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cash bail
Trump Order to Kill Cashless Bail Will Exacerbate Inequality While Doing Nothing to Fight Crime, Experts Say
"Cash bail is a system that preys on poor people," Wanda Bertram, of the Prison Policy Initiative, told Common Dreams.
Aug 25, 2025
US President Donald Trump signed a pair of executive orders on Monday aimed at ending the policy of cashless bail for people accused of crimes, a move criminal justice reform advocates say will heighten the already massive inequality within the system while doing little to stop lawbreaking.
One order requires Washington, DC, which the president currently controls under "emergency authority," to end its cashless bail program. The other directs Attorney General Pam Bondi to identify other jurisdictions around the country with cashless bail so that they can have their federal funds restricted or suspended.
Several states, including Illinois, New York, California, and New Jersey, have moved to significantly reduce or eliminate the use of cash requirements for those accused of crimes to be released pretrial. DC, meanwhile, was one of the first cities to implement the policy.
Jeremy Cherson, communications director for the Bail Project, told Common Dreams that cash bail creates a "two-tiered system of justice—one where people with money, regardless of risk, can pay bail and be released, whereas people without money will be detained, maybe unnecessarily, just because they can't afford to pay a bail amount."
More than 70% of the people currently held in jails—over 400,000 people—have not been convicted of a crime and are instead awaiting trial, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. In 2022, a report by the US Commission on Civil Rights found that 60% of them were there because they could not afford to pay bail.
People in pretrial detention are disproportionately racial minorities and those in poverty. A 2021 study by the Brookings Institution found that the average person in pretrial detention loses $30,000 on average during the process.
"Cash bail is a system that preys on poor people," Wanda Bertram of the Prison Policy Initiative, told Common Dreams. "They can lose their jobs and their housing. They can get disconnected from critical medical care that they might need. It's a very destabilizing experience."
Trump has claimed that cashless bail allows criminals to get out of jail without punishment and has caused cities to become cesspools of criminality.
"Somebody kills somebody, they go and don't worry about it," Trump told reporters on Monday as he signed the order. "No cash. Come back in a couple of months. We'll give you a trial. You never see the person again."
In a press conference earlier this month, Trump claimed that "every place in the country where you have no cash bail is a disaster."
"That's what started the problem in New York, and they don't change it," he said. "That's what started it in Chicago. I mean, bad politicians started it, bad leadership started it. But that was the one thing that's central, no cash bail."
But as Cherson explained, cashless bail policies are not a "get-out-of-jail-free card."
"They are often measured, calculated approaches that create a system and processes where people are evaluated for risks of flight or risks to other individuals if they're released, and a series of conditions are set against them, or they're detained pretrial," he says. "They're not all let out. So that's often misunderstood about what bail reform is."
Instead of using financial means, judges determine who will remain in detention based on an individual's flight risk or the danger they may pose to the community.
The key, Cherson says, is that "they need to have individualized hearings where we are making determinations about what happens if we release somebody based on more than a hunch."
According to an investigation by FactCheck.org, across all the states that have ended or limited cash bail, only one person charged with murder has ever been released without bail. A Rockville, Illinois, judge released the defendant in 2024 because the case against him was exceptionally weak, and the judge still required him to meet "fairly strict requirements" while awaiting trial.
"There is nothing to suggest that cashless bail makes cities less safe," Bertram said.
In 2023, PPI examined four states and nine cities and counties that had ended cashless bail. They found that every single one of these jurisdictions had "decreases or negligible increases in crime or rearrest rates after implementing reforms."
Many of the other major cities Trump has threatened with a federal military takeover, including Chicago and New York, have experienced massive drops in crime over the past year, contrary to Trump's claims.
Bertram said that in Washington, DC, where Trump has directly ended cashless bail, the program had been "extremely effective."
In 2022, the last year for which data is available, 93% of those released without bail were not rearrested. In 2019, the most recent year with data, 99% of those who were released for violent crimes were not rearrested.
According to its website, the Bail Project has provided free bail to 34,000 people across the country. Despite the lack of financial incentive, in 2024, 95% of its clients still returned to court, and 64% of them had their cases dismissed.
"Absent our intervention," Cherson says, "many of those people would have likely taken a guilty plea just to go home. They would have been overwhelmed by the circumstances that they're in."
"Crime is something that's very complicated," Bertram said. "It's caused by a lot of different things, including a lot of social determinants."
