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When individuals are arrested or indicted for a crime, governments have legitimate interests in assuring that those individuals show up for future legal proceedings and also do not cause more social harm in the meanwhile. To serve those legitimate interests, governments may restrain the personal liberty of those presumptively innocent individuals--traditionally accomplished either by incarceration or by release subject to certain sureties and conditions. The choice, in short, is between jail and bail. Currently, governments skew that choice by subsidizing the costs of jail but not bail. The result--wholly predictable given the size and asymmetric nature of the subsidy--is that the United States maintains an inefficiently large jail population that both costs taxpayers too much and excessively limits the liberty of too many. Prior commentators and reformers have correctly identified the overuse of pretrial detention in jails as a major public policy crisis and have urged substantial reforms to current bail processes up to and including the abolition of state constitutional rights to bail (as one state has recently done). We believe that the hostility toward bail overlooks the root cause of the problem, which is the asymmetric subsidization of jail over bail. We propose a balanced subsidization system that can preserve the beneficial aspects of a traditional bail surety system while (i) reducing unnecessary and inefficient restraints on individual liberty, (ii) addressing the distributional inequities of current practices, and (iii) saving taxpayers billions of dollars per year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rejbrming the cash bail system in the United States has developed widespread support, but Jew empirical studies examine the consequences of the adopted reforms. In 2018, the Orange County, Florida State Attorney instituted a change in policyfbr nine nonviolent misdemeanor crimes by recommending no-money release for charged defendants. This study examines the effect of this change on defendants' release, failure-to-appear and rearrest rates, sentencing and recidivism outcomes, as well as interviews with seven defendants that shed light on the impact of misdemeanor arrests and detentions on defendants' short- and long-term quality of life and their perceptions of the legal system. Contrary to its purpose and surprisingly, fewer misdemeanor defendants were released after the prosecutor changed the policy. The study results, however, show support for releasing, rather than detaining nonviolent misdemeanor defendants, especially those without prior histories of arrest orfailing to appear. Overall, defendants released on no-money bail were less likely to fail to appear, and defendants charged with policy-only counts (i.e., nonviolent misdemeanors) were less likely to be rearrested pending disposition. Consistent with prior research, downstream consequences associated with detaining even nonviolent misdemeanor defendants at first appearance emerged. Detained defendants were more likely to receive jail sentences and recidivate within six months of disposition. Inferences about the.findings, implications for the legal system and reform policies, as well as suggestionsforfuture scholarly work are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Each night in North Dakota, thousands of people sit in jail for one reason only--they're too poor to get out. They're neither dangerous nor a flight risk, they simply don't have enough money to pay their cash bail. And these amounts are usually low, rarely exceeding $5,000.00. With the use of a bail bondsman, that means freedom costs $500.00 or less. Unable to pay, people instead remain in custody and wait for their day in court, which can take weeks or even months. By contrast, people wealthy enough to afford their cash bail are promptly released and able to go back to their regular lives while their cases progress. Not only does this create a legal caste system that rewards the rich and punishes the poor, it also presents two public policy concerns. First, it severely disrupts still-innocent peoples' lives. And second, it's very expensive for taxpayers. This article focuses on the second concern--the cost of jailing people pretrial. North Dakota is paying millions per year to keep people in custody, but is it getting any benefit for its money? This article examines costs incurred at one North Dakota facility--the Cass County Jail in Fargo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a brief history of cash bail and an overview of current pretrial practices in the U.S., as of June 2019. Topics discussed include ways in which growing rate of incarceration has been resulted in cash bail system; disastrous effects of the system on individuals, indigent and minority defendants, and the U.S. economy; and need of state legislatures should adopt bail reform laws for ending cash bail.

The article focuses on the treatment of poverty tax inherent in criminal cases in the U.S. Topics discussed include policing practices that bring low-income people into the criminal justice system; use of individualized bail assessments by judges for supporting poor families; and analysis of collateral consequences of criminal convictions.

The article reports on the Radio France Internationale (RFI) journalist, Moussa Kaka. According to the author, Kaka was released on bail after being imprisoned for about a year. The author adds that the charges filed against Kaka has been amended from a state security case to "entente with Movement of Niger People for Justice (MNJ) elements."