Re:California governor signs overhaul of bail system
by pc86 on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @08:54AM
(#17867814)
The original statement was "a very large percentage people in jail are there because their bail was literally $50 or $100 but they didn't have the money to pay it." So to determine the accuracy of that you need to see how many people are in jail specifically for failure to pay a very small bail amount. The fact that 32% are held on bail doesn't address the original point. From the linked source, page three:
> When the bail was under $10,000, most defendants secured release, including 7 in 10 defendants with bail under $5,000 (figure 3).
So we're talking about $50-100 bail fines, but even if you raise the definition of "small amount" to $5k, 70% of those are released. We're already down into single digit percentages of folks with a <$5k bail set who are financially unable to pay it. I wish the data went to $1k and below because I imagine the percentage unable to pay would be minuscule.
> When the bail was under $10,000, most defendants secured release, including 7 in 10 defendants with bail under $5,000 (figure 3).
So we're talking about $50-100 bail fines, but even if you raise the definition of "small amount" to $5k, 70% of those are released. We're already down into single digit percentages of folks with a <$5k bail set who are financially unable to pay it. I wish the data went to $1k and below because I imagine the percentage unable to pay would be minuscule.