The Impact of Virginia's Billion Dollar Corrections System on Our Brown Population

Guest Blog Post

Having spent much of my career working on juvenile justice issues and advocating for corrections reform I have been paying close attention to the proposed criminal justice reforms coming out of our nation’s capital.

For the past several years I have been especially concerned with the impact that our criminal justice policies have on our children and our communities of color, especially on America’s Latino community. I have recently found myself feeling cautiously optimistic that our nation is finally moving towards a more comprehensive approach to addressing the state of our criminal justice system. For me, it seems that we may actually be working towards establishing “smart on crime” policies rather than “tough on crime” policies. My cautious optimism has, however, been significantly diminished by the release of the Justice Policy Institute’s Billion Dollar Divide: Virginia’s Sentencing, Corrections and Criminal Justice Challenge.  

Virginia, Give Me More to Love You For

By Amanda Petteruti

It’s April in Virginia – the flowers are blooming, the trees are flowering, and the General Assembly is still arguing about the state’s budget. Funding for Medicaid may be the primary issue of contention this year, but there should be another issue. This year, for the second time since 2009, a billion dollars of that budget is dedicated to locking people up.

In the time that my family has lived in Virginia, the commonwealth has not outwardly struggled with finances the way some other states have. To cut budgets, many states have looked hard at their spending on incarceration. Virginia has not had to choose to do that. With growing concerns about supporting mental health services, rebuilding crumbling infrastructure, improving transportation, ensuring high quality education, and protecting the environment, it is time to rethink how it spends its money. As a homeowner and a taxpayer in Virginia, it is important how the commonwealth spends my money.

But an argument about money only gets us part-way. The reality is that the commonwealth continues to put more people in prison, keep them there longer, and then refuse to release people who are eligible even though there is no evidence that incarceration makes us safer in the long run. While most of the rest of the country is reducing the number of people behind bars, Virginia is seeing its first increase in five years. As of 2012, it had the 15th highest state imprisonment rate and had the 38th highest prison population.

Improving Accountability, Reducing Incarceration: Shifting to Success-Oriented Federal Funding of Local Law Enforcement

By Jason Ziedenberg
 

In the fall of 2008, the national economy fell off a cliff.  For state, county, and city officials, alarm bells were sounding off as revenue streams that supported everything from schools, to parks to prisons and police were suddenly under strain. 

Staff at local probation and parole departments had the opportunity to see first-hand what an “fiscal emergency” looks like. System leaders were charged with the task of making huge cuts to treatment, housing and services for people under criminal justice supervision, and begged and borrowed every dollar they could find to stave off even more cuts to community-based organizations, and layoffs of staff.

During a time when many Community Based Organizations (CBOs) and community supervision agencies were trying to navigate the Great Recession, the Edwards Byrne Memorial Justice Grant (JAG) funds that government agencies received were a lifeline. Under the 2008 and 2009 federal stimulus, billions of dollars were funneled through JAG to shore up local criminal justice services.

Is Legalizing Marijuana Beneficial?

By Matthew Brosmer

Late last year, Gallup released a poll showing 58 percent of Americans favoring marijuana legalization, while 39 percent were not in favor of it. This is a large increase from 48 percent favoring and 50 not favoring in 2012. As of now, two states have legalized - Colorado and Washington State; 16 states have decriminalized small amounts of marijuana possession; and 20 states plus D.C. have medical marijuana laws. And this month, Washington, D.C. City Council moved to decriminalize marijuana. Congress will have final say, though, since D.C. laws are subject to approval by Congress.

Marijuana legalization could, in fact, help society; there will be benefits in the economy and in the criminal justice system.The economy would improve, bringing back industrial hemp jobs, scientific research on medical marijuana and hemp-related products, and other marijuana related jobs such as working in a dispensary. According to reform advocate and former head of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) Jon Gettman, “marijuana prohibition costs nearly $42 billion in lost taxes per year.” When broken down, “marijuana arrests cost taxpayers $10.7 billion annually” and “the diversion of $113 billion from the taxable economy into the illicit economy deprives taxpayers of $31.1 billion annually.”

