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cash bail
Freedom Isn’t Free When You’re Black and Poor
The unforgiving reality of cash bail transforms “innocent until proven guilty” into “guilty until proven wealthy.”
Feb 08, 2025
When I was 17, I was charged with a crime I didn’t commit.
During an argument, I was arrested and wrongfully accused of threatening someone with a firearm, which I hadn’t done. My bail was set impossibly high, far beyond what I could afford, especially as a father to a newborn son. Forced to wait for my day in court behind bars, I came to a heartbreaking realization: If I or someone in my family had been wealthy, I could have walked free. Instead, I was denied my presumption of innocence and ripped from my family because I couldn’t pay for my freedom.
The American criminal justice system, which promises equal justice under the law, punishes poverty, tears families apart, and devastates communities like mine.
We need a system where release is based on case-by-case assessments of safety, not wealth.
Sadly, my story isn’t unique. It reflects a system that routinely prioritizes wealth over justice, especially for Black Americans. As someone who personally faced the burdens of cash bail and now works to alleviate that burden for others through The Bail Project—a national nonprofit providing free bail assistance and pretrial support to thousands of low-income people every year—I firmly believe that we have two systems of justice: one for the wealthy and one for everyone else.
This system incarcerates over 60% of people arrested before trial simply because they can’t afford bail. Safety, not wealth or race, should determine who is held or released before trial. Yet, wealth often dictates freedom. Many accused face nonviolent, low-level charges and pose no risk to public safety, but the unforgiving reality of cash bail transforms “innocent until proven guilty” into “guilty until proven wealthy.”
When someone is arrested, a court can impose a cash bail amount: a sum of money required for their release before trial. If you have the funds, you’re released from jail, no matter the circumstances. If you don’t, you’re locked up. Sometimes for weeks, months, or even years.
Judges tasked with setting bail often make these critical decisions in less than five minutes, relying on limited information and implicit biases that disproportionately affect Black defendants, during hearings that rarely require evidence, and often proceed without legal counsel for the defendants. As a result, Black defendants are detained more often than white defendants facing the same charges. On average, courts impose bail amounts nearly $10,000 higher for Black individuals than their white counterparts.
This disparity has devastating consequences, especially in communities of color. Being jailed before trial makes it harder to fight your case, leading many to plead guilty, even if they’re innocent, just to get out. It risks jobs, housing, physical health, and child custody while exposing legally innocent people to unsafe and traumatizing jail conditions.
Consider Christopher, a Black Gulf War veteran who was arrested for alleged possession of a controlled substance. His bail was set at $1,000: an insurmountable sum for him. Christopher was forced to wait in jail for six weeks before his case was dismissed. During that time, he lost his job as a house painter and his PTSD worsened. All of that suffering, and it was for nothing.
Then there’s Ashley, a Black woman eight months pregnant when a scheduling error led to her arrest for a nonviolent misdemeanor. Unable to pay a $11,500 bail, Ashley spent three weeks in a filthy, overcrowded jail cell, sleeping on the floor without a mattress. She lost her job, her apartment, and was forced to sleep in her car with her newborn daughter after giving birth.
We need a system that ensures fairness and protects safety for everyone. We need a system where release is based on case-by-case assessments of safety, not wealth.
Fortunately, alternatives to cash bail exist and work. Illinois became the first state to completely eliminate cash bail in 2023, and judges now determine who needs to be detained pretrial based on risk to others, not money. This shift has kept communities safe while reducing the number of people needlessly incarcerated pretrial. Nationally, more than 30 cities have safely minimized the use of cash bail, according to research from the Brennan Center for Justice.
This Black History Month, as we reflect on how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go to achieve racial equality, let’s not overlook the urgent need for bail reform. Ending cash bail is more than public policy; it’s a moral imperative.
It’s time to put an end to cash bail and write a safer, fairer future for everyone.
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Why Mutual Aid Is Vital to Criminal Justice Reform’s Next Chapter
Bail funds play a powerful and important role not only in reducing the structural harms caused by our nation’s reliance on failing cash bail policies, but also in strengthening and preserving our country’s democratic ideals.
