Thread by @TxJailProject

🧵This weekend we’ll be talking about bail in Texas at #TribFest22. To ground our comments, we’ll be sharing stories of community members in Smith County whose stories illustrate the cruel consequences of wealth based detention in everyday communities across the state.

Today we’d like to talk to you about Karen R., from Smith county. Karen is an elder Smith co. community member who, two years ago, was fighting stage three breast cancer when she was arrested and kept in jail because she couldn’t afford $165.

Karen’s continuity of care - both for cancer and her mental health - were cruelly and devastatingly interrupted by her unconstitutional confinement because she was too poor.

Karen had to repeatedly ask for an attorney while jailed. When @txjailproject tried to advocate on her behalf w/pretrial services, the response was, “She’s transient and cannot afford to pay 3% of her bond.” They assumed incorrectly that she was homeless without ever verifying.

Karen was one of @txjailproject’s earliest community bailouts, before we formalized and created our bail fund. After paying the insulting $165 for her freedom, Karen was released back to her community, and back to her chemotherapy.

Her case would later be dismissed.

Since 1980, the number of women in jail in the US has increased 986% according to @VeraInstitute. Karen is one of the millions of moms, sisters, grandmothers and friends who are behind that horrifying statistic.

In rural Texas, jail populations have grown more than 65% since 2000. Karen is exactly the everyday kind of person–and #SmithCounty is exactly the kind of everyday community–being decimated by Texas’ commitment to discriminating against poor people.

Join us this Saturday in #Austin to learn more about Texas’ broken #CashBail system. It’s one of the free panels of the festival, so anyone can join.
festival-platform.texastribune.org/agenda/session…