In 2007, the U.S. Department of Justice, National Drug Intelligence Center released “The Economic Impact of Illicit Drug Use on American Society,” which found illicit drug use cost more than $193 billion in three sections: crime, health, and productivity.

Juvenile Justice Reforms Continuing – Let’s Keep the Momentum Going!

By Marc Schindler

This week, I was honored to participate in meetings where the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices launched a year-long “Learning Lab” for governors’ senior advisors and other high-level state officials on improving outcomes for youth involved in the juvenile justice system, with a focus on the Connecticut reform experience. How timely as JPI just recently recognized the one year anniversary of two groundbreaking reports by JPI that highlighted the encouraging trend toward reduced confinement of youth nationwide. In the year since the release of our reports, Common Ground: Lessons Learned from Five States that Reduced Juvenile Confinement by More than Half, and Juvenile Justice Reform in Connecticut, we are encouraged to see a continuation of the reform trends we documented. 

After decades of increases in the number of youth being locked up across our country, most of whom are disadvantaged youth of color, we are finally seeing continued progress and recognition that there is a better and more effective way of responding to poor choices by young people. As President Obama said during the launch of his My Brother’s Keeper initiative, a promising effort to help young men of color reach their full potential, “By making sure our criminal justice system doesn’t just function as a pipeline for underfunded schools to overcrowded jails, we can help young men of color stay out of prison and jail.”  Now is the time to make sure this progress continues!

  

Just released data published by the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) show that fewer and fewer young people are incarcerated, and this trend has not made our communities any less safe. The data showed:

• A continuing decline in the number of confined youth in the five states profiled in Common Gound. OJJDP’s data released through the Census of Residential Placement found that in each state profiled in Common Ground –- Arizona, Connecticut, Louisiana, Minnesota, Tennessee –  there was a continuing decline in the number of youth incarcerated. Between 2001 and 2011, these states reported declines in youth incarceration that ranged between 65 to 43 percent.

• A continuing decline in the number of youth confined nationally.  The Census of Residential Placement also showed that the number of youth incarcerated nationally continued to decline, with a 41 percent decline over the decade (2001-2011).

•  Juvenile arrests continued to decline as well, even while fewer youth are being locked up.  OJJDP’s recently released data on arrest trends (Juvenile Arrests 2011) showed that four out of five states saw a decline in youth arrested for violent crime. As has been demonstrated for years, particularly in JDAI sites, we can safely reduce the use of incarceration without a negative impact on public safety.

A special shout out to juvenile justice reforms in Connecticut, which are now influencing policy change around the country

During the year since we published Juvenile Justice Reform in Connecticut: How Collaboration and Commitment Have Improved Public Safety and Outcomes, the story of how Connecticut safely and effectively reduced reliance on incarceration and the transfer of youth into the adult system is drawing increased attention from policy makers and elected officials from around the country.

The report has also been used by policymakers to show how a juvenile justice system can be reformed to be more humane, benefit youth and families, improve public safety, help young people succeed, and reduce the transfer of youth to the adult system. In July, the report was featured in a congressional briefing hosted by U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT). The briefing was moderated by Mike Thompson of the Council of State Governments, and participants included Robert Listenbee, Administrator of OJJDP; Mike Lawlor, Under Secretary for Criminal Justice Policy and Planning, Connecticut; State Senator John Whitmire (D-TX); and Judge Linda Teodosio, Summit County Juvenile Court, Ohio.

The report has also been used and disseminated by the National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the Council of State Governments and advocacy organizations around the country to help policymakers choose better juvenile justice policies. 

