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No. First figure out how to keep dangerous criminals off the street pre-trial. Then let’s talk. Cash bail is regressive and often unjust, I’m not willing to cor

No. First figure out how to keep dangerous criminals off the street pre-trial. Then let’s talk. Cash bail is regressive and often unjust, I’m not willing to correct this injustice without a viable alternative to simply allowing dangerous people back onto the street hoping that they show up to trial and that they do not destroy while out. I believe our system has flaws that need correcting, but I do not advocate destroying the system to fix them.

variaga 6y ago
Abolishing cash bail doesn’t mean "no pretrial detention for anyone". People judged to be a flight risk or a threat to the community can still be held without bail. Abolishing cash bail is about not unnecessarily imprisoning people who would be safe to release, but who are still held under the current system because they can't afford to pay the bail.
techsupporter 6y ago
> I believe our system has flaws that need correcting, but I do not advocate destroying the system to fix them. “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.“ - Justice Blackstone I don’t understand why and how we got so far away from the idea that state punishment is the last resort, instead making it the first. Especially in the States, we do so many things that, even in the moment we are doing them, seem needlessly cruel yet justify them as “but what happens if one bad person continues to be bad and we miss the chance to smack them hard??”
- Polylactic_acid 6y ago
  Suffering is on a scale. Its better that a few innocent people sit around for a few days than one guilty person getting out and killing someone. The risks should be evaluated and the result being keeping innocent people waiting for as little as possible while also preventing criminals from getting away.
  - techsupporter 6y ago
    > Its better that a few innocent people sit around for a few days than one guilty person getting out and killing someone. Considering the comparatively tiny number of murders committed in such a way that an individual determination of the denial of any bail cannot be made, relative to the massive impact of just leaving “a few innocent people” in jail for “a few days”, I disagree. For the people most likely to not be bailed out almost immediately—as in, people who have the fewest resources—sitting in jail for a few days can be (and usually is, hence the point of this article) absolutely catastrophic. Life-ruining, all out of the fear that one person might slip through the cracks. That’s unacceptable. We can do better.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    > Its better that a few innocent people sit around for a few days than one guilty person getting out and killing someone. A suspect jailed and awaiting trial for murder would likely not have bail as an option. Eliminating cash bail doesn't mean eliminating the ability to hold people who are an extreme flight risk or who are likely a danger to others. "Sit around for a few days" has more consequences than your dismissive attitude implies. Many people who land in jail like this will lose their job if they "sit around for a few days". If they're people who are already living on the margins of society, it's pretty likely that losing their job might, just might, make them turn to crime to make ends meet, even if they hadn't committed one in the first place.
  - nobody9999 6y ago
    >Suffering is on a scale. Its better that a few innocent people sit around for a few days than one guilty person getting out and killing someone. Firstly, pretrial detention averages 50-200 days, with some sitting in jail for years without trial. Secondly, the vast majority of those in pretrial detention are there for non-violent crimes. Thirdly, about 60% of the population of jails in the US are in pretrial detention.[0] Remember, these are people who have not been convicted of any crime. Calculate how long could you keep your job, your house and/or custody of your children if you were sitting in jail? Two months? Six? A year? After you do that, consider that a large segment of Americans would have a hard time scraping up $400 for any sort of emergency -- especially if they can't work because they're in jail. If there is a genuine flight risk (much more likely for those who can afford bail) or evidence that the accused may be a danger to the community, they should be held until trial without the opportunity to be released. But only if there is actual evidence that this is so. Otherwise, you're essentially criminalizing poverty. [0] https://www.pretrial.org/get-involved/learn-more/why-we-need-pretrial-reform/ https://www.pretrial.org/get-involved/learn-more/why-we-need... Edit: Reorganized for clarity.
avs733 6y ago
So just to summarize down, you are willing to sacrifice the freedom of an unknown other so that you feel you are safer?
- hevelvarik 6y ago
  Yes I will vote to keep the system as is because I believe it works generally. I’m willing to vote for progress but only without system breaking regression, sorry about that
  - x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
    Well, using your words, you are willing to prevent progress and preferring to maintain that the state continuing carrying out what you called "an injustice". Slightly stronger wording on your part. In addition, there are already solutions to the problem that you cite as the reason this injustice should be maintained i.e serial killers don't get bail/bond.
