When Bail Is Out of Defendant’s Reach, Other Costs Mount

<img src="http://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/06/10/us/11BAILWEB1/11BAILWEB1-artic... align="right" width="320">For those who cannot afford to post bail, even a short stay in jail can quickly unravel lives and families. Criminal defendants are overwhelmingly poor, many living paycheck to paycheck, and detention can cause job losses and evictions. Parents can lose custody of their children and may have a difficult time regaining it, even when cases are ultimately dropped. And people in jail who are not guilty routinely accept plea deals simply to gain their freedom, leaving them with permanent records.

The United States leads the world in the number of pretrial detainees, according to a report by the National Institute of Corrections, an agency of the Department of Justice. An estimated half a million people are in the country’s jails on any given day because they cannot make bail. And even bail amounts much lower than those routinely seen in Baltimore can be prohibitive.
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On a single day in New Jersey, one study found, more than 1,500 defendants were in jail because they could not come up with $2,500 or less. Mainstream groups including the American Bar Association recommend that money bail be used only as a last resort.

Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/11/us/when-bail-is-out-of-defendants-reac...