Poverty is not a crime: the life-altering injustice of the American bail system

Author

Kat C.
August 26, 2025

It's bad enough that this guy was released without bail, given the nature of his offense. Even more relevant is the likelihood that his melanin-shortage was the deciding factor in the judge's choice not to impose bail.

Here are a few more reasons why the bail system is completely fucked up:

  • "Ramel Edwards was arrested for riding his bike on a sidewalk. 'I didn't have the money to get out and fight my charge from the outside.' All he needed was $150, 10% of his bail amount. But without it, he sat in jail for five days. That time behind bars cost him his job. 'So, I'm being punished before I was sentenced,' Edwards said. He tried finding other work, but no one would hire him while his case was winding its way through the legal system. 'I had two job offers rescinded because of the charges,' he said. After two years of fighting, the charges against Ramel were dropped." Re-making bail, story produced for CBS News by Sari Aviv, Jun. 2, 2019.

  • "Being locked up also makes it harder to fight a case, and many people end up pleading guilty just to go home. Defendants are nine times more likely to plead guilty to a misdemeanor if they can’t post bail, according to a study by nonprofit Brooklyn Defender Services." Poor people often can’t afford to pay bail — even when they’re innocent., by Darcel Rockett, Chicago Tribune, Mar. 07, 2019.

  • "A Human Rights Watch study in 2010 examined thousands of cases in New York where bail was set at $1,000 or below, and in 87 percent of those cases, people couldn't afford even that relatively low amount. On average, the people in the report were held for a little over two weeks while awaiting trial. A lot can happen in that time spent waiting. You're likely to lose your job, since no employer is obligated to cover for you or hold your position until you're, maybe, found innocent. In a separate study, the Pretrial Justice Institute found that 30 percent of people they surveyed had lost their job while they were waiting for trial, even if they were only held for one to three days. There's also evidence that pretrial detention is more likely to lead to convictions, since people take plea deals even if they're not guilty, and recidivism (the likelihood of committing more crimes). And, obviously, while you're being held in jail, you can't vote. In essence, the cash-bail industry strips low-income defendants of their civil rights, ability to earn a living, and fair treatment under the law." How The For-Profit Prison Industry Keeps 460,000 Innocent People in Jail Every Day, by Luke Darby, GQ, May 24, 2019.

  • The Prison Policy Initiative's "analysis of the 2002 survey data shows that at the time of the survey, over 150,000 children had a parent in jail because they couldn’t afford their bail bond. That means more children than adults were impacted by unaffordable money bail. Because of the significant changes in the jail population since 2002, we won’t attempt to extrapolate what the number of impacted children might be today. But as pretrial detention has grown, the number of children harmed by parental incarceration because of the money bail system has almost certainly grown, too." How does unaffordable money bail affect families?, by Wendy Sawyer, Prison Policy Initiative, Aug. 15, 2018.

  • "...Christian Gossett, the DA in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, realized that many poor defendants who were arrested on weekends or holidays ended up sitting in jail because no prosecutors were available for a bond hearing; almost 80 percent of the arrestees were released on their own recognizance at their first hearing the next work day. In response, as Gossett explained in a letter to county judges, he waived all appearances by prosecutors for hearings on weekends and holidays, letting judges release low-level defendants right away. The cases in question are those 'in which the individual’s freedom currently hangs on their ability to post (typically) $150, $300 or $500 in cash, on a credit card or through a friend or family member,' Gossett wrote in the letter. 'No other factor differentiates their ability to be released from custody than all other individuals taken into custody on similar misdemeanor offenses, hence my concern for equal protection.'" Making Freedom Free, by Casey Tolan, Slate, Mar. 29, 2017.

  • "People with assets who are accused of the same or similar crimes have keys to the jailhouse door. They have their wallets. ...between 1970 and 2015, people detained prior to any trial increased 433% across the U.S. Now, nearly three-fourths of the 631,000 people held in U.S. jails every day have not been convicted of a crime and are awaiting trial, the report states. Research has also found that people of color may be more likely to be viewed as dangerous and therefore have higher bond amounts imposed or be denied bail entirely. But a 2018 study found that white defendants granted pretrial release were 22% more likely to be re-arrested prior to their case being finalized than Black defendants." [emphasis mine] 60% of people awaiting trial can't afford bail. A civil rights commission can't agree on reform., by Tami Abdollah, USA Today, Jan. 20, 2022.

  • "John Oliver explains why America’s bail system is better for the reality tv industry than it is for the justice system." Bail: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), a video uploaded to YouTube's LastWeekTonight channel, Jun 8, 2015.

  • "America's dependence on cash bail does more than just deprive people of their liberty merely for being accused of a crime; it also costs the rest of us a fortune. Taxpayers are on the hook for keeping hundreds of thousands of people in jail before they go to trial. Meanwhile, those folks are not earning income or otherwise contributing to the economy. A new report by The Hamilton Project at the Brookings Institution attempts to measure the full financial impact of pretrial detention in the United States. Analysts Patrick Liu, Ryan Nunn, and Jay Shambaugh calculated that pretrial detentions that are the result solely of people being unable to pay bail cost the country $15 billion a year. ... Liu et al. also did their best to calculate out how much money the economy loses due the amount of time somebody spends in jail and is therefore unable to work. That worked out to an average of about $8,590 annually per prisoner. All together, that comes out to $15.26 billion a year." Report: Imprisoning People Who Can't Pay Bail Costs America $15 Billion a Year, by Scott Shackford, Reason, Dec. 19, 2018.

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No doubt there are many other local bail funds. I searched "Kansas City bail funds" and found the Kansas City Community Bail Fund.

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For more about the racism in our justice system, see Racism and the American justice system; Racism and law enforcement

Originally posted Dec. 21, 2022.