  - tqi 6y ago
    "i believe it works generally" Based on what? It doesn't seem like you are very informed on this issue. As numerous other people have pointed out any reforms would continue to allow for potentially dangerous people to be held pretrial.
    - avs733 6y ago
      He means works for him and people like him
  - avs733 6y ago
    what metrics would you use to show that it works?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
8note 6y ago
How many of the people in jail are dangerous though? Versus something like possession of marijuana And does the level of danger correlate to the criminal's wealth?
- superflit 6y ago
  The "possession of marijuana" example is a straw man. People are incarcerated for "possession of marijuana" together with a lot of things. it is not only "possession of marijuana"
  - ComputerGuru 6y ago
    That rather depends on their socioeconomic status, and yes, the color of their skin.
bdcravens 6y ago
I can't imagine they would allow release of the criminals they currently don't allow release of. Many "dangerous criminals" are already allowed release if they have the financial resources for bail. (usually 10-20% of the actual bail amount)
anigbrowl 6y ago
But we already have that system, keep potentially dangerous people confined until their (ideally speedy) trial. We typically do this already. The only thing that's 'difficult' about this is that rich people would be stuck in jail with no way to buy their way out.
smitty1110 6y ago
There are plenty of valid reasons for detaining a suspect without bail [1]. Violent crimes, histories of violence, and repeat offenses all seem to trigger detention without bail at the federal level. It should also be noted that the subject of bail actually only appears once, in 18 sec. 3142(c)(B)(xii). N.B. - This is federal law, I'm not going to try to dive into individual state law unless I'm being bribed with aged alcohol. Especially Louisianan law. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3142 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3142
- throwaway17_17 6y ago
  Just curious why not Louisianan law particularly? On this topic the statutory, if not the implementation by judges, is pretty succinct.
  - jacobush 6y ago
    Probably just a humorous comment, because it's the only US state not based on Common Law. On the other hand, Wikipedia says "Louisiana's criminal law largely rests on American common law."
    - smitty1110 6y ago
      It goes back to my college days. I had two ethics courses, taught by lawyers, and both of them went out of their way to mention that Louisiana was special. Many state bar associates have reciprocity, expect LA. Last I knew, they had reciprocity with no other state bar associations.
x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
You do know that people can be held without bail/bond right? It's not the dichotomy that you are making it out to be.
panic 6y ago
From the article: > On the flip side, the cash bail system also tends to let high-risk or violent, but wealthy, offenders go free with little to no meaningful supervision. Research conducted by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (JJAF) found that, in the two largest jurisdictions they studied, nearly half of the highest-risk defendants were released pending trial. On the other end of the spectrum, they found that “low-risk, non-violent defendants are frequently detained.” In other words, the cash bail system does an extremely poor job detaining defendants who pose a serious risk to public safety — particularly those who appear likely to commit crimes of violence — and to releasing those who do not.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
hansvm 6y ago
Makes sense to me. The 90+% of non-dangerous individuals being detained should be thankful that we're able to keep the <10% off the streets. Actually, that probably doesn't go far enough. We could probably get away with 95-99% collateral damage if we knew we were keeping a single extra dangerous person safely behind bars. It's just people's lives we're throwing away after all. What we need is to start arresting people sooner. As soon as they're suspected of a crime just throw them in jail so that they can't escape while we finish the investigation. We'd probably have better than anticipated performance because with the bolstered confidence in our police force more people would be willing to call in suspects and trust that something would be done about their perceived misdeeds.
newbie789 6y ago
I have a close friend that was once arrested for "cocaine possession", put in jail and had a $25,000 bail set. It was Xanthan Gum. He was in culinary school and had split a bag of Bob's Red Mill (expensive for some young people) soup thickener with a friend that he wanted to experiment with. He had no prior record whatsoever. Luckily, he was able to get out on OR only because about a dozen of us called the jail as soon as we heard, and spoke to the recognizance volunteer that happened to be on duty and he only spent the night on jail. It took over three months for the DA's office to actually test the substance and drop the charges. If he hadn't been lucky enough to have quite a few highly motivated friends that knew the system in that city, he'd have stayed there the whole time. For soup thickener.

