Stopping Unfair Pretrial Detention
Every day, nearly half a million people in the U.S. sit in jail, not convicted of any crime, because they can’t afford the cash bail that would release them before a trial. Since it upends people’s lives in putting an individual’s job, housing, and mental health at risk, pretrial jailing deters future court appearances and actually increases new arrests.
Jailing people because they can’t pay money bail undermines the presumption of innocence and makes the question of who retains their right to pretrial liberty about poverty, not public safety. Public Justice works to ensure that decisions about pretrial detention are actually rooted in public safety rather than whether the person who’s arrested can pay an arbitrary amount of money set with no consideration of their ability to pay. We press government actors to develop fairer and more effective pretrial policies and shift investment toward support and care, not more jail cells.
