal outcomes and could reshape others, especially for individuals able to prove bias. But she consistently returned to a central theme: without structural reform, individual remedies will be narrow and incremental.
She argued the history and scale of mass incarceration require changes that extend beyond case-by-case adjudication and reach policing, sentencing, supervision, and economic conditions.
“We need both,” she said near the close of the interview, arguing that systemic and individual strategies must coexist. And while she described the RJA as important, she also framed it as provisional—useful in addressing specific harms, but insufficient to transform the system that produced them.
Follow the Vanguard on Social Media – X, Instagram and Facebook. Subscribe the Vanguard News letters. To make a tax-deductible donation, please visit davisvanguard.org/donate or give directly through ActBlue. Your support will ensure that the vital work of the Vanguard continues.
