Overcriminalization significantly undermines human flourishing and social well-being by harming the family, social networks, and social citizenship. Additionally, it prevents capable men and women from utilizing their creative capacities in the marketplace. This creates vast issues involving relations with family while incarcerated and reintegration into society after release. On the economic side, draconian cash bail systems undermine justice through basing someone's ability to attain pre-trial release upon their wealth, not their actual threat to society.
"The videos, part of a civil rights lawsuit alleging an unconstitutional cash bail system, show hearings that are often perfunctory and routinely last fewer than 15 seconds for each person. In the hearings, magistrates rarely lower the bond amount or give out personal recognizance bonds, known as personal or PR bonds, which are supposed to be options for people too poor to make bail and, in lieu of a cash payment up front, require pretrial monitoring."
Texas Observer
September 3, 2018
Read More"America’s cash bail system forces cash-strapped people to choose between remaining incarcerated – and possibly losing their job, housing, or custody of their children – or entering an agreement with shady private lenders to pay for their freedom before their court date. Private lender agreements often require people to pay bail companies steep fees and can trigger high interest rates when a payment is late, pushing people already in financial distress further into debt."
The Guardian
August 30, 2018
Read More"Under the old system, defendants were given a bail amount to post, and those who could afford it could be released. Judges could order that defendants be held without bail if they represented a public threat or a flight risk. The new system includes a presumption against release for people accused of violent felonies and for those who score high on a risk assessment tool."
The Marshall Project
August 30, 2018
Read More"Rather than reduce the number of innocent people sitting in jail cells, the new system has the potential to increase it, while entrenching racial disparities and hiding them behind the rhetoric of science. Taken together, these factors could create a system that is worse than what California had, in the heartbreaking name of bail reform."
USA Today
August 30, 2018
Read More"The legislation virtually eliminates the payment of money as a condition of release. Under last-minute changes to the proposal, judges will have greater power to decide which people are a danger to the community and should be held without possibility of release in a practice known as 'preventive detention'."
LA Times
August 28, 2018
Read More"Suzanne Bagby, the chairwoman of the fund committee, said it will be a milestone for the group when it frees its first person from pretrial incarceration. Bagby said her committee meets on Aug. 31 to discuss it, but she thinks it’s a reasonable goal. 'That will be our biggest achievement,' Bagby said about bailing out its first defendant. 'There are so many fees and so many things we still need to work out with the courts'."
Columbia Daily Tribune
August 24, 2018
Read More"Leon County judges were intentionally trying to unconstitutionally detain defendants, Hinkle said, but he believed that they and prosecutors were operating in step with what has historically been done."
Tallahassee Democrat
August 23, 2018
Read More"The American Civil Liberties Union of California and other groups that were supporters of the bill changed positions on Monday, saying amendments last week give courts too much power in deciding who should be released and will further exacerbate 'racial biases and disparities that permeate our justice system'."
San Francisco Chronicle
August 20, 2018
Read More"The ruling should also reverberate beyond New Orleans. 'It’s particularly significant because it goes beyond addressing preset bail schedules or release in misdemeanor cases,' Wool explained. 'This is a comprehensive ruling'."
The Appeal
August 13, 2018
Read More"If they fail to pay this amount in full, he subjects them to arrest, driver's license suspension, and incarceration, as well as an additional $450 to $670 in fines and costs. He imposes these punishments without conducting any inquiry—let alone an adequate one—into the person's ability to pay or the reasons for non-payment."
Reason Magazine
August 9, 2018
Read More"More than a dozen Harris County misdemeanor judges contend that public safety would be imperiled if they followed an “untenable” new pretrial release order by a Houston federal judge who has found the current county bail system unconstitutional."
Houston Chronicle
August 8, 2018
Read More"What we’ve learned from experience is that when jurisdictions first tackle moving away from secured money bond, without raising the bar on who may be detained and how, the system continues to cause unnecessary detentions. To make detention the exception rather than the rule, it needs to be more like hospital admissions and less like ordering from Domino’s."
Pretrial Justice Institute
August 8, 2018
Read More"Targeting only serious-crime cases, Abbott’s changes would not affect bail-reform initiatives underway in several Texas cities, including Houston, to ensure that poor defendants charged with nonviolent minor crimes are not kept in jail just because they cannot afford to post cash bail."
Houston Chronicle
August 8, 2018
Read More"Insurance companies form the quiet backbone of the industry, underwriting the vast majority of the millions of bail bonds written each year while undergoing little public scrutiny."
Marshall Project
August 6, 2018
Read More"More than 100 civil rights, 'digital justice' and community groups issued a statement expressing concerns about the expanding use of risk assessment instruments as a substitute for basing bail releases on money. "
The Crime Report
July 31, 2018
Read More"The No Money Bail Act would prohibit the federal government from using any payment of money as a condition of pretrial release for criminal cases. It would call for grants to develop alternatives to money bail and to improve pretrial practices with the aim of reducing the number of people detained in jail prior to trial. And it would push states to come along with the shift by denying them access to Justice Department grants if they continue using money bail."
Reason Magazine
July 25, 2018
Read More"Justice doesn’t require sympathy. You don’t need to feel for Jones. However, if you believe that excessive cash bail is unjust, you should advocate for Jones even though she might be found criminally responsible for the death of her baby. Justice and due process should not be limited to defendants in nonviolent cases or cases that don’t make our stomach turn."
Philadelphia Inquirer
July 23, 2018
Read More"The Marshall Project’s Eli Hager says debtors’ prisons are “any prison, jail, or other detention facility in which people are incarcerated for their inability, refusal, or failure to pay debt.” They’ve been outlawed by Congress since 1833 (Dickensian times), at least in theory. In 1983, the Supreme Court ruled in Bearden v. Georgia that judges must first consider whether a suspect is “willfully” refusing to pay a fee before locking him or her up for failure to pay. Still, modern judges routinely sentence poor Americans to jail for not paying fines or fees."
The American Conservative
July 19, 2018
Read More"As chief judge, I supported eliminating money bail in New York in favor of a system that allows judges to consider risk of danger with the aid of evidence-based assessment tools. But legislative bail reform is difficult, especially given the lobbying power of the bail bond industry that profits from the status quo."
Fox News
July 14, 2018
Read More"While high amounts of cash bail can be used to prevent violent offenders from wandering free throughout the community while they await trial, the same safeguard can be achieved by simply denying bail on public safety grounds. This was the case for defendant Brittan Holland who was charged with second-degree aggravated assault last year."
Right on Crime
July 13, 2018
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