Legislation Would Reinstate Money Bail As Main Option for Pretrial Release Decisions
Outraged Advocates Vow to Fight Legislation and Declare that New Legislation is Inherently Discriminatory and Unjust
Trenton, NJ—(ENEWSPF)–November 10, 2016. On Monday, November 14, the Assembly Judiciary Committee will consider Assembly Bills 3507 (Sponsors: Assemblypersons McKeon (D-Essex, Morris), Burzichelli (D-Salem, Cumberland, Gloucester), Caputo (D-Essex), Johnson (D-Bergen), Oliver (D-Essex, Passaic) and 4098 (Sponsors: Assemblypersons Oliver (D-Essex, Passaic), Caputo (D-Essex) which would roll back New Jersey’s historic bail reform law that was enacted in 2014. The hearing will convene at 10:00 am in Committee Room 12, on the 4th floor of the State House Annex.
In 2014, the Legislature approved, and the Governor signed, legislation that transformed New Jersey’s pretrial system by basing pretrial release decisions on risk rather than resources. Instead of giving individuals a set money bail amount, the new law provides for a range of nonfinancial release decisions for low-risk individuals and will allow truly dangerous individuals to be detained pending trial with speedy trial protections. Voters overwhelmingly approved this new fairer and more effective decision in a ballot referendum in November 2014.
Under the proposed legislation, money bail would again become the main mechanism for pretrial release. Outraged advocates have vowed to fight the legislation saying that the proposed legislation would return New Jersey to an unfair, outdated and discriminatory system.
“New Jersey became a national model when it reformed its bail system,” says Roseanne Scotti, New Jersey State Director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “Since New Jersey passed its bail reform law, numerous other states and the federal government have launched initiatives to do away with money bail.”
A 2013 jail population analysis conducted by Luminosity in partnership with the Drug Policy Alliance found that:
- Nearly 75 percent of the individuals in New Jersey jails are there awaiting trial rather than serving a sentence.
- Nearly 40 percent of the total population is there solely because they cannot afford to pay bail.
- Nearly 75 percent of the pretrial jail population is African American or Latino.
- The average length of incarceration for pretrial inmates is more than 10 months.
It was these statistics and injustices that prompted the historic reform legislation.
“We cannot and must not return to the unfair and discriminatory system of the past,” said NAACP-NJ President Richard Smith. “The NAACP unequivocally supports bail reform. It is one of our signature victories in New Jersey. We stand united against this assault on this historic criminal justice reform.”
Carlos Hendricks of the Latino Action Network agrees, “We know that the use of monetary bail has a disproportionate impact on low income communities, which are most often communities of color. Maintaining a monetary bail system in New Jersey will have a direct impact on those communities most harmed by New Jersey’s historical use of unconstitutional bail practices.”
“The proposed bill skips past the possibility of reform and returns us to a failed system of bail, in which people who have money get out of jail and people who are poor languish in detention while waiting for justice,” says ACLU-NJ Senior Staff Attorney Alexander Shalom. “New Jerseyans have worked too hard to change our broken, overcrowded criminal justice system to accept this assault on fairness and justice. Release of pretrial detainees should be based on risk rather than ability to pay, and, instead, this legislation would contribute needlessly to the problem of mass incarceration.”
Opposition to money bail has risen to the level of national attention. A U.S. Department of Justice letter issued earlier this year stated, “Systems that rely primarily on secured monetary bonds without adequate consideration of defendants’ financial means tend to result in the incarceration of poor defendants who pose no threat to public safety solely because they cannot afford to pay. To better protect constitutional rights while ensuring defendants’ appearance in court and the safety of the community, courts should consider transitioning from a system based on secured monetary bail alone to one grounded in objective risk assessments by pretrial experts.”
Source: http://drugpolicy.org
