Doctor Steuss wrote: ↑Wed Oct 12, 2022 10:26 pm
ajax18 wrote: ↑Wed Oct 12, 2022 10:19 pm
What happens when the bail is nothing. At least this time it was $1000. Are you sure no cash bail is a good idea? Is that a winning issue for Mandela Barnes in the state that just hosted the Waukesha parade massacre?
I don't know. Maybe liberal leftist socialist Scott Walker can help answer it.
I'm sorry for the knee-jerk flippant response above.
The elimination of cash bail doesn't mean everyone gets to just automatically get released until trial. There are alternate forms of bail that can be established (such as partially secured bonds), and risk-based systems that can be used in conjunction. Ultimately, the most effective thing would be the the one thing that most people (in particular, Republicans) don't want. Increased funding, and government expansion for the judicial/prosecution/defense side of the justice system.
To use a line from a Vera report, there are ways of "reducing the use of pretrial detention without compromising public safety or rates of court appearance" outside of the one-size-fits-all cash bail system.
(PDF Warning:
Vera Report on Some NY Cases That Used Alternatives)
I hope you'll indulge me in a thought experiment. Imagine you're arrested for a minor offense. If it helps, imagine you are innocent of the crime, and your innocence will eventually be established. Bail is set at $3,000. Here's the rub. You don't have $3,000.
Now, there are two ways this could go from here. You might have some collateral you could put up with a bail bonds joint. In this case, you'd have to pay interest, as well as fees. Now, because you don't have $3,000 to pay as bail (which you would have gotten back, if you had been able to pay it), you now had to pay money, that you'll never get back, in order to get out of jail for a crime you didn't commit.
The other way it could go, is you don't have collateral. You now have to wait in jail until the loooong process of you having a trial -- or you can plead guilty to the crime you didn't commit. If you stay in jail, you now lose your employment, and everything that you are paying bills on (like your living space). You'll likely lose just about all physical possessions, unless you have family/friends that will retrieve and store them for you. Once you're released, upon being found innocent, you are now jobless and homeless.
In this situation, do you think our one-size-fits-all cash bail system is the right thing? You've either lost everything, or you've had to pay money that you'll never get back, even after you're shown to be innocent.
I know it's likely difficult to put yourself in this situation. After all, we're generally conditioned to think that only guilty people go to jail. It's also hard, if you've never been in the position, to imagine working 60+ hours a week, and living paycheck to paycheck, with no viable collateral. But, this is what the cash bail system does. If you're going to be all-in, then you have to be perfectly fine with innocent people being irreparably punished simply for being poor. For me, and a lot of people, that's a hard pill to swallow. It's easy to hide behind the specter of extreme cases where the cash bail system failed, for being too low. It's much more difficult to face the realty of people being punished for the crime of not having excess money.