She noted that the Trump administration has instituted dramatic cuts to programs to reduce gun violence, investigate crimes, and provide services to victims, and to "all of the things that we know to be related to the social determinants of crime"—social safety net programs like Medicaid, investments in affordable housing, and services for those dealing with homelessness, addiction, and mental health issues.
Bertram said, "It is a useful distraction from the president's disinvestment in all those things to put this order in place about cash bail as if it's going to make any difference, which it's not."
"All these states, localities, and jurisdictions that have pursued efforts to minimize or eliminate the use of cash bail have done that in service of the core principles of our justice system," Cherson said. "Principles of equity and fairness and safety and the presumption of innocence."
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Freedom Isn’t Free When You’re Black and Poor
The unforgiving reality of cash bail transforms “innocent until proven guilty” into “guilty until proven wealthy.”
Feb 08, 2025
When I was 17, I was charged with a crime I didn’t commit.
During an argument, I was arrested and wrongfully accused of threatening someone with a firearm, which I hadn’t done. My bail was set impossibly high, far beyond what I could afford, especially as a father to a newborn son. Forced to wait for my day in court behind bars, I came to a heartbreaking realization: If I or someone in my family had been wealthy, I could have walked free. Instead, I was denied my presumption of innocence and ripped from my family because I couldn’t pay for my freedom.
The American criminal justice system, which promises equal justice under the law, punishes poverty, tears families apart, and devastates communities like mine.
We need a system where release is based on case-by-case assessments of safety, not wealth.
Sadly, my story isn’t unique. It reflects a system that routinely prioritizes wealth over justice, especially for Black Americans. As someone who personally faced the burdens of cash bail and now works to alleviate that burden for others through The Bail Project—a national nonprofit providing free bail assistance and pretrial support to thousands of low-income people every year—I firmly believe that we have two systems of justice: one for the wealthy and one for everyone else.
This system incarcerates over 60% of people arrested before trial simply because they can’t afford bail. Safety, not wealth or race, should determine who is held or released before trial. Yet, wealth often dictates freedom. Many accused face nonviolent, low-level charges and pose no risk to public safety, but the unforgiving reality of cash bail transforms “innocent until proven guilty” into “guilty until proven wealthy.”
When someone is arrested, a court can impose a cash bail amount: a sum of money required for their release before trial. If you have the funds, you’re released from jail, no matter the circumstances. If you don’t, you’re locked up. Sometimes for weeks, months, or even years.
Judges tasked with setting bail often make these critical decisions in less than five minutes, relying on limited information and implicit biases that disproportionately affect Black defendants, during hearings that rarely require evidence, and often proceed without legal counsel for the defendants. As a result, Black defendants are detained more often than white defendants facing the same charges. On average, courts impose bail amounts nearly $10,000 higher for Black individuals than their white counterparts.
This disparity has devastating consequences, especially in communities of color. Being jailed before trial makes it harder to fight your case, leading many to plead guilty, even if they’re innocent, just to get out. It risks jobs, housing, physical health, and child custody while exposing legally innocent people to unsafe and traumatizing jail conditions.
Consider Christopher, a Black Gulf War veteran who was arrested for alleged possession of a controlled substance. His bail was set at $1,000: an insurmountable sum for him. Christopher was forced to wait in jail for six weeks before his case was dismissed. During that time, he lost his job as a house painter and his PTSD worsened. All of that suffering, and it was for nothing.
Then there’s Ashley, a Black woman eight months pregnant when a scheduling error led to her arrest for a nonviolent misdemeanor. Unable to pay a $11,500 bail, Ashley spent three weeks in a filthy, overcrowded jail cell, sleeping on the floor without a mattress. She lost her job, her apartment, and was forced to sleep in her car with her newborn daughter after giving birth.
We need a system that ensures fairness and protects safety for everyone. We need a system where release is based on case-by-case assessments of safety, not wealth.
Fortunately, alternatives to cash bail exist and work. Illinois became the first state to completely eliminate cash bail in 2023, and judges now determine who needs to be detained pretrial based on risk to others, not money. This shift has kept communities safe while reducing the number of people needlessly incarcerated pretrial. Nationally, more than 30 cities have safely minimized the use of cash bail, according to research from the Brennan Center for Justice.
This Black History Month, as we reflect on how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go to achieve racial equality, let’s not overlook the urgent need for bail reform. Ending cash bail is more than public policy; it’s a moral imperative.
It’s time to put an end to cash bail and write a safer, fairer future for everyone.
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Why Mutual Aid Is Vital to Criminal Justice Reform’s Next Chapter
Bail funds play a powerful and important role not only in reducing the structural harms caused by our nation’s reliance on failing cash bail policies, but also in strengthening and preserving our country’s democratic ideals.
