Our criminal legal system is founded on the ideal that everyone is presumed innocent unless proven otherwise in a court of law. But in reality, many people are forced to languish in jail before they are tried. This is because cash bail creates a two-tier system of justice: One for people with money and another for people without. 

Judges and prosecutors routinely use cash bail in a way that contradicts its intended purpose and reinforces racial bias. The original idea was simple: Set cash bail at an amount that the person can afford, but just high enough that they will have a financial incentive to come back to court. 

Today, the opposite is true. Even though the U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibits the use of excessive bail, people in pretrial detention now make up more than two-thirds of America’s jail population and it’s largely because of unaffordable cash bail. The practice disproportionately harms people of color who are more likely to receive higher bail amounts. It also has a unique impact on women who are the least likely to be able to pay cash bail when they are arrested because they are at the bottom of the economic ladder.

Cash bail upends the presumption of innocence and its human toll is catastrophic. People who are jailed pretrial often wait months, and sometimes years, for their cases to resolve. In the meantime, they can lose their jobs, homes, children, and critical community ties. Inside jail, people risk sexual violence, the deterioration of their mental and physical health, and the infliction of lasting trauma. They feel enormous pressure to accept an unjust or wrongful conviction just to go home. 

Moreover, the financial costs that this system generates are staggering. American taxpayers pay $14 billion each year to incarcerate people who have not been convicted of a crime. Meanwhile, the $2 billion bail industry, with its well-documented predatory and exploitative practices, extracts money from precisely those communities that have the fewest resources. Factoring in the impact of pretrial detention on families, communities, and social services, the true economic cost of this crisis has been estimated to approach $140 billion annually. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Since we launched The Bail Project in January 2018, our team has provided free bail assistance to more than 17,000 low-income people who would have otherwise been stuck in jail due to their poverty. Across the country, we operate 27 local sites and partner with community organizations to support our clients’ needs upon release and advocate for lasting systems change.

All across the country, we’re building the case against cash bail and demonstrating a community-based alternative to pretrial incarceration. Through our model of Community Release with Support, The Bail Project extends help after paying bail by connecting those we help to voluntary services and resources, based on their needs, and provides them with court reminders and transportation assistance for the duration of their case. As people come back to court, bail payments return to our National Revolving Bail Fund and we reuse them to help more people. 

Over the past three and a half years, we’ve helped clients return to over 47,000 court dates with a 93% court appearance rate, demonstrating unequivocally that cash bail is not necessary to ensure people return to court. Our needs and community-based model is helping to shift the paradigm from one of isolation and incarceration to one that seeks to support individuals and disrupt cycles of incarceration. 

At the end of the day, The Bail Project’s goal is to put itself out of business. We must fundamentally transform our pretrial system starting with the elimination of cash bail. The Bail Project works at the local, state, and federal levels to advocate for policy reforms that bring about meaningful change. But in the meantime, we must also continue helping those who are suffering right now from this unjust system. And that’s where our National Revolving Bail Fund comes in. At the heart of this issue are people like Leticia Sanabria, one of our clients in Baton Rouge. For her and so many others, The Bail Project will remain a lifeline until cash bail is a thing of the past.

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