As we all know, we still have far too many young people locked up in unsafe facilities, and too few receiving the types of effective services, supports and opportunities they need to succeed.  Having led the juvenile justice agency in Washington, D.C., I know first-hand the challenges of trying to transform a system from one that relies primarily on locking youth up into one that uses secure confinement as a last resort.  It’s not easy work, and our bureaucracies too often cling to the status quo default position of removing a youth from their home instead of doing the hard but more effective work of providing supports that will help a young person succeed. 

President’s Budget: Tiny Steps to Deinarcerate and Billions for Prisons and Police

By Marc Schindler

President Obama and his administration released their Fiscal Year 2015 (FY15) budget plan on March 4. For folks favoring a broader response to meeting public safety and youth development goals, the budget is a mixed bag with the bulk of the Justice Department’s $27 billion being spent on ways to incarcerate and arrest more people. These enormous investments in continuing to lock up more and more people contrasts with the President’s statements at the launch last week of his My Brother’s Keeper initiative: a promising effort intended to create opportunities for boys and young men of color, including approaches to keep them out of the justice system.

The budget takes modest steps to restore some youth development funds deleted from the president’s 2014 budget proposal by the last Congress.  According to the Act for JJ, a campaign that JPI is part of advocating for the reauthorization of a strengthened Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), the budget restores the Juvenile Accountability Block Grants program funding, and continues some of the new monies recommended to help address and eliminate community violence.

While only a small part of the $299.4 million federal juvenile justice budget, it is encouraging to see a $10 million fund for “Juvenile Justice Realignment Incentive Grants” – funds designated to help states implement evidence-based strategies that reduce youth incarceration and foster better outcomes for youth. As we showed in our reports,  Cost Effective Youth Correction:  Rationalizing the fiscal architecture of juvenile justice systems, and Common Ground: Lessons learned from five states that reduced juvenile confinement by more than half, funding streams that help encourage states to right-size their juvenile justice systems have played a big role in reducing the use of incarceration in states.

This is an important step, but a small step. The president’s youth development budget falls short of the funds advocated for by Act for JJ, including the $20 million originally requested by the president to support state deincarceration efforts, and $30 million more needed for juvenile justice efforts overall. These funds are also dwarfed by other budget proposals in the justice realm.  

As Ted Gest notes in The Crime Report, of the $27 billion proposed for Justice, the largest line items are $9 billion for the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s various efforts, and $8.4 billion for the Bureau of Prisons (BOP). Most of the BOP funds are spent on a growing federal prison population, largely driven by the incarceration of individuals for drug offenses.

The president’s proposed budget also boosts funding for the Community Oriented Policing (COPS) program, up from $180 million in FY 2014 to $222 million in FY 2015—something that expands local capacity to arrest more individuals, and subsidizes local government to employ police when cities or counties could be right-sizing.  

In contrast to the billions being spent to imprison and arrest more people, the federal investment in re-entry and other ways to meet public safety needs are failing to keep pace.  The president’s budget includes a modest increase in the Second Chance Act (from $68 million to $115 million), a funding stream that supports reentry efforts in the states.

All eyes are on the $414 federal residential drug abuse program, and whether its implementation will create opportunities for states to treat drug-involved individuals outside of a correctional setting. 

In short, a little additional money to help states ween themselves off youth incarceration is a big deal for a country that spends $80 billion on prisons and jails -- and can make a difference. But there is plenty more work to be done to press elected officials to make smarter budget choices to reduce incarceration, and invest in effective ways to prevent crime.

Also see

• JPI’s Behind the Times: President Obama's FY2013 budget

• Federal Folly: FY2012 U.S. Department of Justice budget gorges on prisons, gouges juvenile justice  

• Fact Sheet on The Obama Administration’s 2011 Budget: More policing, prisons, and punitive policies

• The President's FY2015 Budget Overview

Marc is executive director for the Justice Policy Institute.

Insulation Breakdown: Realities of our Justice System are Shocking

By Spike Bradford

Having worked as an auto mechanic, I often think of criminal and juvenile justice issues the way a mechanic would: as an interacting web of systems. After all, a car is simply a series of systems (ignition, electrical, drive, etc.). The mechanical term that has been in my mind lately is “insulation breakdown.” This usually involves stripped wires or damaged circuits or anything that allows current to go where it’s not supposed to. In short (pun intended), this is a bad thing.

