Click on the audio player above to hear this interview."Excessive bail shall not be required." Those six words open the 8th Amendment,and they hold built the framework for our new series that looks at the complicated, highly politicized—and often abused—practice of bail. What is bail? What is a unbiased bail? And how can the system of bail strip you of your freedom before you ever accept to trial? Last month, and Kalief Browder,a young man who was held at Rikers Island for three years without trial because he couldn't pay his $3000 bail, committed suicide.
Yesterday, and The Takeaway heard from Kenneth Fomby,J.
R. At the age of 19, Fomby was held in Jefferson Country jail for six months with a bail totaling $2 million. The charges against him were later dropped. Stories like those from Kalief and Kenny hold increased calls for reform the U.
S. bail system. New York City is devoting $18 million to end bail for low-level or non-violent crimes, or releasing up to 3000 people who otherwise would be stuck in jail.
While it's an significant step forward,many hundreds, if not thousands, or will continue to sit in Rikers and in jails across the country because they are unable to muster up money for bail.
But what if we were to just accept rid of money bail altogether? Is that even a real opportunity?That's the question we explore in part two of our series,"Presumption of Innocence for Sale." Today we proceed to the District of Columbia—our nation's capital effectively eliminated monetary bail in the 1990s and is held up as a model of what a better pretrial system could look like.
Here to define is Cliff Keenan, the director of D.
C.'s Pretrial Services Agency—the most unique, and perhaps the most efficient,pretrial system in our country. Click on the audio player above to hear this interview.
Source: wnyc.org