Dec 24, 2024
As political analysts continue to piece together the results of this year’s general election, an illuminating takeaway has emerged on issues related to criminal justice: Voters who cast their ballot in red states also voted in local elections for reform-minded candidates and passed progressive criminal justice ballot measures; whereas in some blue states, voters preferred candidates who promise to implement tough-on-crime policies.
These results show that people’s political beliefs no longer easily fall along party lines. And criminal justice reform doesn’t offer any obviously easy solutions. For many, what matters most is feeling safe in our communities. It also suggests that most people believe accomplishing this requires us to no longer view matters like criminal justice as partisan issues.
When I think about this, the legacy and words of John Lewis—a civil rights leader turned congressman—spring to mind: “We cannot thrive as a democracy when justice is reserved for only those with means,” Lewis wrote in 2020. It was at the height of a national movement for racial justice, and his words and the social unrest were signs of a new movement for a more just and equitable America. Lewis was 80 years old then and severely ill with cancer, yet he remained optimistic about the future of America. Several years since his death, Lewis’ lifework and reflections still resonate deeply.
Supporting different networks of mutual aid organizations, like bail funds, is how communities can lean on their shared values and hold tight to their purpose.
As our nation works to bridge divides and find common ground, Lewis’ legacy continues to offer our nation guidance. From the Jim Crow era of the 1960s to the political and racial justice movement that swept the country in 2020, Lewis witnessed our country’s capacity to transform. His life experiences and reflections offer a roadmap for how people can protect and strengthen American democracy. He believed, for instance, that democracy cannot thrive “where power remains unchecked and justice is reserved for a select few. Ignoring these cries and failing to respond to this movement is simply not an option—for peace cannot exist where justice is not served.”
In today’s America, countless people are still living on the receiving end of that reality. Unarmed Black men continue to be brutally beaten by police. Women are being criminalized for pregnancy loss and for seeking reproductive healthcare. Meanwhile, families are being torn apart by a broken criminal justice system that puts a price on freedom for the legally innocent. But Lewis’ words offer us insight: “As a nation, if we care for the Beloved Community, we must move our feet, our hands, our hearts, our resources to build and not to tear down, to reconcile and not to divide, to love and not to hate, to heal and not to kill.”
To follow in Lewis’ footsteps means viewing this moment in our nation’s history as an opportunity to turn feelings of frustration and uncertainty into positive engagement with our community and fellow neighbors. One way to do that is through mutual aid—the practice of ordinary people helping others in their community by providing resources and services to help meet people’s needs. Groups organized for this purpose, like local community bail funds and The Bail Project, exist to support people when the government does not. Through wealth-based detention that results from the use of cash bail, our cities, states, and counties have shirked their responsibility to preserve the presumption of innocence, establishing a two-tiered system of justice: one for the rich, and another for everyone else.
Charitable bail organizations, like The Bail Project, are often local grassroot groups spearheaded by people from the communities they serve, staffed, for example, by faith leaders, legal experts, and advocates for criminal justice reform. Charitable bail organizations provide free bail assistance and even supportive services—such as court reminders and transportation assistance—to incarcerated people who have already been deemed eligible for release by a judge. In fact, many of the legally innocent people they help have been accused of low-level nonviolent misdemeanors, such as forgetting to attend a scheduled court date. Oftentimes, the only reason people remain incarcerated in jail before trial is because they cannot afford to pay the court a few hundred dollars in exchange for their release before trial—not because they pose a risk of flight or public safety concerns.
Bail funds play a powerful and important role not only in reducing the structural harms caused by our nation’s reliance on failing cash bail policies, but also in strengthening and preserving our country’s democratic ideals. In providing people who a judge has already determined is safe to release with free bail assistance and court support, we safeguard our country’s notions of liberty, freedom, and the presumption of innocence. These are fundamental principles that underpin American democracy—regardless of political affiliation. This work helps our society reimagine how our bail and pretrial systems can be improved.
