Each year, millions of Americans sit in jail waiting for their pretrial date, often resulting in no convictions. In fact, 70 percent of people waiting in local jails today end up not being convicted of a crime. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, 99 percent of jail growth in the past 15 years is due to pretrial detention.
Over 2.2 million people are incarcerated in federal prisons. Nearly 40 percent of those inmates are 35 and younger. Similarly, 50 percent of prisoners in state jails are 30 and younger. Oftentimes, high costs limit younger low-income Americans and minorities from paying bail, which is why two U.S. senators decided to create a plan to reform the bond process.
Arguing that income should not determine whether citizens get a fair shake in the U.S. justice system, Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) drafted legislation to encourage states to change the bail system in July. Yearly, jails are seeing increased numbers causing overcrowding due to inmates’ inability to afford costly bail bonds.
“Americans should be able to expect fair and equal treatment under the law regardless of how much money is in their pockets or how many connections they have,” Sen. Paul said in a statement.
The Pretrial Integrity and Safety Act of 2017 calls for states to replace or reform the money-based bail system, calling it ineffective and arbitrary. Instead, the senators would like to see law enforcement grant bail based on thorough, individualized assessments. If passed, this legislation would replace money bailouts with risked-based decision making. The assessments would issue releases based on law enforcement’s evaluations. If the review finds, based off of the alleged crime and the individual assessment, that an inmate is not a threat to society and will appear for their court date, then the person will be released.
The law would authorize a $10 million grant over three years to reform and replace to money bail system and would give an additional $5 million to the Bureau of Justice Statistics to provide data on the successes and failures of the new system. If passed, the legislation would require an annual report to be filed by the Department of Justice on its progress.
Each year, the United States spends over $260 billion dollars on justice-related programs. Currently, America has the highest incarceration rate, larger than any other country. In the last 40 years, U.S. incarcerations have increased by over 500 percent. These incarcerations come at a cost for taxpayers. Sen. Paul argues this would do more than just help the inmates who are held and often not convicted, but it would also save money across the board for everyone.
