Bail Reform

Eric Adams, mayor of New York City, slammed New York’s bail reform laws as being the main cause of an increase in crime. According to NYPD statistics, crime in New York City has increased by 15% in September 2022 compared to September 2021. Bail Reform has become a policy viewed…

Republicans got big mad about the potential for bail reform in Ohio, so they put an issue on the ballot that is at best unnecessary and at worst harmful. It passed, of course, in no small part because (a) Republicans have been fear mongering about bail reform for a a…

Last night I watched the latest episode of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight, in which he did a deep dive on bail reform and the massive right-wing outcry against it. …

Ohio Issue 1 changes the state's constitution for state legislatures to overrule all court bail decisions, including rulings from Supreme Court. It also allows the legislature to give direction to the court in any case as "The Ohio General Assembly may prescribe." The Ohio legislature placed this ballot issue for…

Recently, about thirty six of those being held for charges related to the January 6th insurrection requested a transfer to Guantanamo Bay due to the “medieval standards of living” in the D.C. jail. They claim that it is less of a correctional facility and more akin to a “evisceration facility…

New York was one of the first states to reform its cash bail laws. Now it’s ending those reforms prematurely. — Every morning, when I first wake up, the first thing I read on my iPhone is the online app for the New York Post — a tabloid in New York City which also happens to be the oldest newspaper in the country. Without fail, every day there seems to be…

“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of a passionate intensity,” Yeats, ‘The Second Coming.’ Building or fixing something is difficult. Destroying or discarding something is easy. That pretty much explains where we are today. The system isn’t working — any system. Name it, it doesn’t work…

By Mike Novogratz Published: March 11th, 2022 I wrote this oped for City and State because I believe we need to invest in making New Yorkers safe, but that failed punitive policies, like reinstating cash bail for low level offenses, are not the answer. …

Cash bail criminalizes poverty, fuels mass incarceration, and disproportionately affects communities of color. The Center for American Progress. In the wake of the horrific events in Wisconsin where a violent felon was released from jail only to mow down a parade, killing five and injuring another 48, the objections to…