Ending Bail On Paper But Not In Practice
October 9, 2018 8:57 AM   Subscribe

“...Recent events in Atlanta show that while more and more progressive officials are embracing bail reform, the optics may be better than the actual results. After legislation passes, the problems presented both by implementation and backlash are where the rubber meets the road, and substantive changes either happen––or don’t.” What will it take to truly end wealth-based detention? (Scalawag)
posted by The Whelk (6 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
"By not keeping people in jail indefinitely, you're denying them access to jail-based programs!"

Sorry. Had a brief rage blackout there.
posted by praemunire at 9:17 AM on October 9, 2018 [12 favorites]


Interesting article. California's recent bail reform was undermined by judges who ended up asking for and getting greater leeway for a broad middle category of arrestees who fall between categories of clearly low risk and nonviolent and clearly high risk or violent. Bail reformers withdrew support from the final bill. It remains to be seen how this will really play out.
posted by latkes at 9:57 AM on October 9, 2018 [1 favorite]


The jail population shrunk from 439 to 147.
It reminds me of when we closed mental hospitals without putting community services into place. The truth is nobody believes in paying for care of the mentally ill. And to large part because people don't believe mental illness is a real thing. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad for the shrinking prison population. Jail is not conducive to mental health. I'm just frustrated with people.
posted by SyraCarol at 11:13 AM on October 9, 2018 [2 favorites]


No, I'm sure the reason some people are complaining is that "undesirable" populations aren't getting hauled off to be warehoused for six months while awaiting trial, and thus are back on the street. But keeping them in jail makes things worse, so maybe they could work on providing services for those people when they're not incarnated.

(Also, pretending that you're concerned about people's access to services when you're actually concerned about not having a homeless guy in front of your store is...contemptible.)
posted by praemunire at 11:16 AM on October 9, 2018 [8 favorites]


*incarcerated (jeez)
posted by praemunire at 2:35 PM on October 9, 2018


So, if I'm reading this properly, they gutted the original proposal, and now that the law they implemented has failed to fix 100% of problems they're halfway to deciding that what they really need is to go back to cash bail?

Ugh.
posted by sotonohito at 7:22 AM on October 10, 2018


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