Working in criminal and juvenile justice reform-minded research, I experience “insulation breakdown” of a different sort on a daily basis; a good kind of “insulation breakdown.” You see, unlike many that work in my field, I am not from a disproportionately impacted community of color or close to people who have been negatively affected by what I know to be our broken, arbitrary and institutionally racist systems of justice. I am a middle-class, highly educated, Volvo-driving, NPR-listening white guy. In other words, I’m insulated. Insulated in a way that most Americans are when it comes to understanding criminal and juvenile justice in our country.

Virginia's Justice System: Expensive, Ineffective and Unfair

This Just Policy Blog is a repost from the Campaign for Youth Justice Blog originally posted Wednesday, November 20, 2013.

By Christine Brugh

Last week, the Justice Policy Institute released a new brief titled, “Virginia’s Justice System: Expensive, Ineffective, and Unfair.” The brief examines trends in incarceration in Virginia, delving into topics such as racial disparity and drug laws. According to the brief, Virginia has the 8^th highest incarceration in the United States, making it even more pertinent that these disparities be addressed.

During Governor Allen’s tenure, prisons in Virginia have become even tougher, and have earned a reputation for being one of the most severe systems in the United States. Over-incarceration has contributed to this reputation and has serious consequences for communities and taxpayers in Virginia. The increased use of incarceration has been justified by the goal of reducing crime through the incapacitation of law-breakers. However, this comes at the expense of disproportionate incarceration of African Americans and African-American youth.

The brief reports that the cost to incarcerate a young person in a juvenile facility is approximately $100,000 per year. Virginia’s policies on juvenile justice falls behind those of other states; youth as young as 14 year- old can be transferred to criminal court for certain offenses, and in some cases, the transfer is automatic. According to the brief, Virginia is unnecessarily transferring many of these youth to adult court: a majority of these adolescents do not receive sentences requiring placement in adult prison.

'Lead Them Back to Good Jobs, Good Homes and a Better Life'

By Mishana Garschi

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of theMarch on Washington and the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, George Washington University is hosting a year-long “Pro(Claiming) Freedom” series of events. The fall segment concluded in September with an address from New York Times bestselling author Michelle Alexander. Her renowned book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, has brought the issue of racial and criminal justice to the forefront – finally giving these issues some of the attention they deserve.

In honoring and remembering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Alexander asked, “What does Dr. King’s dream mean in an era of mass incarceration?” Here Alexander is eluding to the fact that 65 million people in this country have been branded as criminals and stripped of their human rights that they supposedly won in the  civil rights movement. Alexander outlined key points of her book, which illuminates how mass incarceration has specifically marked African-American men as permanent second class citizens through the "War on drugs."

Alexander concluded with the opinion that any successful path to racial justice in the criminal justice system must include those individuals that have been marked as “guilty.” She stated, “We need to create an underground railroad for people released from prison and lead them back to good jobs, good homes and a better life, but we have to be willing to work for the abolition of this system of mass incarceration in America.”

Corporate Crime: Getting a Clear Picture of our Criminal Justice System

By Matthew Brosmer

Not following federal guidelines or providing an adequate worker-safety environment is unacceptable. Major multinational corporations tout regulations as harmful, decreasing productivity and incentives for future investment, which is rhetoric and not true. It's interesting to see how low-level offenses receive harsh sentences while white collar offenses? Does our criminal justice system protect people from the most harmful sources?

Site of chemical explosion near Waco, Texas.

Reforming the criminal justice system is a must. A real change in the criminal justice system needs to come from holding those who create the most risk in society accountable. Wealthy individuals and multi-corporations create more in social, environmental, and financial damages and systemic risks, hurting tens to millions of people at a time, contrary to a low-level risk person, who is using drugs or committing theft. Most of the time these corporations will pay a fine for their negligence rather than serving time in federal or state prison.

