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Waiting for Trial is now Waiting for a Death Sentence

Posted on by jtimilty

People all around America are getting put in jail for non violent offences solely because they are unable to afford their bail. With America having an innocent until proven guilty rule, they are being held behind bars as innocent people because there has yet to be a trial for them. Before the Covid-19 Pandemic, this was a social injustice issue but now it has become a health issue for these people. The CDC recommends people remain 6 feet apart, wash hands as often as possible and wear a mask, all of the things that prisoners are unable to do. Considering how contagious and rapid this virus is, our prisons are not able to follow health guidelines. COVID 19 is spreading so aggressively in the prisons that these innocent people are being exposed to it even though the only issue is that they are unable to afford bail. 

Many families all around America barely make enough money to afford the necessities every week, nevermind have enough to create a savings account. This is called a Poverty Trap, where people are unable to get any financial gain because they are only able to cover the bare minimum. If someone from one of these families goes to jail for an offense such as an overdue parking ticket and bail is set at $400, that amount is unachievable to many families. Instead of being able to get out of jail and wait at home until their trial, they now are being kept in a jail cell while this contagious virus is spreading all because they are unable to afford the bail. 

A solution to this problem could be that bail should be based on the defendant’s ability to pay the bail, not on the amount the judge chooses. In 2017, Cook County in Chicago created a bail reform bill that states “Prior to setting or modifying a condition of release that includes monetary bail, the court shall conduct an inquiry into the defendant’s ability to pay monetary bail.” This means that the court goes through different testing with the defendant including finding out how much money they make, to be able to give them a bail amount they are able to afford. The county either reduced the amount of bail to what they could afford or gave no bail at all to these pre-trial detainees. The county performed two 15 month long studies to show the aftermath of the reform.The results of this reform resulted in a 40% decrease in prison population and the FBI reported that “post reform order, from January-June 2018, violent crimes reported in Chicago decreased by 8%.” Considering we’re in the middle of a pandemic with an extremely contagious virus, if other cities adapted this reform, there would be a tremendous decrease in prison population. Our government needs to take an intense look at prison reform and how they can help out innocent people before putting them behind bars in a pandemic.

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