Dec 24, 2024
As political analysts continue to piece together the results of this year’s general election, an illuminating takeaway has emerged on issues related to criminal justice: Voters who cast their ballot in red states also voted in local elections for reform-minded candidates and passed progressive criminal justice ballot measures; whereas in some blue states, voters preferred candidates who promise to implement tough-on-crime policies.
These results show that people’s political beliefs no longer easily fall along party lines. And criminal justice reform doesn’t offer any obviously easy solutions. For many, what matters most is feeling safe in our communities. It also suggests that most people believe accomplishing this requires us to no longer view matters like criminal justice as partisan issues.
When I think about this, the legacy and words of John Lewis—a civil rights leader turned congressman—spring to mind: “We cannot thrive as a democracy when justice is reserved for only those with means,” Lewis wrote in 2020. It was at the height of a national movement for racial justice, and his words and the social unrest were signs of a new movement for a more just and equitable America. Lewis was 80 years old then and severely ill with cancer, yet he remained optimistic about the future of America. Several years since his death, Lewis’ lifework and reflections still resonate deeply.
Supporting different networks of mutual aid organizations, like bail funds, is how communities can lean on their shared values and hold tight to their purpose.
As our nation works to bridge divides and find common ground, Lewis’ legacy continues to offer our nation guidance. From the Jim Crow era of the 1960s to the political and racial justice movement that swept the country in 2020, Lewis witnessed our country’s capacity to transform. His life experiences and reflections offer a roadmap for how people can protect and strengthen American democracy. He believed, for instance, that democracy cannot thrive “where power remains unchecked and justice is reserved for a select few. Ignoring these cries and failing to respond to this movement is simply not an option—for peace cannot exist where justice is not served.”
In today’s America, countless people are still living on the receiving end of that reality. Unarmed Black men continue to be brutally beaten by police. Women are being criminalized for pregnancy loss and for seeking reproductive healthcare. Meanwhile, families are being torn apart by a broken criminal justice system that puts a price on freedom for the legally innocent. But Lewis’ words offer us insight: “As a nation, if we care for the Beloved Community, we must move our feet, our hands, our hearts, our resources to build and not to tear down, to reconcile and not to divide, to love and not to hate, to heal and not to kill.”
To follow in Lewis’ footsteps means viewing this moment in our nation’s history as an opportunity to turn feelings of frustration and uncertainty into positive engagement with our community and fellow neighbors. One way to do that is through mutual aid—the practice of ordinary people helping others in their community by providing resources and services to help meet people’s needs. Groups organized for this purpose, like local community bail funds and The Bail Project, exist to support people when the government does not. Through wealth-based detention that results from the use of cash bail, our cities, states, and counties have shirked their responsibility to preserve the presumption of innocence, establishing a two-tiered system of justice: one for the rich, and another for everyone else.
Charitable bail organizations, like The Bail Project, are often local grassroot groups spearheaded by people from the communities they serve, staffed, for example, by faith leaders, legal experts, and advocates for criminal justice reform. Charitable bail organizations provide free bail assistance and even supportive services—such as court reminders and transportation assistance—to incarcerated people who have already been deemed eligible for release by a judge. In fact, many of the legally innocent people they help have been accused of low-level nonviolent misdemeanors, such as forgetting to attend a scheduled court date. Oftentimes, the only reason people remain incarcerated in jail before trial is because they cannot afford to pay the court a few hundred dollars in exchange for their release before trial—not because they pose a risk of flight or public safety concerns.
Bail funds play a powerful and important role not only in reducing the structural harms caused by our nation’s reliance on failing cash bail policies, but also in strengthening and preserving our country’s democratic ideals. In providing people who a judge has already determined is safe to release with free bail assistance and court support, we safeguard our country’s notions of liberty, freedom, and the presumption of innocence. These are fundamental principles that underpin American democracy—regardless of political affiliation. This work helps our society reimagine how our bail and pretrial systems can be improved.
As we look ahead, the road forward may not be easy, but we’re not alone on it. The work of mutual aid groups and charitable bail funds has helped usher in change. Over the last decade, more than 20 cities have safely minimized the use of cash bail. Supporting different networks of mutual aid organizations, like bail funds, is how communities can lean on their shared values and hold tight to their purpose. Now, more than ever, we must keep our eyes on what we’re here to accomplish, the change we’re fighting for, and the commitment that brought us together. Because, in the words of Lewis: “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.”
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