10 Years Too Long

Just Policy Blog repost by the Campaign for Youth Justice originally posted on October 21, 2013 for Youth Justice Awareness Month. Their recently released report, "State Tends," can be found here.

By Carmen Daugherty

More than a decade ago, a federal law was created to decrease and prevent prison rape and sexual assault in U.S. jails, prisons, detention centers, and lock ups. Yet, ten years later, youth under 18 are still at the highest risk of sexual victimization in adult detention facilities. With nearly 100,000 youth in adult jails and prisons each year, more must be done to protect youth under the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA).

Youth Justice Awareness Month (YJAM) creates awareness for youth in the adult system, and this week, YJAM will focus on raising awareness for the full implementation of PREA. 

PREA includes standards for youth under 18 in adult facilities. Unfortunately, the regulations do not call for the complete removal of kids in adult facilities, but Governors should see these regulations as a floor, not a ceiling.  Under PREA’s Youthful Inmate Standard, facilities must keep youth under 18 sight and sound separated from adults. Often times, adult facilities use solitary confinement or “segregation” to keep youth safe and away from adult offenders. Sadly, youth placed in solitary or segregation are not any safer since we know that youth in adult facilities are 36 times more likely to commit suicide than their counterparts in juvenile facilities. To account for this, the Youthful Inmate Standard states that the use of isolation should not be used as a means to separate youth from adults.

Juvenile Justice & Afterschool: An Important Connection

Just Policy Blog repost by the Afterschool Alliance originally posted October 15, 2013.

By Erik Peterson

Afterschool programs during the peak hours of youth crime keep young people safe while engaging in learning opportunities.

For almost 40 years, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) has supported the work of afterschool programs to protect young people and promote safe communities.
While just one part of the whole JJDPA picture, funding for evidence-based afterschool programs has empowered communities to implement innovative programs that provide opportunities to engage young people in their own futures.

This week, JJDPA will be on our minds as more than one million Americans and thousands of communities nationwide celebrate Lights On Afterschool, an annual event that helps to raise awareness about the need for afterschool programs that keep kids safe, inspire them to learn and help working families.

The JJDPA was one of the first federal legislative efforts to clearly link quality afterschool programming to prevention of youth crime and violence. Within Title V of the law, Incentive Grants for Local Delinquency Prevention Programs fund a range of innovative and effective initiatives that bring together communities to provide mentoring and engaging activities for young people.

Campaign for Youth Justice Releases New Report - State Trends: Legislative Victories 2011-2013

Just Policy Blog repost by the Campaign for Youth Justice originally posted on October 10, 2013.


By Carmen Daugherty

Today the Campaign releases its newest report: State Trends Legislative Victories from2011-2013 Removing Youth from the Adult Criminal Justice System. 

State Trends documents the achievements of the past eight years in which twenty three states enacted forty pieces of legislation to reduce the prosecution of youth in adult criminal courts and end the placement of youth in adult jails and prisons. October is the perfect month to highlight these state victories by releasing our newest publication during Youth Justice Awareness Month.

State Trends documents the continuation of four trends in justice reform efforts across the country.  In the last eight years the following progress was made:

• Trend 1: Eleven states (Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Nevada, Hawaii, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Texas, Oregon and Ohio) have passed laws limiting states’ authority to house youth in adult jails and prisons.
• Trend 2: Four states (Connecticut, Illinois, Mississippi, and Massachusetts) have expanded their juvenile court jurisdiction so that older youth who previously would be automatically tried as adults are not prosecuted in adult criminal court.
• Trend 3: Twelve states (Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Nevada, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Ohio, Maryland and Nevada) have changed their transfer laws making it more likely that youth will stay in the juvenile justice system.
• Trend 4: Eight states (California, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Texas, Missouri, Ohio, and Washington) have changed their mandatory minimum sentencing laws to take into account the developmental differences between youth and adults, allow for post-sentence review for youth facing juvenile life without parole or other sentencing reform for youth sentenced as adults.

