In late July, Mr. Sanders introduced legislation that would end cash bail on the federal level. “Cash bail” is the current bond system in which people arrested for even low-level offenses are detained pending trial — unless and until they pay a fee. The fees are often arbitrary and often beyond people’s means ($3,000 for allegedly stealing a backpack, $10,000 for a bicycle), leaving the poorest arrestees locked up, sometimes for years, without being convicted of a crime.
Under this system, freedom comes with a price tag, and those who can pay it get to walk while the rest languish in the United States’ bloated prison system. Citing a statistic showing that over 400,000 people are in jail simply because they can’t afford to pay bail, Mr. Sanders called for the end of “modern day debtors’ prisons.”
For low-level crimes, yes and these cases should be processed on a much more timely basis!
To charge someone accused of stealing a backpack $3000 bail is criminal. There are people in jail because they can’t afford to pay fines for traffic tickets. How about being arrested where the only charge is resisting arrest? It’s insane.
The US government exploits its poor and communities of color through mass incarceration for profit. Isn’t that deplorable? We’re the new axis of evil formed by Israel, Saudi Arabia and the US.