O PINION
Why Judaism Prohibits Cash Bail
BY BOB LANKIN
WHAT IS “CASH BAIL” exactly?
Nearly a half-million people
are sitting in jails each day in
the United States, even though
they are legally innocent of the
crime with which they have
been charged. (In our legal
system, we are innocent until
proven guilty).

Most jurisdictions in the
country operate a cash bail
system in which the court deter-
mines the amount of money
that a person has to pay to
secure their release from deten-
tion. Th e cash amount serves
as collateral to ensure that the
defendant appears in court.

In eff ect, cash bail crimi-
nalizes poverty, as people who
cannot aff ord bail are detained
while they await trial.

Accordingly, the person is
incarcerated before trial, but
not because of guilt; the person
is incarcerated for being poor.

This criminalizes poverty,
disproportionately hurting
people of color, the unemployed
and other marginalized people.

Another defendant who
is accused of a crime under
the same circumstances gets
released because this defendant
has, or can obtain, the money
to pay bail.

Washington, D.C. was the
fi rst or one of the fi rst juris-
dictions in the United States to
end cash bail. When a person
is fi rst arrested there, they are
not automatically released.

Th e person is brought before a
judge to determine the disposi-
tion before the trial. If a judge
determines that the person
is too dangerous to society,
the person is incarcerated.

All others are released on the
promise to appear for trial.

In the last decade, New
Jersey also ended cash bail on
a similar model.

While various jurisdictions
have diff erent results with
ending cash bail, as a rule of
thumb, the average has been
that around 85% of all arrested
people are released before trial.

More than 80% of those people
appear on time for trial, and
perhaps half of the others will
appear in the weeks thereaft er.

Th is result is not signifi -
cantly worse than the
failure-to-appear rates in juris-
dictions that retain cash bail.

With new technology
including telephone call
reminders, jurisdictions
ending cash bail have found
good results. DC Superior
Court Judge Truman Morrison,
quoted in Th e Washington Post
in 2016, put it this way: “Th ere
is no evidence you need money
to get people to court. It’s
irrational, ineff ective, unsafe
and profoundly unfair.”
If you think about it, cash
bail is not a good system to
make us safer.

People who oppose ending
it say that it is too dangerous
to release arrested people and
that they should stay incarcer-
ated. But in the jurisdictions
that have ended cash bail,
judges have the authority not
to release people they deem too
dangerous. So, we are really
talking about the people who
the judges don’t deem too
dangerous Do we accept the principle
that a person is innocent until
proven guilty? If so, all of these
arrested people are innocent.

Do we really want to incarcerate
innocent people before trial?
Whether you do or don’t,
cash bail frees those with
money to get released and
incarcerates the rest. So we are
not incarcerating people for
the off ense; we are incarcer-
ating them for being poor.

Whether our modern rabbis
are talking about it or not, that
is against Judaism.

Jewish writings do not talk
much about incarcerating
people; aft er all, those writings
were written over more than
3,000 years. Modern prisons
are barely 200 years old. But
Jewish writings are loaded
with teachings about not perse-
cuting poor people:
Deuteronomy 15:11: You
shall open wide your hand to
your brother, to the needy and
the poor in your land.

Proverbs 31:8-9: Speak up
for those who cannot speak for
themselves, for the rights of all
who are destitute. Speak up and
judge fairly; defend the rights of
the poor and the needy.

Isaiah 1:17: Learn to do In Pennsylvania, we have 63
right; seek justice. Defend the county jails where a majority of
oppressed. the inmates are there because
they can’t post bail. Abolishing
No reader can make a case cash bail would enable us to
that Judaism condones perse- close 30 or 40 of them.

cuting poor people, but that is
One of the most important
what cash bail does.

principles of Judaism is not
Th is is not a technicality. persecuting and oppressing poor
According to the Prison people. Accordingly, it is time
Population Initiative, around for all of us to stand up against
470,000 unconvicted people the principle of cash bail. ●
are incarcerated in the United
States. If 85% were released Bob Lankin is an advocate and
before trial, we would incar- speaker for criminal justice
cerate around 400,000 less on reform. He serves as the outside
any given day.

coordinator of the Jewish
It is hard to fi nd another congregation at SCI Phoenix in
law that, if changed, would Montgomery County and serves on
result in a greater impact in the Criminal Justice Initiative for the
ending mass incarceration. Jewish Council on Public Aff airs.

KVETCH ’N’ KVELL
Confl ict Not About Contested Territory
THE BARRAGE OF HAMAS rockets indiscriminately fi red
into Israel last May was not about a “confl ict over contested
territory” as stated in Jarrad Saff ren’s article “How Bad is Local
Campus Antisemitism?” (Nov. 4).

It is part of Hamas’ mission to destroy Israel in accordance
with the Hamas Covenant of 1988, which states, “Israel will exist
and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it
obliterated others before it.”
Jewish students on college campuses should use this when
arguing for Israel’s right to defend itself. ●
Len Getz | Merion
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NOVEMBER 11, 2021
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