variaga 6y ago

Abolishing cash bail doesn’t mean "no pretrial detention for anyone". People judged to be a flight risk or a threat to the community can still be held without bail. Abolishing cash bail is about not unnecessarily imprisoning people who would be safe to release, but who are still held under the current system because they can't afford to pay the bail.

techsupporter 6y ago

> I believe our system has flaws that need correcting, but I do not advocate destroying the system to fix them. “It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.“ - Justice Blackstone I don’t understand why and how we got so far away from the idea that state punishment is the last resort, instead making it the first. Especially in the States, we do so many things that, even in the moment we are doing them, seem needlessly cruel yet justify them as “but what happens if one bad person continues to be bad and we miss the chance to smack them hard??”

Polylactic_acid 6y ago
Suffering is on a scale. Its better that a few innocent people sit around for a few days than one guilty person getting out and killing someone. The risks should be evaluated and the result being keeping innocent people waiting for as little as possible while also preventing criminals from getting away.
- techsupporter 6y ago
  > Its better that a few innocent people sit around for a few days than one guilty person getting out and killing someone. Considering the comparatively tiny number of murders committed in such a way that an individual determination of the denial of any bail cannot be made, relative to the massive impact of just leaving “a few innocent people” in jail for “a few days”, I disagree. For the people most likely to not be bailed out almost immediately—as in, people who have the fewest resources—sitting in jail for a few days can be (and usually is, hence the point of this article) absolutely catastrophic. Life-ruining, all out of the fear that one person might slip through the cracks. That’s unacceptable. We can do better.
- kelnos 6y ago
  > Its better that a few innocent people sit around for a few days than one guilty person getting out and killing someone. A suspect jailed and awaiting trial for murder would likely not have bail as an option. Eliminating cash bail doesn't mean eliminating the ability to hold people who are an extreme flight risk or who are likely a danger to others. "Sit around for a few days" has more consequences than your dismissive attitude implies. Many people who land in jail like this will lose their job if they "sit around for a few days". If they're people who are already living on the margins of society, it's pretty likely that losing their job might, just might, make them turn to crime to make ends meet, even if they hadn't committed one in the first place.
- nobody9999 6y ago
  >Suffering is on a scale. Its better that a few innocent people sit around for a few days than one guilty person getting out and killing someone. Firstly, pretrial detention averages 50-200 days, with some sitting in jail for years without trial. Secondly, the vast majority of those in pretrial detention are there for non-violent crimes. Thirdly, about 60% of the population of jails in the US are in pretrial detention.[0] Remember, these are people who have not been convicted of any crime. Calculate how long could you keep your job, your house and/or custody of your children if you were sitting in jail? Two months? Six? A year? After you do that, consider that a large segment of Americans would have a hard time scraping up $400 for any sort of emergency -- especially if they can't work because they're in jail. If there is a genuine flight risk (much more likely for those who can afford bail) or evidence that the accused may be a danger to the community, they should be held until trial without the opportunity to be released. But only if there is actual evidence that this is so. Otherwise, you're essentially criminalizing poverty. [0] https://www.pretrial.org/get-involved/learn-more/why-we-need-pretrial-reform/ https://www.pretrial.org/get-involved/learn-more/why-we-need... Edit: Reorganized for clarity.

avs733 6y ago

So just to summarize down, you are willing to sacrifice the freedom of an unknown other so that you feel you are safer?

hevelvarik 6y ago
Yes I will vote to keep the system as is because I believe it works generally. I’m willing to vote for progress but only without system breaking regression, sorry about that
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
  Well, using your words, you are willing to prevent progress and preferring to maintain that the state continuing carrying out what you called "an injustice". Slightly stronger wording on your part. In addition, there are already solutions to the problem that you cite as the reason this injustice should be maintained i.e serial killers don't get bail/bond.
- tqi 6y ago
  "i believe it works generally" Based on what? It doesn't seem like you are very informed on this issue. As numerous other people have pointed out any reforms would continue to allow for potentially dangerous people to be held pretrial.
  - avs733 6y ago
    He means works for him and people like him
- avs733 6y ago
  what metrics would you use to show that it works?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