Substantial Progress Thanks to Collaboration and Risk Assessment ​

Just Policy Blog Guest Post as part of Pretrial Justice Institute and Justice Policy Institute Bail Month 2013. This post was originally posted Monday, September 23, 2013 by the Pretrial Justice Institute.


By John Chisholm, Milwaukee County District Attorney

Every prosecutor’s office in the country shares common challenges, regardless of size and population demographics. Prosecutors also share a set of core values grounded in protecting the public, holding offenders accountable and maintaining the integrity of the criminal justice system. I fundamentally believe that what prosecutors do on a daily basis makes communities better, but it is very easy to become consumed and defined by what happens inside the courthouse walls.  How we do the work of prosecutors does matter, and a growing body of research shows that the decisions we make concerning how we hold offenders accountable can play a significant role in stabilizing individuals, families and communities by changing the behavior that leads to repeated criminal acts.

In deciding what to do with any individual contacting the justice system, prosecutors naturally try to obtain as much information and evidence as possible concerning the alleged crime, the prior criminal history of the defendant and the harm done to the victim or community. Historically, we have not been objectively well informed about the risk that the person poses to commit new offenses. Sure, we use our professional judgment and institutional experience to approximate risk, but only recently have we started examining whether our assumptions are supported by the outcome we desire: is an offender changed by the encounter? Does he or she stop committing crimes?

In this context, two Wisconsin counties, Milwaukee and Eau Claire, have committed to developing a framework that places risk assessment at the forefront of our decision making process. Working with experts in pretrial justice services, we developed validated risk assessment tools that we apply to everyone coming into our jail. The objective is to have actuarial information that helps better inform decisions on what we do or do not charge, what kind of bail conditions are set and what kind of intervention resources we apply early on in the continuum from arrest to sentencing. Some tools are used to assess short-term risk, addressing whether a defendant will show up for court and obey conditions of release. Other tools tell us how likely the person is to commit new offenses.

Here’s the Problem with Bail ...

Just Policy Blog Guest Post as part of Pretrial Justice Institute and Justice Policy Institute Bail Month 2013. 

By Jean Chung

 
Say you’re arrested in Baltimore City. At your initial bail hearing, the bail commissioner will examine your current charge and your criminal record, if you have one. Based on this information, the bail commissioner will determine your bail amount—or whether you will be offered bail at all. If you are denied bail, you’ll be sitting in jail until your court date, which might be weeks or even months from now. If you are offered bail but can’t afford to pay, too bad. You’ll be sitting, too.

Here’s the problem: if two people with identical offense histories are arrested for the same crime and offered the same bail amount, a difference as arbitrary as the size of their wallets may keep one person in jail while the other walks free. When a bail system relies almost exclusively on financial terms of release, it inevitably results in the release of wealthier people while poorer individuals stay locked up for no reason other than their inability to pay. Since the criminal justice system has a disproportionate impact on low-income communities, bail amounts as low as $100 can keep people behind bars. On February 13, 2012, there were 40 people in the Baltimore City jail who had been detained because they could not afford bail amounts between $100 and $500.

A bail system that penalizes folks for being poor isn’t just discriminatory—it yields grave consequences for individuals and families. At 52 years old, Ed Spence was arrested and charged with fraud and a probation violation. He never even met with a bail commissioner; a correctional officer at Central Booking simply informed him that he would not receive bail. After that, he spent 40 days in jail awaiting trial. When he got out, the job he’d held at Safeway for 10 years was gone. He had been replaced.

Representation at First Appearance Bail Hearings

Just Policy Blog Guest Post as part of Pretrial Justice Institute and Justice Policy Institute Bail Month 2013. This post was originally posted Monday, September 23, 2013 by the Pretrial Justice Institute.

