In January, a law that eliminates cash bail for the majority of misdemeanors and non-violent felony offenses will go into effect across New York. This new law will ensure that people who are arrested but pose no real threat of violence to others will not have to stay in jail awaiting trial merely because they cannot afford to post bail. The legal change was a long overdue bipartisan success and will promote a more fair criminal justice system in the state.

In a society that many claim is governed and controlled by the country’s elite, the laws often allow the elite more legal leeway. People’s ability to pay for bail and get out of jail pretrial is no exception.

As it stands now, when two people are arrested for the same misdemeanor or non-violent felony, the sole deciding factor of which person will be forced to spend the days preceding the trial in jail and who will be able to do so in the comfort of their own home with their family and the ability to continue work, is economic status.

But this new law has the potential to change the current system for the better. And it has the potential to disrupt a system where incarceration is the rule.

The United States far surpasses any other nation in terms of its incarceration rate — 698 per every 100,000 people as of 2018. In New York, that rate is 443 per every 100,000. In America, 70% of convictions result in confinement — far more than other developed nations with comparable crime rates. Peter Wagner and Wendy Sawyer of the Prison Policy Initiative claim that “incarceration has become the nation’s default response to crime.”

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Both liberals and conservatives have motives for wanting to lower the country’s incarceration rates.

Conservatives generally model their criminal justice after a “tough on crime” stance. Liberals, in contrast, are notorious for “enhancing the freedom of the individual.” Opponents to this kind of laxity about criminal justice argue that it has the potential to create a slippery slope where the justice system is weakened.

Both of these arguments are trifling at best and neglect the more obvious disparities in how bail gets enforced and utilized.

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In Onondaga County the incarceration rate is 348 per 100,000 people, with 15.2% of people below the poverty line, the Vera Institute of Justice said. Sixty-six percent of all arrests in the county are for misdemeanor charges and 60% of the average daily jail population are people held pretrial. In Onondaga County, the average length of time spent in jail is 32 days.

Andrew Cohen, a history professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs said the bill is indicative of prevailing public opinion about how justice is being enacted across the country.

“It is a reform that reflects an increasing sense that cash bail discriminates against the poor and it is not necessary for offenses that are nonviolent offenses,” Cohen said.

The purpose of bail is to guarantee that those accused of a crime show up to the trial. And while opponents of these reforms claim that there will be a greater risk that people won’t show up for trial, they neglect the unnecessary burden this sort of ideology places on those accused of crimes and on the prison system. Convenience cannot be allowed to triumph over principle.

Discrimination of the lower class becoming enshrined in law has existed for much of our country’s history. Cash bail is simply another excuse society gives to allow this trend to continue.

The month an Onondaga County resident spends in jail waiting for their trial is time that they could spend working or with their family. Instead, many of them will lose their jobs and face days away from their loved ones all because they don’t have the money to choose a better alternative.

The revelation by lawmakers that this system was not only unfair, but in fact discriminatory, proves the slow and steady will to fight the hypocrisy of our legal system can still win the day.

 

Kailey Norusis is a freshman English literature and history major. Her column appears bi-weekly. She can be reached at kmnorusi@syr.edu. She can be followed on Twitter @Knorusi

Published on November 3, 2019 at 10:20 pm

Contact Kailey: kmnorusi@syr.edu