The Injustice of Cash Bail
Rich defendants charged with criminal offenses can stay out of jail by posting bail while poor defendants have to go to jail & wait for weeks, months, or years until their court date
Cash bail, or money bail, is a system that asks defendants to put up collateral so that they’re incentivized to stay out of trouble and show up to their court date. But if they can’t afford to post bail, they often have to go to jail, to wait for weeks, months, or years until their court date. Hundreds of thousands of people are sitting in jail right now, accused but not convicted of a crime, just because they can’t afford to post bail. Now, some states are trying to reform or abolish cash bail — but as hundreds of thousands of Americans, most of them low income Black and brown men, sit in jail without even being convicted of a crime, that change is NOT coming soon enough.
