The idea is that it's immoral to charge people (who have not been convicted of a crime) money to be let out of jail. Cash bail hurts poor people who either can't get the money, or get charged usurious rates to borrow the money.

It's easy enough to find cases where crime could have been avoided if the offender were locked up. Stories of innocent people spending time in jail or losing large sums of money aren't as enticing.

I feel like saying "charge people money" and "losing large sums of money" misrepresents what bail is. It's a deposit that gets refunded to you in full as long as you don't skip town instead of showing up for your trial.

It's only refunded (minus fees) if you have thousands of dollars lying around. Poor people don't have that. They have to use a bail bond company, which means paying large sums of money they will never get back. Many poor people can't even afford to use a bail bond company and have to stay in jail, or plead guilty to a crime they didn't commit.

> which means paying large sums of money

And in the wonderful cycle of capitalism, that money is then used to fund ballot propositions to keep cash bail in place

Is that due to simple usury or due to cost of risk? In other words, if enough of the bailed pop. skips bail (complete loss for bondsman), that money has to come from somewhere --and that somewhere may be both honest and dishonest criminals as well as innocent suspects.

It's a mix of both.

The bail bond industry (like most "vice" industries) has much higher profit margins than comparable insurance companies: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/05/bail-bo...

I would say it's statism or cronyism rather than capitalism. It doesn't have anything to do with ownership of the means of production.

It's quite literally ownership of assets being leveraged to make more money. It's as indelibly tied to capitalism as any other type of loan.

Unless you meant "cash bail" and not "bail bonds"

I feel like ignoring that a vast majority of American people live paycheck to paycheck and then pretending people have “refundable deposit” cash piles sitting around is either incredibly disingenuous or the first time you’ve ever thought about poverty

The "losing large sums of money" was in reference to taking out a loan to pay the money, they are expensive. I feel like that was pretty clear in my comment.

In practice most people are forced to use bail bonds. If your cash bail is set to $150k, you're going to go to a bail bondsman and pay them $15k instead (and lose that 15k forever).

Cash bail is a monstrous creation.

sure, except most people don't have enough money for bail lying around, most can't afford a $400 emergency. So that bail money comes from their family rent / food money. That or they just sit in prison, and lose their jobs. So they may have all charges dropped but still end up financially devastated due to bail.

I live in a country where there is no cash bail (France). Whether you walk free from a tribunal or end up in pre-trial detention is still pretty much based on the whims and desires of racist (and poor-loathing) police, judges and prosecutors. Notably, homeless people are almost systematically locked up for a year or two before they can face trial for what is usually harmless illegal activity they have committed (such as stealing food from a supermarket, or cracking a squat).

Reformism cannot help the people against the judicial system because the judicial system is not broken: it was designed to oppress the poor and the immigrants, and from this perspective it's quite efficient and well-oiled. No amount of good-will reform (short of police/prison abolition) can change much about it. I can admit the situation may be different in the USA, since i hear (from TV shows, sorry) you can be convicted/acquitted by a jury of your peers? If that existed in France (except for the "Assises" court), i can assure you prison population would not have been multiplied in the past decades for what usually amounts to selling weed, stealing from a supermarket, demonstrating against our overlords, or just being an arab/black person walking down the streets when the cops want to beat you up and accuse you of all the wrongs you can imagine.

Keeping a person in jail because they can't afford bail is obviously horrible for that person, and that should be reason enough to oppose it, but it can also be harmful for other people.

A poor person who is finally acquitted after months of waiting in jail is likely to be released to homelessness, unemployment, and debt. They will also be suffering from the mental and physical trauma of their incarceration, which makes it more difficult for them to deal with their situation. Crime may be the only realistic means for them to survive, even if they have never committed a crime before.

Eliminating cash bail doesn't get more people out of jail. It keeps more people in it.

The purpose of pre-trial release is to let those out who are unlikely to cause harm or flee while they await trial.

1) If someone poses no risk, they are released.

2) If someone poses a risk, they are detained.

3) If someone poses a risk and is detained, bail is a tool to allow them out and ensure they return. Without it, you just keep them in jail.

Cash bail certainly provides advantages to those with assets or credit, but this is a separate issue.

> bail is a tool to allow them out and ensure they return. Without it, you just keep them in jail.

This is where it breaks down. I don't think you need bail to make sure they come back.

You can already let those who pose no risk go without bail. What alternative do you propose for people who pose a flight risk?

Denying bail, which is a thing they already do for people who pose a flight risk.

So then you just keep everyone with a flight risk, which is more people than now.

Today those who are a low flight risk can put up collateral to make sure they come back

Unless they are poor. And, again, I don't believe you when you say a monetary stake is required to make them come back.

If a person is proven innocent, they just should get two more questions.

First, they should be asked if they believe the innocent person should be compensated for time and defense costs. Second, if they believe compensation is in order, they should be asked if they believe the prosecutor or the state should pay that bill.