After someone is arrested and charged with a crime, they await their scheduled trial date. Before their trial, defendants must wait in prison, unless they pay bail Different crimes have different amounts for cash bail (could be in the hundreds or hundreds of thousands). If the defendant can make their bail, all they have to do is show up to their trial and they get their money back. The purpose of bail is to make sure the defendant appears in court when they need to. Thus judges often set a high bail to ensure it serves its purpose. The median cash bail is $10,000.
Before we learn about what the data shows for cash bail or look at some examples of places that conduct bail better, I want to focus on family. CST emphasizes the call to families as one of its key tenets. I have not written much about it on this blog, but I want to now because it's especially important for cash bail.
People incarcerated for not paying their bail are presumed innocent, yet the CJS keeps them imprisoned for months. Consider the impact just months of imprisonment can have on the family of a defendant. They can lose their job and not see their spouse or kids for months---bail could tear a family apart.
Now consider CST’s preferential option for the poor and vulnerable. What could be more contrary to this tenet than cash bail, which often demands thousands of dollars just to go home as an innocent person? If the CJS already exploited low-income populations and minorities, cash bail feeds into socioeconomic discrimination.
Whereas other problems with the CJS revolve around power abuse of legislators and prosecutors, defendants suffer bail’s destructiveness at the hands of judges. Bail requires complex reform; this week I just wanted to introduce some of its basic problems. Next week we will dive further.
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