8note 6y ago

How many of the people in jail are dangerous though? Versus something like possession of marijuana And does the level of danger correlate to the criminal's wealth?

superflit 6y ago
The "possession of marijuana" example is a straw man. People are incarcerated for "possession of marijuana" together with a lot of things. it is not only "possession of marijuana"
- ComputerGuru 6y ago
  That rather depends on their socioeconomic status, and yes, the color of their skin.

bdcravens 6y ago

I can't imagine they would allow release of the criminals they currently don't allow release of. Many "dangerous criminals" are already allowed release if they have the financial resources for bail. (usually 10-20% of the actual bail amount)

anigbrowl 6y ago

But we already have that system, keep potentially dangerous people confined until their (ideally speedy) trial. We typically do this already. The only thing that's 'difficult' about this is that rich people would be stuck in jail with no way to buy their way out.

smitty1110 6y ago

There are plenty of valid reasons for detaining a suspect without bail [1]. Violent crimes, histories of violence, and repeat offenses all seem to trigger detention without bail at the federal level. It should also be noted that the subject of bail actually only appears once, in 18 sec. 3142(c)(B)(xii). N.B. - This is federal law, I'm not going to try to dive into individual state law unless I'm being bribed with aged alcohol. Especially Louisianan law. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3142 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3142

throwaway17_17 6y ago
Just curious why not Louisianan law particularly? On this topic the statutory, if not the implementation by judges, is pretty succinct.
- jacobush 6y ago
  Probably just a humorous comment, because it's the only US state not based on Common Law. On the other hand, Wikipedia says "Louisiana's criminal law largely rests on American common law."
  - smitty1110 6y ago
    It goes back to my college days. I had two ethics courses, taught by lawyers, and both of them went out of their way to mention that Louisiana was special. Many state bar associates have reciprocity, expect LA. Last I knew, they had reciprocity with no other state bar associations.

x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago

You do know that people can be held without bail/bond right? It's not the dichotomy that you are making it out to be.

panic 6y ago

From the article: > On the flip side, the cash bail system also tends to let high-risk or violent, but wealthy, offenders go free with little to no meaningful supervision. Research conducted by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (JJAF) found that, in the two largest jurisdictions they studied, nearly half of the highest-risk defendants were released pending trial. On the other end of the spectrum, they found that “low-risk, non-violent defendants are frequently detained.” In other words, the cash bail system does an extremely poor job detaining defendants who pose a serious risk to public safety — particularly those who appear likely to commit crimes of violence — and to releasing those who do not.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

hansvm 6y ago

Makes sense to me. The 90+% of non-dangerous individuals being detained should be thankful that we're able to keep the <10% off the streets. Actually, that probably doesn't go far enough. We could probably get away with 95-99% collateral damage if we knew we were keeping a single extra dangerous person safely behind bars. It's just people's lives we're throwing away after all. What we need is to start arresting people sooner. As soon as they're suspected of a crime just throw them in jail so that they can't escape while we finish the investigation. We'd probably have better than anticipated performance because with the bolstered confidence in our police force more people would be willing to call in suspects and trust that something would be done about their perceived misdeeds.

newbie789 6y ago

I have a close friend that was once arrested for "cocaine possession", put in jail and had a $25,000 bail set. It was Xanthan Gum. He was in culinary school and had split a bag of Bob's Red Mill (expensive for some young people) soup thickener with a friend that he wanted to experiment with. He had no prior record whatsoever. Luckily, he was able to get out on OR only because about a dozen of us called the jail as soon as we heard, and spoke to the recognizance volunteer that happened to be on duty and he only spent the night on jail. It took over three months for the DA's office to actually test the substance and drop the charges. If he hadn't been lucky enough to have quite a few highly motivated friends that knew the system in that city, he'd have stayed there the whole time. For soup thickener.