Bail

Many jurisdictions across the country use video instead of holding bail hearings in person, a practice that often leads to dire consequences.

Despite accounting for less than 12 percent of the state’s adult population, roughly 40 percent of all bail bonds were issued in cases involving a Black defendant.

A number of people spent multiple days at the Atlanta City Detention Center for low-level offenses, including for driving while using a cell phone and for walking in the roadway.

The bail bonds industry was caught overcharging 50,000 families $6 million over 14 years, according to SPLC.

In a case of mistaken identity, Jada Noone was arrested by Pennsylvania State Police, spent 15 days in jail and faced a felony drug case before charges were dismissed. She’s now suing over her false arrest.

Low-income women are fueling bail industry profits—and getting harmed in the process.

The reality of risk assessment algorithms is complicated. Critics say bias can creep in at every stage, from development to implementation to application.

As they await statewide action to eliminate cash bail, city councilmembers are looking for ways to reduce the financial burden on families of incarcerated people.

A lawsuit challenging cash bail in St. Louis could help close a notorious jail.

Colorado-based attorney and bail activist Elisabeth Epps was just released after serving a short jail stint related to a 2015 encounter with Aurora Police. The experience gave her a new understanding of the experiences of the people she has bailed out.

Josie and Clint talk with Sara Totonchi, the Executive Director of the Southern Center for Human Rights.

Harris County Judge Darrell Jordan discusses his newly elected colleagues’ decision to withdraw an appeal of a landmark bail reform lawsuit.

Prosecutors denounce bail reform efforts when people miss court dates, but ‘failure to appear’ rates obscure the fact that many who miss court aren’t on the run.

A new Bronx Freedom Fund report documents these extended pretrial lockups, which threaten people’s jobs and destabilize families.

Republican misdemeanor judges in Houston have clung to an unconstitutional bail system. But their intransigence could cost them their seats.

A Texas jail suicide involving a woman who couldn’t make bail in a shoplifting case highlights of the plight of pretrial detainees with mental illness.

Judges are still setting bail at unaffordable levels, and more people are being held without bond.

The passage of Senate Bill 10 would decimate the bail industry, but many advocates say it falls short of true reform.

An email obtained by The Appeal shows Kim Ogg’s office is intentionally asking for unaffordable bail amounts to hold certain people in jail in Texas.

And padding city and state coffers with millions of dollars.

In one Pennsylvania county, more than three times as many people on the registry were charged in 2016 with failing to follow registry requirements than were charged with a new sexual offense

With journalist Bryce Covert.

Introducing a new podcast from The Appeal, featuring Josie Duffy Rice and Clint Smith III.

New bail funds aren’t just getting immigrants out of detention—they’re helping them stay in the country permanently.

In overdose-wracked Franklin County, Pennsylvania, a small-time dealer is denied bail, while the number of drug induced homicide cases has skyrocketed.

San Francisco just became the first city in the nation to stop charging court fines and fees, but the rest of the state has a long way to go.

When Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark announced last September that gun possession and assault charges would be dropped against teenager Pedro Hernandez, who had spent 12 months on Rikers Island, she pledged her office would investigate what went wrong, and that the investigation would “go wherever the evidence leads.” A lot had gone wrong in the case […]

In 2010 Democrats controlled the House, Senate, and presidency. Barack Obama was just heading into his second year in office. Social media was basically brand new. Adele had just won the Grammy for Best New Artist the year before. And millions of people in the United States had a naive hopefulness about the future of […]

In February 2017, Mweze Kyungu was pulled over by Houston police officers in Harris County, Texas for a defective brake light and then arrested. “You kill people like me,” Kyungu told the arresting officers, “all you do is kill black people.” Thus began a nearly year-long ordeal for Kyungu in Harris County’s criminal justice system, […]

As part of a growing push to end the use of cash bail, a national movement is calling attention to the plight of defendants held in jail simply because they can’t afford to pay their way out.

The five states that have done away with commercial bond outlets still struggle with inequity when it comes to cash bail.

A new app seeks to liberate people from more than “liberal malaise.”

New Jersey has become a national leader in criminal justice reform, particularly around the hot button issue of requiring cash bail. When it passed the Bail Reform and Speedy Trial Act last year, it became one of only three locations in the United States that have virtually eliminated bail as a condition for release when someone is charged with a crime. Yet the state literally stumbled into these efforts, almost by accident, in 2012.

Talk of bail reform in Nashville is getting an assist from recently released data showing that the majority of individuals arrested for misdemeanors remain in jail until their cases are concluded.

The City Controller’s report calls on the DA’s office to “dismantle the current cash bail system”

Two prominent Jacksonville civil rights attorneys are challenging bail practices for misdemeanor charges in Northeast Florida’s 4th Judicial Circuit. Attorneys William Sheppard and Elizabeth White argue that current practices unfairly punish those unable to afford bail. The lawsuit maintains that judges in the 4th Judicial Circuit, which consists of Duval, Clay and Nassau counties, don’t inquire as […]

Just ten weeks after Alameda County officials moved all in-custody arraignments to a new courthouse in Dublin, California, the controversial experiment came to an end. Court officials announced this week that arraignments would move back to an Oakland courthouse on September 25. The initial move to Dublin’s East County Hall of Justice sparked outrage from public defenders and Oakland […]

When Alameda County Public Defender Brendon Woods learned the county’s Superior Court would move all in-custody criminal arraignments from Oakland to a new courthouse in Dublin, California, he knew it would be a disaster. Now, eight weeks into the move, his prediction has proven correct — and it’s even more chaotic than he imagined. “It’s a nightmare […]

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida is highlighting the need for bail reform in Escambia County, which has one of the highest incarceration rates in the Sunshine State. In a recently released report, the ACLU asserts that Escambia County’s “jail is crowded, expensive, and houses many non-violent, pretrial defendants who could safely reside in the community […]

Being trapped results in physical experiences beyond those caused by the immediate environs in which you are stuck. You feel it in your muscles, in your chest, in your throat and in your stomach. It is, to say the least, uncomfortable. While I can’t claim to have ever been thrown behind bars, with no good […]