Like many communities in the Deep South, New Orleans has a long history of injustice: systemic racism, discrimination, violence (in our communities and state-sponsored), and mass incarceration. The current narrative being peddled about crime in our community and our criminal legal system seems to ignore this history, opting instead to paint an incorrect, misleading and less than full picture.
To begin, people seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of bond and money bail. Bonds are used to ensure a person returns to court. What a judge or magistrate orders - first and foremost - is release, when they order a bond. That person is released…if they can afford their freedom. It’s that simple. If someone bonds out, it only indicates they could afford to buy their freedom. Pay the court $100, $10,000 or $1 million and you are free to go.
Bonds are not guarantees of safety. Yet people mistakenly believe bonds and money bail keep us safe. The only significant effect of money bail is to criminalize and punish poverty. The idea that someone charged with a violent offense and deemed dangerous by the court goes free on a $1 bond is ridiculous. Equally outrageous is weaponizing a person’s poverty by setting a $100,000 bond, keeping them in jail as they struggle with addiction.
Moral arguments against wealth-based detention notwithstanding, federal courts decided bond schedules are unconstitutional. Additionally, federal courts decided - contrary to what critics are demanding - the way bonds were set in New Orleans were unconstitutional and must be based on a person’s ability to pay. Bond is not pre-punishment or a “consequence,” but a mechanism for pretrial release. The presumption of innocence means the presumption of freedom. Detention is meant to be the exception, not the rule.
New Orleans is a national example of criminal legal system reform, especially as it relates to pretrial release and bonds. We, as a community, agreed too many ills existed in our pretrial detention system. We, as community and leaders, continue to work collectively to reduce the pain and racially disparate impacts of money bail.
Recent demagoguery around people released pretrial takes us backward. We are directing our collective fear, frustration and anger at the wrong systems. Jail, bonds, courts, and pretrial detention do not stop crime. Arrest and prosecution do not stop crime. Criminal activity is a symptom, not the disease.
If mass incarceration was effective, New Orleans would be the safest city in America, not the incarceration and wrongful conviction capital of the world. Increasing accountability cannot mean a return to mass incarceration - fueled by more wealth-based detention. We already know it doesn’t work. We must invest in our communities, work to support and empower families. This is where we need to focus our work, not on advocating for unconstitutional bonds.
