One scary thing about advocacy to protect the success of bail reform is that some pols actually believe cops’ and prosecutors’ shtick about “supporting reforms” and “just wanting tweaks”.
“No one should be jailed because they can’t afford $500,” they say.
Who jailed them??
“No one should be jailed because they can’t afford $500,” they say.
Who jailed them??
Money bail didn’t jail people. The old bail laws didn’t jail people. Cops jailed people and prosecutors and judges kept them jailed by requesting and setting, respectively, unaffordable bail despite a range of options for release (ROR, unsecured bonds, etc.)
This meant untold suffering and worse. Coerced guilty pleas. Racial oppression. Sharpened divisions and inequalities in society.
Yet under the old laws (and a US Supreme Court ruling and the US Constitution), no one should have been jailed on unaffordable bail.
Yet under the old laws (and a US Supreme Court ruling and the US Constitution), no one should have been jailed on unaffordable bail.
Prosecutors and judges used the old bail laws to jail people on unaffordable bail. Call it “judicial discretion” or whatever you want, it was trash and public defenders got a lot of people out of jail by challenging unlawful detention.
Still, ~16,000 people languished in local jails pre-trial across NYS. So lawmakers, pressed by advocates for reform — impacted people and families, faith leaders, public defenders, etc. — intro’d bills that’d generally require non-monetary conditions of release.
They heard plenty from DAs and police/sheriff’s and fake progressive Mayor de Blasio, who mostly opposed the reforms and instead pushed alternatives that’d increase, not decrease, incarceration rates and entrench racism, using mellifluous terms like “presumption of release.”
Everything went on hold for a moment when law enforcement pushback heated up and, e.g., NOW-NYC opposed even discovery reform. (Women didn’t want to see the evidence in their cases? LGBT & women of color survivor groups strongly disagreed) What ultimately passed was a compromise.
Bail reform was a compromise, true, but tens of thousands of people won’t suffer the devastating trauma of cycling through jail every year and collectively we kept out harmful provisions like pre-emptive detention.
Many of the same law enforcement groups opposing reforms now opposed it last year, too. These reform bills were around for years. The assembly passed in 2018 a bill similar to what was enacted in 2019. There were hearings. Countless meetings. Press conferences. All were heard.
Please make no mistake: cops and prosecutors aren’t looking for “tweaks.” They aren’t looking to “reform the reforms.” They want generally unchecked power to take away people’s liberty.
