Letters to the Editor: My group helps people pay bail. Our experience shows cash bail is unnecessary

Los Angeles Times Opinion
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LOS ANGELES, CALIF. -- THURSDAY, AUGUST 30, 2018: Bad Boys Bail Bonds is located across the street from the Los Angeles County Jail in Los Angeles, Calif., on Aug. 30, 2018. Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 10, replacing bail with "risk assessments" of individuals and non-monetary conditions of release. The change, which will take effect in October 2019. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
A bail bond business sits across the street from L.A. County's main jail in downtown Los Angeles in 2018. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

To the editor: The necessity of cash bail in the American pretrial system is a fallacy, confirmed by our own work at the Bail Project, a national nonprofit working to reduce reliance on cash bail and pretrial jailing. ("Cash bail is unfair, but so is no-cash bail. Some states strike the right balance," letters, Aug. 27)

Since 2018, we have paid bail for 30,000 people. Our clients return to more than 91% of their court dates, laying waste to the idea that cash bail is necessary to ensure someone returns to court.

Nevertheless, this is the current, two-tiered system: Former President Trump and his co-defendants can easily pay $200,000 and never spend a day inside the notorious Fulton County Jail, while our clients cannot afford the price of their freedom ($10,000 being the national average) and are forced to spend months in jail, when they haven't even been convicted.

We have a promise of equal justice under the law. This is not it.

Erin George, Philadelphia

The writer is national director of policy at the Bail Project.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.