The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/tag/money-bail/)
The policy, starting June 1, would affect hundreds of teens accused of serious crimes like assault, robbery, and burglary, allowing them to be eligible for release without bail, while they await adjudication.
More than 30 research and advocacy organizations around the country will participate in a National Partnership for Pretrial Justice aimed at developing alternatives to money bail and pretrial detention, Arnold Ventures announced Tuesday.
After a report criticized his court for setting high money bonds that resulted in a “bloated” local jail population, Kentucky Circuit Court Judge Darren Peckler changed course.
On Oct 1, the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights group began a month-long “mass bailout” project in New York aimed at highlighting the inequalities of a system that forces the poor to remain behind bars before trial simply because they cannot afford money bail. Local DAs fumed, but a former NYC probation commissioner explains why he decided to participate.
Under a new law that went into effect this month, New Hampshire judges can no longer keep individuals accused of low-level offenses behind bars just because they can’t afford to pay cash bail. But reformers who welcome the “culture shift” also worry about a companion rule allowing those considered public safety threats to be held in “preventive” custody.
California will become the first state to end money bail under a new law that will take effect in October, 2019. Under the measure, courts will use algorithms to decide who needs to be kept in custody ahead of trial—but critics, including the ACLU, say the new system may perpetuate discrimination.
According to a report from the New York Civil Liberties Union, white defendants were more than two times more likely to be released on the same day bail was set than black defendants.
In its first year, New Jersey’s historic bail overhaul slashed the number of people charged with minor crimes locked up until trial because they couldn’t post bail by 20 percent. Yet the system is “simply not sustainable” because it relies on court fees rather than the state budget, a report from the New Jersey judiciary says.
The four-year study, by the “Million Dollars Hoods” project at UCLA’s Bunche Center, reports the nearly $194 million actually paid in bond sureties disproportionately affected individuals in the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Some 223,000 who couldn’t pay were held before trial.
The first baseline measurement of pretrial justice across the U.S. has found most states to be failing, with a few “promising” exceptions, according to the Pretrial Justice Institute.