Instead of fear-mongering on bail reform, do it right via bipartisan reform bills:
Laurie Albright
Plain Dealer 5/25/22
In the United States, people who are arrested are generally subject to a cash bail system dominated by commercial bail bondsmen. Rather than honoring a presumption of innocence until proven guilty, those who cannot pay bail are held in jail until trial, often for months. The system operates to the disadvantage of the poor while favoring others, regardless of guilt, simply because they have the resources to meet the terms of bail. Other than the United States, only one other country (the Philippines) has such a system.
Some argue that we need bail in the interest of public safety. We should understand that substantially more arrests occur for alleged violations that do not involve violence or other imminent threats to the public. But the cash bail system applies with recommended bail schedules for offenses without regard to ability to pay.
As a woman, I am quite concerned about domestic violence. Although it is more work for a judge to hold a safety hearing and document the reason to hold a person pretrial due to safety concerns, this is a better process than cash bail. It also solves the problem of people with means where there are safety concerns being released.
In addition to poverty, the big drivers of general crime are lack of connection and lack of trust in the system. And what are four common causes of violence? Shame, isolation, exposure to violence, and inability to meet one’s economic needs. So as a culture, when someone is accused of a crime, why would we subject them to precisely the factors we know will make it worse?
Evidence shows that other countries avoid the negative effects of unnecessarily holding people in cages, separating them from family and work responsibilities, and instead, offering pretrial services.
And here in the United States, in January 2017, New Jersey removed cash bail and acted on some offenses with a summons, rather than arrest, resulting in a 44% reduction in the jail population with “no meaningful change” in rearrests or no-shows. Illinois passed a similar measure in February 2021, to take effect in 2023.
“Washington, D.C., eliminated cash bail early on, in 1992. In 2017, 94 percent of defendants were released pretrial without cash bail and 88 percent showed up for all of their court dates,” reports The Marshall Project. There are procedures to evaluate whether an individual is a potential threat to the community and to continue detention if appropriate.
Here in Ohio, bipartisan, thoughtful, well-researched legislative proposals (Senate Bill 182 and House Bill 315) have been introduced to address these issues.
These measures would increase public safety by keeping people facing minor charges who are legally innocent out of jail, so they can keep their jobs to take care of their families and maintain their bonds with the community. For those who present community safety threats, a hearing to establish that concern would keep people detained, as needed.
The case for bail reform was summed up well in the Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law and Policy (Vol. XXV, No. 3, Spring 2018), by Rachel Smith, deputy solicitor general in the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, who wrote: “(We) must work to end pretrial incarceration for all but serious violent crimes, create programs to supervise released defendants, and ensure defendants get the treatment or help they need to not reoffend. Decades of research have indicated that a strategy like this, which helps keep defendants’ families together, keeps defendants employed, helps prevent wrongful conviction and unnecessary guilty pleas, and does not needlessly inflict the mental and emotional harms of incarceration, is the most socially and fiscally effective alternative to a system of pretrial money bail.”
I urge my fellow Ohio residents to resist fear-mongering by people who have a stake in maintaining the current system, and contact their legislators to voice their support for SB 182 and HB 315.
Laurie Albright is retiring after 47 years as a school psychologist/ special education supervisor, most recently working proudly in the East Cleveland City Schools. She is a member of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Cleveland and has been active as a volunteer with both Greater Cleveland Congregations and the Cuyahoga County ACLU Action Team.
Although it is more work for a judge to hold a safety hearing and document the reason to hold a person pretrial due to safety concerns, this is a better process than cash bail.
