They call it pretrial detention but it is really jail time before a trial before you are even proven innocent or guilty for whatever crime. You can be locked up for months especially if you don't have bail money to buy your freedom. At least 60% of people in jail haven't been convicted of anything. Almost a half a million people have no nest eggs of money to use for bail if necessary. It is unfair inefficient and a complete cost to tax payers for no public safety reason. Wealth status should not be the criteria for who stays in jail vs. who gets released. That is the exact opposite of what our founders had in mind when they wrote the Bill of Rights. The 14th Amendment says..".nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, NOR DENY TO ANY PERSON within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. " but it is the 8th Amendment that says..."Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." Could Trump be violating the Constitution by punishing all those folks at the border? Probably! He is lawless!
The purpose of bail was to give folks an incentive to come back to court. Now it has become punishment. People held on cash bail will just plead guilty so they can go home. We have a $2 billion dollar industry thriving to get folks out of jail. Bail Bondsmen charge 10% of the bail amount. You don't get that back even if you are found innocent. But there is an angel out there. A Bronx charity founder wants to pay bail for poor defendants nationwide. It is called The Bail Project. It is a revolving fund because if you post bail in court, you get it all back when you are declared innocent and that money goes back into the fund. So far the fund had bought freedom for over 5,000 folks in the past year.
96% of the time, each person comes back to appear for every court appearance. Sometimes it can take years before charges are dropped and you can't be spending that time sitting in jail when you have pets, kids, bills and jobs all waiting for you at home. If you are one of those afraid of a public safety risk for releasing an accused person but not yet convicted, then just look at Washington DC. Yes in our nation's capital they got rid of the bail system back in 1992. Statistics have shown that the policy has NOT sparked an increase in crime. Only about 10 States have some kind of bail reform in progress. New York has just ended cash bail for most. California was the first state to scrap cash bail and that only happened last year.
Bail Bondsmen hate the new laws because they are out of business. When you get arrested, the connection to your life has been broken and you will never be the same. So, applaude those who are brave enough to protest and get arrested because the price of bail can be expensive and the experience of possibly being a criminal is devastating.
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