In an opinion article for NBC News, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) voiced some interesting opinions on the concept of bail in our correctional and judicial systems. He thinks we should ditch bail because it has “criminalized poverty.”
“And yet in 2016, more than 65 percent of the over 700,000 people in county or city jails on any given day in the United States were 'unconvicted' — meaning that more than 400,000 people were in jail who had not been convicted of a crime, often because they lack the money to pay bail. In other words, we have criminalized poverty,” Sanders wrote.
By that logic, any suspect of a crime, whether it be theft, domestic assault, or even murder, should be able to walk away completely free until trial despite indisputable evidence that may have been entered into the system.
He continues by saying, “Bail is not supposed to be set above a person’s ability to pay; people should not be sitting in jail awaiting their trial simply because they are poor.”
So, should bail be set by their income? Should someone who committed a murder have a bail of $100 because they make minimum wage?
“Ending the current cash bail system is not only the humane and just thing to do, it also makes more fiscal sense,” the self-defined “Democratic Socialist” wrote.
So here’s the real kicker: Sen. Sanders is proposing a piece of legislation called the “No Money Bail Act” that he claims “would encourage states to abolish cash bail by providing new grant funding to help them implement a fairer and smarter alternative.”
The "No Money Bail Act" would take taxpayer funds and direct them to state and local governments so that they can reform their criminal justice systems, specifically their bail systems to abolish pretrial detention.
He claims his bill aims to fight the “racial and ethnic discrimination we see now with the cash bail process.”