Thread by @rafaelshimunov

One of the challenges of showing up to close places like Rikers Island or enact bail reform is simply that most people just don't understand what bail is.

I didn't either, so we have to keep explaining it because every time we do, people are hearing it for the first time.

Cash bail is simply a financial incentive you're able and willing to put up as a pretrial defendant. You get the money back if you show up to court so the argument is that it will incentivize you to show up.

However...

However, in practice, cash bail is abused by prosecutors and judges. Bail is set at rates that are unaffordable on purpose, and set at even higher rates for Black and brown people for same types of cases as whites...

Why? Because...

Because it is no longer used as a tool to incentivize return from home to court (while it still is for the rich), it is used to incentivize someone accused of a crime to simply drop their case and plead guilty.

How?

Prosecutors employ vicious tactics while someone is in a pretrial cage because they can't afford bail. They'll bring you pictures of your kids. Tell you that if you plead guilty, you won't miss their graduation, or their birthday.

It gets worse...

Every single day in a pretrial cage is extremely dangerous. Half of all jail deaths, including suicides, occur within the very first week. And about a third of sexual violence by jail staff happens within the first three days of pretrial detention.

So people really want out...

And it's not only dangerous inside jail, while you're in pretrial incarceration, the lives of those you love are falling apart. So is whatever you were able to build...

Some examples of what happens while you're in pretrial jail because you can't afford bail?

You and/or family are evicted from affordable housing because you're in jail. Your job fires you. You go into debt for missing payments. Your car is taken by the bank from you. Your home is foreclosed. Custody of your child is raised. Your immigration status is in danger...

Prosecutors and judges know about these dual dangers. In fact, judges routinely and openly admit that they aim to send you to pretrial jail as punishment for things like "not speaking proper english" to them, not being dressed up enough for court....

So this gives prosectors a LOT of leverage to play with when compelling someone accused of a crime to just give up and plead guilty.

Why would a prosecutor want to squeeze someone to plead guilty? Well,

We're back at incentives again. Prosecutors are in competition with each other to rack up as many convictions as possible. They want to be judges. They want glory. And our system rewards them for it.

The fastest way to get their numbers up? Guilty pleas.

But crime is down....

Crime being at historic lows is a threat to their careers, and prosecutors have watched how easy it is to get a guilty plea, even with a weak case with no evidence.

So now they encourage police to bring in the weakest of cases, knowing, guilty or not, their stats will go up...

How do we know this? We know this with science and research.

For 10 years in The Bronx, bail was paid by charity for those who couldn't afford it. What happened when the bail was paid?

HALF the cases were dismissed.

Wait for it...

And of the cases that continued, that prosecutors were forced to fight?

Less than 2% of the convictions resulted in any jail sentence by a judge whatsoever!

This research proved cash bail is a tool designed not to keep us safe, but to fill jails with Black and brown people.

And what happened to those same type of cases where bail was not paid for by charity?

90% took terrible plea deals by prosecutors. Fed into a machine. Tortured by daily threats, mind games, and harm to their families until they gave that prosecutor their points.

The numbers show that those caged simply for not being able to afford bail, are 4 times more likely to be sentenced. And after they are sentenced, the sentence is 4 times longer.

Cash bail is the mouth of the prison industrial complex.

The scale of this?

On any given night 400,000 are in cages because they are short some cash. 4 Michigan stadiums.

2.5M people move through these cages every year because they can't afford cash bail, with most taking deals in cases they would have won.

23 Michigan stadiums.

Then each person in each of stadium is no longer an active parent, spouse, breadwinner, voter, worker, caretaker, neighbor, student, uncle, advisor, mentor or child of a hundred more.

2,300 Michigan stadiums. One for each dot here.

Then exponentially more impacted generations.

Here's a hopeful piece for the end. There is no other donation you can give where your donation is returned after its used (when the person shows up to court), then used again forever to free countless people.

Donate to @NationalBailOut

nationalbailout.org

Adding an example.

This just happened to an immunocompromised unhoused man accused of stealing blankets. His assessment for likelihood to return to court is near perfect. Judge didn't wanna hear anything and refused to say why he set unaffordable bail.

https://twitter.com/akashvmehta/status/1443024650473287687