Unable to Post Bail? You Will Pay for That for Many Years
Summary
New studies have shown that the inability for one to post bail leads to a higher chance of being convicted for the crime. It also shows a higher chance that one will be engaged in criminal activity leading to arrest 2 to 4 years after the first detention. This means that cash bonds favor the rich, because they can post the bond, while the poorer have to sit in detention for about two weeks when they are awaiting trial. Bail systems were analyzed in Miami-Dade County and Philadelphia County and statistics were gathered from a mix of races and leniencies of judges to set bond. The study found that that out of 2 people, one would stay in detention while the other could go home, and the one in detention had a higher chance of being convicted of the original offense. The second conclusion is that the detainees had a higher chance of committing crimes after the first crime, possibly because of the gang affiliations in prison as well as the networking opportunities of criminals. The study also looked between whites and African-American's who posted bail, and that the whites were 24% more likely to get rearrested than the 2% of African-Americans. The final conclusion of the story is that African-Americans are being held to a higher standard in terms of bond releases. States are hoping to remove the cash-bond system and replace it with systems like ankle monitors, text-message reminders, and supervised parole because all three of these are cheaper than the cost of the average incarceration while awaiting trial.
Analysis
The article was written on Friday, March 1, 2019 in Illinois. I didn't know anything about this issue before reading the article. This relates to U.S. history when FDR created the New Deal programs which disadvantaged southern African-Americans because the improvements of the AAA didn't apply to tenant farmers and sharecroppers. The intended audience of the article is all of the United States. The author is Seema Jayachandran, who is an economics professor at Northwestern University. The article was written to inform the American society about the flaws in our government systems. This is important because we need to fix flaws that disadvantage others in our community.
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