The SAFE-T Act

 Bail in the United States is a very controversial topic. While the idea behind it is logical to an extent, being that people will be less likely to just ditch court and other post-jail time proceedings if they’ve already invested something; it is not fair to those who may not be able to afford it, whether or not they desire to. With Illinois becoming the first state to remove bail, an interesting opportunity arises, to finally see how a bail-less environment will impact things like jail-time and crime rates. It will be interesting to see if it has any significant impact, positive or negative, on the effectiveness of the criminal justice system.

I personally believe that this can most likely only be beneficial or neutral in terms of the statistics mentioned prior. I had previously done a project on a possible bail removal in Illinois, and I was very intrigued and pleased by the idea. Bail inherently affects jail-time, especially for lower income families. A rich person may commit a crime worse than someone of lower socioeconomic class, but spend virtually no time in jail because they have a greater wealth to spend on bail. Now, obviously just because you are able to pay bail does not mean you are free or off the hook. However, this still matters because of the unfair level of freedom between socioeconomic classes that this causes.

In the past, I’ve seen documentaries on bail (specifically pertaining to low-income households and how they are affected by bail) and on other topics where bail would be brought up. In them, the true tragedy that bail can cause was well illustrated. For example, in the one focused on bail in particular, someone had committed a petty crime, and in another family someone got committed for a crime they possibly did not even commit. Despite this, the families could not see their respective beloved family members, since they could not afford the bail. Imagine not being able to see your mother or father, your daughter or son, or another close relative outside of a cell the government is keeping them in because you do not have enough money. That, to me, sounds absolutely gut-wrenchingly vile, that a government would keep a system in place where it is easily possible and not uncommon for this to happen.

What surprises me the most is that nothing like this has been truly attempted before in the US on this scale, at least not from my recollection. I was ecstatic hearing that this was finally being realized, but I still worry it may not last, and that Illinois may be the only state to try this to this extent. A decision like this is clearly a very big one to make, one with risks, but I firmly believe it is worth it to have a good chance at making the criminal justice system more fair. Considering all of the other terribly unjust aspects of it – the greater incarceration rate for people of color and the many innocent people who are convicted and imprisoned being prime examples – I think we truly need a law or policy like this as a great step towards a more free and fair nation.

The fact that our country’s incarceration rate is one of the highest in the world should be a wake-up call in and of itself; we need to focus on that much more than we already do. Especially since many of the issues surrounding it, much like this one, can repeat themselves and become perpetual if nothing is done. For example, if a very young child’s poor single mother has to go to jail for some minor crime, but their family cannot afford the bail, so they must simply wait out the time, the child may grow up for a substantial portion of time without a parental figure. This could lead to the child growing up without certain values or manners instilled in them. Combine this with the fact that the family is low-income to begin with, they may end up not learning or understanding how to be a stable, secure, and independent adult. They may end up committing crimes and/or staying unemployed because they do not know better. Stories akin to this one are all over America, and it’s one of this country’s greatest failures in my eyes. Hence, this bail removal in Illinois is a wonderful change that ought to have some significant impact, and I hope other states consider adopting it as well.

I like your open-mindedness and curiosity about ending cash bail. There are obvious problems with the bail system, and your characterization of some of those systemic problems being “gut-wrenchingly vile” seems appropriate. The problem of inevitable error (all social welfare policies have errors, and changes that reduce one sort of an error will usually increase some other type of error) applies, and there are risks of problems with ending cash bail.  At least Illinois is working as a laboratory, and talking about the desire to end a system that inflicts harms of injustice and unfair treatment based on income/wealth. If the problems resulting from ending cash bail in Illinois are not too egregious, perhaps other states will follow the Illinois example, and this will be a step toward a more perfect union, with more freedom and justice, and less unfair discrimination against persons lacking wealth or well-paying employment. I personally communicated with my representatives in the General Assembly endorsing the SAFE-T Act, but I studied criticisms of the act as well. I’m pretty confident the new practices will have more benefits than harmful consequences, but if significant problems emerge, I think and hope that the state government will be able to solve them without returning to systems of cash bail.