The cash-bail system: a disastrous and unfair system to get out of prison. If an inmate is found guilty and sent to jail, the judge can state how much money is needed to pay for the prisoner to be bailed out. However, these steps provide a clear advantage to rich criminals over the poor ones. The American Government has declared that the cash-bail system will be overthrown effective at the start of 2023 (Clark, 2022). This is one of the major improvements the United States has issued over the past few years.
The cash-bail system is incredibly unfair and ruins the purpose of getting into jail in the first place. Many criminals have family members that are rich, thus having money to bail them out. However, oftentimes, innocent people are forced to stay in jail for a crime they didn’t commit while other rich criminals run free in the world. According to Forbes, people often plead guilty for crimes they did not do. The reason is because they don’t want to spend weeks or months in jail, and they can’t afford to pay the bail. This is essentially “buying people’s freedom”, says MIC. For people whose family can’t afford the bail, they have to stay behind bars, awaiting their trial. Sometimes, they don’t even get convicted. There are extremely negative effects for convicts if they stay behind the bars for too long. Cases such as Kalief Brower’s experienced harsh psychological trauma. Brower committed suicide after being held for 3 years on Rikers Island just to not receive a trial. THe experienced badly mentally scarred him, so he committed suicide. The amounts of bails that are appointed vary from crime to crime, but as mentioned before, those who are innocent can be charged with heavy bail. One such example is Pedro Hernandez, who was accused of a traffic crime and slapped with a $250,000 bail. He couldn’t pay it and had to spend one year in jail and was finally released after not enough evidence to prove his crime. In Kyle Rittenhouse’s case, it was vice versa. Kyle committed the murder of 2 black protestors and was only held for a short time before getting bailed out. The difference between these two cases is significant. Hernandez was accused of a crime he didn’t commit, yet was still behind the bars. Rittenhouse performed an act he admitted he committed, yet didn’t spend much time behind bars. True criminals like Rittenhouse can walk free in the world where they know if they get in trouble again, they will be bailed out, so they don’t learn their lesson. On the contrary, innocent people such as Hernandez are mentally scarred and go through PTSD just because they couldn’t pay the bail.
The governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, signed the purge law that goes into effect on January 1st, 2023. The purge law is written so money is not the determining factor of whether the suspect can be free while awaiting trial or not. Therefore, the claim of the laws states that everyone that is charged with no matter what degree it is, can roam free in the area. However, this doesn’t necessarily direct to first degree charges and possibly second degree charges. The judge of the selected suspect can order the suspect to be held in jail if the crime they committed is deemed as a threat to public safety.
The non- detainable offenses are listed:
- Aggravated battery
- Aggravated DUI (driving under the influence)
- Aggravated fleeing
- Arson
- Burglary
- Drug-induced homicide
- Intimidation
- Kidnapping
- Robbery
- Second-degree murder
- Threatening a public official
What happens if an offender is accused of one of the non-detainable offenses and runs away? That wouldn’t be possible, and even if they did, police would still be able to find them. Before they are released to the outside world, they need to have a tracker placed on all times as well as a camera to show where he is, so the police can find him when his trial time arrives. The Purge law aims to reduce discrimination against people in lower classes, however, there are also some negative effects of the addition.
Since the decision for releasing the defendants are now in the judge’s hands, some biased judges can decide to detain them or not based on their personal relation with the defendant. For example, the judge might be friends with the defendant that is facing a serious crime, such as murder. However, since they have a close relationship, the judge might be biased and let the defendant off the hook. In the same situation, if the defendant is a long time enemy of the judge, the judge might detain them just for some light crime, such as minor drug offenses. There is no way to escape biases in the court, no matter how hard the law limits it. In addition people who are charged with murder can now just walk free without the fear of being detained again. There is a very large chance that these people will commit crimes again, but still won’t be detained.
The cash-bail system is extremely unfair to lower class citizens, so Illinois took a step forward and introduced the Purge Law. The Purge Law states that criminals that have been accused of non-detainable offenses cannot stay in jail while awaiting their trial. Even though this new law seems flawless, it still has some imperfections. Will banning cash-bail be good for society or not? And how will this impact the economy? These are questions to be answered this year.
References:
Boudin, C. (n.d.). No Cash Bail. San Francisco District Attorney. Retrieved December 10, 2022, from https://www.sfdistrictattorney.org/policy/no-cash-bail/#:~:text=The%20concept%20of%20money%20bail,to%20get%20out%20of%20 jail.
Clark, J. (2022, September 19). Is a ‘Purge’ law coming to Illinois? FOX 8. Retrieved January 10, 2023, from https://myfox8.com/news/is-a-purge-law-coming-to-illinois/
Ewing, J. (2018, June 26). Why A Real-Life “Purge” Would Be Terrible For The Economy. Forbes. Retrieved January 10, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffewing/2018/06/26/4-real-world-economic-consequences-of-the-purge-or-its-terrible-for-the-economy-too/?sh=7a45d66528c0
Keck, P. (2022a, September 30). The end of cash bail and more: What’s in Illinois’ SAFE-T Act? The State-Journal Register. Retrieved January 7, 2023, from https://www.sj-r.com/story/news/politics/state/2022/09/12/no-cash-bail-illinois-starts-january-what-to-know/67998487007/
Keck, P. (2022b, October 7). Separating the truth from fiction in the debate over Illinois’ SAFE-T Act. The State Journal-Register. Retrieved January 4, 2023, from https://www.sj-r.com/story/news/politics/state/2022/09/19/illinois-cash-bail-misinformation-spreads-on-social-media/69498640007/
Nowicki, J. (2022, September 17). What happens when cash bail ends? Illinois Newsroom. Retrieved December 10, 2022, from https://illinoisnewsroom.org/what-happens-when-cash-bail-ends/#:~:text=SPRINGFIELD%20%E2%80%93%20Beginning%20Jan.,the%20state’s%20pretrial%20detention%20system.
Paddock, B. (2021, January 19). Lawmakers Discuss Pros, Cons of Ending Cash Bail. WTTW. Retrieved January 10, 2023, from https://news.wttw.com/2021/01/19/lawmakers-discuss-pros-cons-ending-cash-bail
Taylor, V. (2021, March 4). How the cash bail system criminalizes poverty and amplifies inequality. MIC. Retrieved January 2, 2023, from https://www.mic.com/impact/what-is-cash-bail-why-is-it-so-problematic-64100036Wiley, J. (2022, September 29). The “Purge Law” of Illinois. G3 Media. Retrieved January 7, 2023, from https://gc3media.net/3594/opinion/the-purge-law-of-illinois/
