Quick Facts
Cost in Dollars:
The US spends around 38 million dollars a day detaining people who are awaiting trial, and taxpayers in the US pay 14 billion dollars a year to incarcerate pretrial defendants, most of whom are low-risk. The average bail cost in the US is around 10,000 dollars, equal to roughly 8 months of income for the average American.
Innocent People in Prison:
People in pretrial detention make up more than ⅔ of the American jail population and are presumed innocent. The American Bar Association stated that "People who cannot pay bail are over 3 times more likely to be sent to prison and over four times more likely to be sent to jail." And on top of that more than 60% of people in jail were never convicted of a crime.
Plea Deals:
Nearly half a million people a day are waiting for their criminal cases to move forward. This means a lot of people waiting in pretrial detention will be there for an extended period of time. This makes it easy to accept a plea deal, even if you are innocent. That plea deal will stay on your record for the rest of your life.
Over the past three decades, average jail admissions doubled and the average length of stay increased by 14 to 23 days. In 2020 roughly 630,000 people were locked up in local jails and the majority of them haven't even been convicted of a crime yet. The pretrial incarceration caused by unaffordable bail is the single greatest reason for convictions and is responsible for the raising of our nation’s jail and prison populations.
Mass Incarceration:
