PRESS RELEASE & REPORT
Philadelphia Bail Fund Releases Report on Case Outcomes: Over 70% of Cases Dismissed Before Trial
Thursday, November 14, 2019
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Malik Neal, malik@phillybailfund.org, 267-961-3391
PHILADELPHIA – Today, the Philadelphia Bail Fund released a new report entitled A Window Into A Future Without Cash Bail, a snapshot analysis of the outcomes of its resolved cases to date. The report shows the devastating harms of Philadelphia’s cash bail system and offers a glimpse into what a future without cash bail would look like.
Since January 2018, the Philadelphia Bail Fund has posted bail for 130 indigent people in Philadelphia. Of the 75 cases which have received a case disposition, a shocking 71% were dismissed/withdrawn entirely before trial. Absent the intervention of the Philadelphia Bail Fund, these individuals would have spent a combined total of over 8,500 days (23 years) in jail if they chose to fight their cases to conclusion and not pleaded guilty to a crime they did not commit. In addition, despite the City’s willingness to incarcerate these 75 individuals pretrial while they enjoyed the presumption of innocence, the overwhelming majority were never subject to the punishment of incarceration—only 5% of these 75 cases resulted in a conviction with a sentence to jail time.
“Cash bail is supposed to be used to ensure people return to court. Our work shows clearly that this idea is misguided,” said Malik Neal, Director of the Philadelphia Bail Fund. “90% of our clients appeared for all their court hearings and the vast majority of their cases were dismissed before trial. This report reveals Philadelphia's cash bail system for what it is: a flawed, disastrous system that disproportionately punishes poor communities of color in our city."
The report also details the significant racial and economic disparities of those assigned bail. 89% of the Philadelphia Bail Fund’s clients are people of color, and 96% were assigned public counsel upon the court making a finding that the person was indigent and unable to afford an attorney. Moreover, 76% of its clients lived in zip codes where the median household income is below $30,000.
“When a person is assigned public counsel due to their indigence, court actors know that any meaningful amount of money is likely to hold that person in jail,” said Maia Jachimowicz, Philadelphia Bail Fund board president. “Jailing people for their poverty is wrong, and ignores the presumption of innocence.”
For its resolved cases, the Philadelphia Bail Fund paid $115,430 in total, with an average payment of $1,539. The lowest and highest paid bail deposits were $100 and $7,500, respectively. By posting bail, the Philadelphia Bail Fund saved the city an estimated $850,000 by preventing unnecessary pre-trial detention.
This is merely a drop in the bucket when viewed against the system as a whole. In 2019, to date, over 17,100 people (approximately 60% of all criminal cases in Philadelphia) have been assigned cash bail according to publicly available data provided by the District Attorney’s Office.
“Cash bail is still alive and well in Philadelphia,” said Christina Matthias, Coordinator for Philadelphia Bail Fund. “While we’ve made some progress as a city, we need to fundamentally change our current system which still criminalizes poverty. And we need to do it sooner rather than later: people’s lives are at stake.”
The report, which includes clients’ stories, concludes with a call for magistrates and the district attorney to end wealth-based detention and to move toward a system based on the presumption of release before trial, except in the most exceptional circumstances.
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About the Philadelphia Bail Fund
The Philadelphia Bail Fund is a 501(c)(3) charitable bail organization that was founded in May 2017. The Philadelphia Bail Fund prevents unnecessary pretrial detention by paying bail for Philadelphians who cannot afford their own bail and advocates for the end of cash bail in Philadelphia. The Fund pays bail at the earliest stage - ideally before they are transferred from their holding cell to jail - for people who are indigent and cannot afford bail. The goal of the Philadelphia Bail Fund is to shift Philadelphia’s bail system from one that is based on wealth to a fairer and more effective system based on a presumption of release before trial.