By Doug Colbert

Kudos to PJI for bringing national attention to much needed reform at the front-end of states' justice systems. Veterans of pretrial justice know that a defendant’s access to bail money typically determines which people accused of crime will regain liberty before trial and who will stay in jail for days, weeks and months at public expense until final disposition.

PJI’s emphasis on an evidence-based, risk assessment and recommendation provides another way. It allows judicial officers to make better informed decisions that often will lead to appropriate supervision rather than unnecessary jail for people charged with non-violent crimes and others who do not pose a significant safety or flight risk. Consistent with current law, Pretrial supervision provides a non-financial alternative to incarceration for people who lack the necessary bail money and who can be trusted to return to court.

Yet states’ pretrial justice reform must take one more critical step to enhance the administration of fair and equal justice for low-income and poor defendants and maximize cost savings in unnecessary incarceration.  They must include the surprising missing player -- the public defender and assigned defense lawyer -- and guarantee counsel’s representation at a defendant’s initial appearance. A defense lawyer’s early representation provides the necessary additional information and advocacy to ensure that judicial officers rule correctly.

We Need More Bail Reform

Just Policy Blog Guest Post as as part of Pretrial Justice Institute and Justice Policy Institute Bail Month 2013. This post was originally posted Wednesday, September 18, 2013 by Pretrial Services Agencies for the District of Columbia.

By Clifford T. Keenan, Director

September is Bail Month. Bail Month features activities aimed at educating the public on the need for bail reform in America’s courts. Most jurisdictions across the nation continue to rely on money bail as the mechanism for release and detention, albeit almost 50 years since the Bail Reform Act of 1966 introduced the concept of least restrictive non-financial pretrial release and over 40 years since the Court Reform and Criminal Procedures Act of 1971 set forth legal statutory-based pretrial detention of truly dangerous defendants. Money bail contributes to unnecessary detention of many low-risk pretrial defendants, inappropriate release of high-risk defendants who have financial means, unwarranted financial burdens on low-income communities, and the gamble of placing public safety in the hands of a bail bonding industry that always will put profit before the public good.

While there is much work still needed throughout the country, there is also much progress being made toward pretrial reform. Pretrial Justice Institute Executive Director Tim Murray notes, “Bail Month is undoubtedly a time to renew our commitment to pretrial reform, it is also time to celebrate. There is wonderful work being done by an ever-growing coalition of professionals who refuse to accept a status quo that is anything less than the best we can do for our communities.” For many criminal justice professionals and advocates looking to reform their bail systems, the District of Columbia continues to be the model of fair and effective pretrial decision-making and programming.

Respecting the Rights of Defendants

Just Policy Blog Guest Post as as part of Pretrial Justice Institute and Justice Policy Institute Bail Month 2013

By Lauren-Brooke Eisen

Across the country, too many jurisdictions still depend on money bail to determine which defendants can be released pretrial. Forcing defendants to face financial loss if they flee, proponents insist, is essential to ensure that they will return to court. Those who cannot afford bail remain in jail, a reality that disproportionally impacts low-income communities. This practice has significantly increased our overreliance on incarceration, contributing to an exponential growth in our prison population over the past three decades. More than 2 million Americans are behind bars, 20 percent of those pretrial, and more than 65 million adults – a quarter of the nation’s adult population – have criminal records.

In 1966, the United States Bail Reform Act established the rationale of bail: to guarantee a defendant’s court appearance. The Act emphasized that when possible, the law favors release pending trial. The law established a presumption of release by the least restrictive conditions with an emphasis on non-monetary terms of bail. Two decades later, the Bail ReformAct of 1984 permitted judges to consider the danger a defendant posed to the community as a factor in making bail decisions.

Five decades of research has consistently shown that pretrial detention increases post-conviction incarceration. These studies show that defendants detained in jail while awaiting trial plead guilty more often, are convicted more frequently, are sentenced to prison at a greater rate, and receive harsher sentences than those who are released awaiting trial or case disposition.