The bill requires people be held on bail for dozens of new, small-time charges—and virtually eliminates charitable bail funds after nonprofits posted bonds for many anti-Cop City protesters last year. Gov. Brian Kemp is expected to sign the measure into law.
Los Angeles County lawmakers should enshrine the zero-bail rules into law so people in Los Angeles County jails can see their families.
In June, a judge ended an emergency order to slow the spread of COVID-19 in LA’s jails, enraging civil-rights advocates.
Art Acevedo’s recent comments reveal an official who, despite his “good cop” veneer, has played fast and loose with the facts when it comes to addressing public safety.
After more than a year in office—and despite pushback—the San Francisco DA’s policies have kept people out of jails and prisons.
A common sense cost-benefit analysis of pretrial detention.
The move is part of a broader criminal justice reform bill that also ends prison gerrymandering, and mandates body cameras for all police departments.
On his first day in office, George Gascón said prosecutors will not seek bail starting Jan. 1, a win for criminal justice reformers.
The Rittenhouse case raises particularly pointed questions about what we are really talking about when we talk about bail.
The law, known as SB 402, eliminates the use of signature bonds for a number of felonies, putting poor people who might not be able to afford cash bail at a disadvantage.
The current coronavirus crisis underscores our urgent need to look hard at our pretrial justice system. Eliminating money bail is a necessary first step.
Late Wednesday, the chief physician at the Rikers jail complex said on Twitter that judges and prosecutors must not leave New York City’s jailed population ‘in harm’s way.’
A federal lawsuit alleges lack of due process in a rural Tennessee county, and reform advocates say its jail is hardly an outlier.
Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter, The Daily Appeal. “Under pressure from law enforcement, state lawmakers say they are now willing to make significant changes to the bail reform laws that have been in effect for less than […]
Reform advocates say the risk assessments are racially biased and are not effective at their key tasks: predicting the likelihood someone will return to court.
Kalief Browder’s death in 2015 and Layleen Polanco’s in 2019 are reminders that jail is the real threat to public safety.
In two articles, the Times asserts a ‘spike’ in crime since the passage of bail reform in New York, an increase that the articles themselves note they can’t prove.
The debate around bail reform focused predominantly on New York City’s Rikers Island, but the bigger impact may be upstate, where almost two-thirds of the state’s jail capacity is located.
A bipartisan group has recommended substantive changes to the state’s legal justice system, including cash bail reform and proposals to divert people living with mental illnesses away from incarceration.
As a society, we can’t continue to subject hundreds of thousands of people to the trauma of incarceration before they face a jury of their peers.
A wave of sensationalist press is not just coming from New York City, but also from county sheriff and city police departments frustrated by bail reform that they claim is ‘too broad.’
Many liberals support reform in theory. But when unpopular decisions need to be made, it’s back to the 1990s “Tough on Crime” playbook.
Advocates say that despite the election of several progressive prosecutors in the state, there’s a substantial increase in such detentions, which are stymieing gains made through policies to limit cash bail.
The Brooklyn Community Bail Fund said it doesn’t want to ‘prop up an unjust system.’
The criminal and juvenile legal systems are drivers of poverty. Presidential candidates should recognize that.
The criminalization of poverty in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, has led to a staggering increase in incarcerated people, all at a huge cost for defendants and taxpayers alike.
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.
Advocates noted that bail gives prosecutors leverage to get guilty pleas from people who can’t afford to buy their way out of jail.
A notoriously unreliable roadside drug test administered by Monroe County sheriff’s deputies led to Dasha Fincher being charged with methamphetamine trafficking.