Bernie Sanders' cash bail bill seeks to end 'modern day debtors' prisons'
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Senator Bernie Sanders: cash bail ‘brings us almost back to Charles Dickens’s era of the debtor jails where people were in jail because they were poor’.
Aaron P Bernstein/Reuters
Criminal justice advocates have said that the system, which relies on defendants using for-profit bail bondsmen, relegates those who cannot pay to “modern day debtors’ prisons” despite the fact that they have not been convicted of any crime. They argue that people who do not pose a risk should not be kept in jail but instead should be released with GPS monitors, or pre-trial supervision.
“As part of this broken criminal justice system we have an outrageous cash bail process, which if you can believe it results in 400,000 people being in jail today for the crime of being poor,” Sanders said in an interview. “This brings us almost back to Charles Dickens’s era of the debtor jails where people were in jail because they were poor. That’s what we’re looking at now.”
Sanders’ No Money Bail Act is a companion to a measure introduced in the House by the California congressman Ted Lieu last year. The proposal would forbid the “payment of money as a condition of pre-trial release with respect to a criminal case”. The proposal would strip federal anti-crime funding from states that fail to replace their money bail system with risk-assessment alternatives.
The House bill currently has 33 co-sponsors . Sanders’ plan was introduced on Wednesday and does not yet have any co-sponsors.
A growing national movement to eliminate cash bail from the criminal justice system has attracted support from a wide range of political power brokers, including Google, Facebook and even the Koch brothers , the billionaire Republican donors whom Sanders routinely bashes on the campaign trail.
The push for pre-trial release has gained traction at the state level. New Jersey has almost entirely abandoned cash bail while states like Maine and Maryland have taken significant steps to rein in the practice. In June, the New York state assembly voted to eliminate it in most cases though it faces uncertain prospects in the state senate. Meanwhile, four states – Illinois, Kentucky, Oregon and Wisconsin – have long forbidden the practice.
In recent years, high-profile cases have spotlighted the inequities in the cash bail system, including the $500,000 bail set for the Baltimore protester Allen Bullock after the death of Freddie Gray and the death of Kalief Browder, an African American teenager who was held at Rikers Island in New York for three years without a trial and eventually took his own life.
Sanders’ bill follows a more limited bipartisan Senate bill introduced by Democrat Kamala Harris of California and Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky in 2017. The bill, which was also introduced on a bipartisan basis in the House, would provide grants for states to move beyond cash bail and create a federal program to track progress. In particular, Paul had long been eloquent on criminal justice reform and spent years calling attention to Browder’s case.
Sanders said his bill was “undeniably the most comprehensive” and set a “gold standard” through its combination of incentives and disincentives to prod states to drop the cash-bail system. However, the senator acknowledged the uphill battle such legislation faces in a Republican-controlled Congress and with Donald Trump in the White House.
The United States has long been an outlier internationally with its use of commercial bail bondsmen. According to a report by the Prison Policy Initiative, 34% of all defendants in 2009 were detained pre-trial as a result of their inability to post bail.
Often, a court will set bail for a defendant to be released before trial, which may take place months or even years after the arraignment. If the accused cannot afford to pay bail, they can go to a bail bondsman who will post that payment on behalf of the defendant, typically for a 10% fee. If the defendant shows up for the court, the bail is refunded to the bondsman who keeps the fee as profit. And, in the cases where the defendant does not show up, the bondsman is entitled to send bounty hunters after them.
Tags
Who is online
50 visitors
I don't know. I would say it would depend on the crime. I can see a lot of problems if everyone is just released.
If a guy beat the shit out of his wife, send him right home? If they finally caught a serial killer, let him loose and able to continue until trial?
I can just see more people fleeing and no one would know where they are. Some people are denied bond because of being a flight risk.
There’s a lot of middle ground available.
A judge could decide "preventive imprisonment", GPS ankle-bracelet, close reporting to the police, ... all the way to "nothin' special".
Money shouldn't be involved.
But wouldn't that just give judges more power?
It is taking away a system and giving complete over site to potentially biased judges.
I know that judges decide bail, but now this is giving judges basically complete control.
A judge could decide that an abuser could go home after several hours, a judge could decide that a rapist only needs to report in once a week.
In my opinion, I see what they are trying to do, yet it gives a small class of people even more power than they already have.
Plus money is already involved. The wealthy already have an easier time with bigger lawyers, more money to spend on their cases, chances of getting off or reduced sentences go up with the more money one has.
I don't see how. Under current rules, a judge already makes these decisions.
IMNAAHO, the judiciary needs to be completely overhauled, but that's a different subject.
True. I understand what is trying to get done as they say that the poorer people cannot afford bail. I guess I just don't see this as solving any problems. From what I have witnessed, I have seen bail for people on a graduating scale. I have seen minor offences that bail was 2 grand, which most people can get out on and I have seen it go up depending. Like 25k for more serious offence, going up depending on the crime.
I see this as only scratching the surface of a wider problem.
Money shouldn't be involved. The judge must consider the risk of flight, and take appropriate precautions.
100% agreement.
what will make them show up?
See...it's this kind of melodramatic crap that makes it very difficult an open mind about a topic.
This may be a great idea. But if it is, why not just say "we now have technology that makes the old system obsolete, let's do something better"?
Good ideas don't need bullshit to sell them.
Interesting.
Why do you dislike seeing the reality of mistreatment of the poor in America?
DELETED PERSONAL INSULT (A. MAC)
Technology may replace the need for bail.
Ankle bracelets, GPS devices, etc.
It is getting easier and easier int he digital age to track and find people, should they choose to flee a jurisdiction and skip the court process.
The fly in the ointment is for those who can afford private planes etc., if they go where there is no extradition, what to do about that?
Technology cannot solve that problem, yet.
Technological solutions to fleeing the system may be better than money ones to avoid class unfairness.
As has been pointed out, until justice doesn't go to the ones with the priciest attorneys, it remains unjust.
Recall the statue of lady justice blindfolded with the scales of justice in hand.
Peace, Abundant Blessings and Justice for All.
Enoch.
Actually... GPS can be used to ring-fence a person. If the bracelet leaves a specified zone, then the wearer goes to jail.