As we look ahead, the road forward may not be easy, but we’re not alone on it. The work of mutual aid groups and charitable bail funds has helped usher in change. Over the last decade, more than 20 cities have safely minimized the use of cash bail. Supporting different networks of mutual aid organizations, like bail funds, is how communities can lean on their shared values and hold tight to their purpose. Now, more than ever, we must keep our eyes on what we’re here to accomplish, the change we’re fighting for, and the commitment that brought us together. Because, in the words of Lewis: “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.”
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A Year of the Illinois Pretrial Fairness Act Sets a National Model for Reform
By ending the use of money bail, the law not only curbed incarceration rates but also maintained public safety.
Sep 24, 2024
One year ago the Illinois Pretrial Fairness Act went into effect. By ending the use of money bail in courts across the state, it both reduced the number of people in jail pending trial and made the legal system more fair and just—at no cost to our safety. After 12 months, the impressive results are in, and policymakers across the country should take note.
Recent data released by Loyola University’s Center for Criminal Justice indicates that the Pretrial Fairness Act has not only curbed incarceration rates but also maintained public safety. Jail populations decreased by 14% in Cook County and other urban jurisdictions and 25% in select rural counties. As these jail numbers have dropped, so have crime rates across Illinois—for example, statewide violent and property crime rates dropped by 12%. As a case study for the practicality and necessity of bail reform, the Pretrial Fairness Act has proven its impact.
In passing the law, leaders in Illinois followed a robust body of evidence that finds wealth-based detention undermines both safety and justice. A two-tiered legal system where someone who is wealthy can afford to pay bail and return home pending trial while someone who cannot afford their freedom languishes in jail—for weeks, months, or even years—is not just. Moreover, years of research shows that pretrial detention is counter to public safety, as even a few hours in jail is so destabilizing that it makes a person more likely to be arrested again in the future.
Illinois’ success shows there is no false choice between being safe or having a more just legal system.
Loud opponents of bail reform in Illinois claimed that the law would empty jails and compromise public safety. They spent $40 million on a high-profile campaign to undermine the Pretrial Fairness Act even before it went into effect, calling the law “the Purge” and using racist dog whistles to peddle sensational and false stories about crime. But the evidence speaks for itself, and Illinois’ success is not an outlier. Data from New Jersey, which enacted bail reform over seven years ago, shows the jail population declined and the number of people awaiting trial in jail fell by 40% while crime rates went down. Even in New York, where bail reform has been much maligned, a recent study found that the reform has not contributed to a rise in crime.
A significant cross section of Illinois stakeholders came together in support of the Pretrial Fairness Act: Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Attorney General Kwame Raoul, the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus, law enforcement leaders from across the state, and advocacy groups like the Coalition to End Money Bond, the Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice, The Network: Advocating Against Domestic Violence, and the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, to name just a few.
Importantly, victims and survivors of violence were a key part of the movement to end money bail in Illinois. What motivated this diverse group of champions for reform? For one, the shocking racial disparities that result from a money bail system, where Black and brown families, and families experiencing poverty, disproportionately bear the brunt of making an impossible choice between paying for the freedom of their loved one versus making rent, putting food on the table, and paying for other basic necessities.
A money bail system also forces people to make the impossible choice of staying in jail to insist on their day in court or pleading guilty to go home. Ending the money bail system in Illinois was also a matter of gender justice. Mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, and other women are most often the ones to pay bail when their loved one is incarcerated. And, of women who are incarcerated, 70-80% have experienced intimate partner violence. Taking money bail out of the equation and having fewer people—including women—behind bars begins to right some of those wrongs.
There are many other important statistics that drive home the point that we need to eliminate money bail not only in Illinois, but across the United States. Black people represent 13.6% of the United States population but account for 53% of exonerations. People incarcerated for as little as 72 hours are 2.5 times more likely to be unemployed one year later. Illinois’ success shows there is no false choice between being safe or having a more just legal system. As we celebrate a year of the Illinois Pretrial Fairness Act, people around the country should take note. Wealth-based detention has always been an obstacle to a safer future, but we have real solutions that deliver both safety and justice.
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