New York City to end bail for non-violent suspects

The office of Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York on Wednesday unveiled a $17.8 million plan to reduce reliance on the bail system by expanding a program that keeps nonviolent and low-level offenders out of jail while they await trial.

“Starting next year, judges in New York City will have the option to replace cash bail for low-risk defendants with more additional supervision options”. The homeless ex- Marine, who died because of an over-heated Rikers Island jail cell, may never have been incarcerated there if he had not been required to pay bail, which he could not raise.

The supervision could be as simple as regular check-ins by text message, or could include in-person visits and connections with social services to address a defendant’s particular issues.

The issue took an urgent turn after the suicide of Kalief Browder last month.

Relatives said Browder never recovered from the beatings he endured from guards and fellow inmates and the mental trauma he suffered during the two years he spent in solitary confinement. “We want to focus on risk to be the determining factor to decide if someone will be in or out; and it has to be risk, not money”.

Herb Sturz, senior adviser at the Open Society Institute and founding director of the Vera Institute of Justice-which first sought to overhaul bail in New York City fifty years ago with the introduction of releasing people of their own recognizance-was among those quoted in City Hall’s announcement.

Goldberg noted that the city already has pilot programs of supervised release in Manhattan and Queens, but they are under-utilized, he said.

Initial funding, provided by the Manhattan district attorney, allows for as many as 3,000 defendants charged with misdemeanors or non-violent felonies to bypass bail, letting them live with their families and keep their jobs while their cases wind through the courts.

The de Blasio administration argues in a statement that the initiative “expands judges’ options beyond setting bail – which could lead to unnecessary detention if an individual is unable to pay – or releasing a defendant to the community without a system in place to ensure the defendant returns to court without reoffending”.

On Wednesday, the city initiated the bidding processes for non-profit organizations to run the supervised release program. The program will use a risk assesment tool to select eligible candidates and determine their level of supervision, officials said.

Washington, D.C., also is considered a model for eliminating bail, though it still detains pre-trial offenders deemed too unsafe to be released back in the community. “Money bail is a problem because-as the system now operates in New York-some people are being detained based on the size of their bank account, not the risk they pose”. New York’s chief judge Jonathan Lippman believes alternatives to jail time or no supervision at all “are critical steps in reducing overreliance on bail”. If you would like to discuss another topic, look for a relevant article.